There will not be classes, lectures or teachers.
The fees will be $50 000
This will become capital for the student to start his own business.
It can be anything, from selling dildos to selling cars.
We won’t give a dam.
There will be experienced businessmen and angel investors to guide the students in their business decisions.
There will be a boardroom where students can assemble their own groups of teams to formulate a plan for their business, they can even share their capital to make one lump sum for bigger projects.
At the end of 3 years, they have to break even in their business.
Those who gain profits will be rewarded honours.
Those who managed to break even will be awarded their degrees.
Those who make losses will be asked to do another project again.
This, will be the most realistic business school.
is the most down to earth professor I ever read across. His concepts are very real, and he is quite blunt with the truth, and I like how he brings across the most realistic things and fans out those hard wired theorists.
I like this quote:
“I have come to suspect that Harvard’s great success may be business’s great failure. In other words, the real danger of the design school may be in providing a seductive model whose superficial “rationality” in the classroom can so easily get promoted into the executive suite.”
“Maybe that is all too true: in formulating detached, easy strategies in case study discussions, later in executive meetings, which are not meant to be implemented, and later cannot be, and in giving all those “whiz kids” a head start down the “fast track.” They can certainly tell a “probable ‘non-starter” from a “winner,”.
Mintzberg, Henry (1996)
Too bad I can’t put that in my assignment, haha.
He makes me think that business school is crappy make believe institution that can emulate what happens in the real world, when in fact it is not! I am glad he invented the term emergent strategies that are not foreseeable in the uncertain future. I don’t think much of what I have learnt in school applies to what I do in my business anyway…
I have come across people of different ages and generations and they all seem to agree on the same thing – studies is to be placed with utmost importance in a adoscent life. I disagree, in fact, i am finding this belief rather old fashioned. Here are my views on the issue:
1. Education is meant for the masses
Education only became widespread after the industrial revolution. Millions of employees are needed with the right skills and knowledge to run the factories and manage the business. In the past, people were involved in trade and apprenticeship – small little businesses that catered to local demands. However, the onslaught of large multi-national corporations led to the demise of the traditional business and the introduction of corporate branding (brainwashing to be exact). A new breed of people, called the Investors, took control of the economy but speculating and buying company shares. As a result, these “educated” people now work for the invisible shadows in the boardroom. The only look at objectives and profits. There is no empathy, if the company is losing money, “employees” are fired. These poor employees work 9 – 5 each passing day to satisfy the demands of the directors in fear of losing their iron rice bowl.
In addition, these employees have added burdens. They probably borrowed a huge loan from the bank to pay for their house, because, obviously, they don’t have the means to pay for it at one go. In the end, they end up indebted for the whole lifes paying for their debt – a shelter over their heads, food to eat, and funds to support their children through school. Being an educated employee doesn’t sound fantastic anymore does it?
2. Education in school creates specialisation, not generalisation
Education does increase a person’s knowledge, but there are many things that they don’t teach in school. The real world and the illusionary world of theories do not make sense at all. A person can be trained in for example, Aerospace, and find himself unable to be unemployed because they have changed the regulations in the Aerospace industry. I won’t find this person regarded as an “educated employee” as he is pretty redundant, or would i say – useless. The knowledge that he acquired in his education no longer serves him. However, he might be saved if he had developed general skills during those years – like networking, managing and sales. These skills might aid him better in life as compared to technicalities of fixing an airplane.
3. Education breeds a new generation of ignorant people
I am very supportive of this saying, because, some people who think they have a degree obviously think they are very smart and look down on others with lesser qualifications. This is because of the way the society has brought them up – they become ignorant, narrow minded and unaccomodating. Their narrow views of the world has been formed by the knowledge they are only exposed in school – there is no additional knowledge they know of outside, unless, they realise that they are indeed mediocore as compared to the world around them. This explains why they are able to do so well in school – they spend all their time on what is required of them. They become robots, its not bad to have a new generation of robots, after all, robots are needed to power the economy by emulating – like a clockwork factory going 24/7.
4. Education leads to souless bodies
In the process of education, people tend to lose their sense of self. This is because they have to follow guidelines, theories and acccepted modes of behaviour in order to get the best grades. Questioning is not welcomed, you have to follow what is written if not you will go out of point! The rigidity of the system makes it hard for individual expression as it is all surpressed – only answers from the books are allowed, individual opinon is not needed. Where is our soul?
Averal Lim is a business undergraduate who thinks education is seriously, over rated.
Many parents would complain that education in Singapore is stressful for their kids. There is streaming, PSLE, O levels, A levels and limited university places for those who qualify. The situation in Korea is a different playing field altogether, parents are willing to spend one third of their earnings on their child’s education.
The main reason is that the main instruction of teaching in schools is in Korean, in the ever changing globalisation of the world’s economy, English is a very important tool for communication. Parents would spend hundreds each month for their children to attend English classes on top of tuition and supplementary lessons.
A machinery moves in an automated system. It runs like a clock, in fact, it is trying to beat the clock to produce faster and faster. Churning out goods at a rapid rate to meet the demand from the suppliers.
The employees working in an Multi National Corporation (MNC) are just tools of a machinery system. They are delegated specific functions in their respective departments. They work around the clock, the employees in the USA are working in the day while the employees in India work while they are asleep. Everything is part of a big automated system that ensures profitability of the stock holders.
Everyone is becoming part of the system, each one of us contribute to a bigger objective. Tall buildings dominate the landscape while workers scurry like ants on the ground level. CEOs play golf while entertaining prospective clients. Money is the bottomline. If it brings in profits, we will start production of the goods and services to the masses.
We are just dispensable tools of a system. You can be fired and replaced anytime. Unless, unless… you decide to control the system and stop running in the race like everyone else.
Averal Lim is a Business Undergraduate who examines the consequences of economy on the people that traps them in an invisible race for a “greater being”.
The essential notion is that the relationship between theory and its users must always be open to evaluation and reinterpretation through the process of research whether “real world” or in the “classroom”
However, this seems too obvious, almost banal. After all most students of business have a notion that theory is unreal or suspect – almost by definition. The problem is that to move beyond simple assessments that theory, such as Porter’s diamond, the product life cycle or the Boston Consulting Group matrix, are right or wrong requires more detailed accounts of how these ideas are used by the academy that takes primary responsibility for them. Thus, accounts need to focus on the pragmatic employment of theory to develop effective and workable solutions for specific contexts. This might encourage a more reflective, pragmatic and critical appreciation among students of management education concerning the potential of theory.
Extracted from Some Academic Source written by 3 Professors
Maybe i should write this for my thesis.
“Management theories hold true for rats. You can theorize rat behavior as they are very predictable creatures. The theories don’t hold true for humans. Humans are unpredictable creatures, they bite when least unexpected.”
LOL i wonder what the aussie lecturers will think when they read it.