those that i talked to prior to starting the mba programme told me that this one year programme would be hectic with a lot of work and little time for much else.
what they failed to mention was just how diverse and interesting the people would be. admittedly, i was a bit anxious starting the programme. i feared it would be something similar to my undergraduate business school, full of cocky people who apparently loved the sounds of their own voices and couldn't seem to wait to start that hotshot job on wall street. ok not all of them, some of them are very good friends of mine; but generally, this was the feeling i got.
so my biggest fear coming in was that most people here would be like that, only this time it would be the johannesburg stock exchange and not wall street. but ive been absolutely pleasantly surprised at the quality and diversity of people here. there's still a bit of colour missing in terms of diversity, but in terms of life, world, and career experience and future aspirations, guys/gals are as different as they come. there are former actors, marketers, bomb makers/engineers, psychologists, insurance people, trusty IT consultants etc. also people from london, nigeria (not named me), turkey, some country in south america that ive honestly never heard of, botswana, south africa (surprising enough), US (really really surprising), canada (wha??), cameroon, italy, argentina, angola, etc. and even better, ive met an amazing number of people with similar aspirations to work in african development. imagine that: mba-ers doing good work! i like the sound of that. plus, most of them are wayyy more optimistic than i am about making a difference. maybe i can get my mojo back!
on a more serious note tho...wonder what would happen if more mba-ers were interested in helping ordinary people do extra-ordinary things. imagine ambitious people with management skills running NGOs and government organisations and non-profits and community organisations and making policy. would that be a better world? not saying only mba-ers can do a good job, but it seems like a good time for mba-ers to remake ourselves from the cocky bastards that speculate on currencies and bet on bad loans to cocky bastards that attempt to help those who cannot help themselves and leave the world a better place that how we met it. i know of at least one school thats trying to build such leaders.
