Here I am in the midst of final exams (one down, two to go), and I can't help thinking about what the great thinkers of the ages would say about the corporate world and this special degree we call an MBA...
One thing is for certain--my studies thus far at the Johnson School, particularly in Economics, Finance, and Statistics, have expanded my mind in particularly salient ways. These are subjects that I now can't imagine knowing nothing of, while still understanding our modern world.
I'd wager that most of my favorite philosophers would approve of these subjects that are so fundamental to the MBA, but I'd be hard pressed to find one that would fully endorse today's corporate milieu. Thoreau had some powerful ideas about "work" and he, more than anyone, would point out flaws in the system. Ironically, Thoreau would have made a great business person--truly a great entrepreneur--both because he was adept at just about everything he did, but also because he understood how to see past the unnecessary, often self-imposed, structures that we so blindly adhere to.
That I continually hearken back to the words of a man who spent two years in relative solitude by a pond and refused to pay taxes is ironic. Still, his ideas ground my studies here with a unique perspective and I hope that nostalgia forces me to never lose sight of them, even as I wade, knee-deep, in rules, regulations, and pesky exams.
Here's one of the many intensely relevant things he said: "...if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live a life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings."
Cheers to all my classmates who took the Finance final with me today. May we all beat the mean ;-).
2 comments:
Nice perspective on how philosophers would have looked at today's corporate world. I agree that Thoreau would have been successful based on his quote
"Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify."
Great business leaders of the last 20 years have done the same...Simplified the rules.
later,
Based on the last line of your entry, ("May we all beat the mean") I think you may need to put in a little extra effort while studying the statistics final. Good luck!
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