Questioning School

Another week, another few major life altering events (being a little dramatic). To quickly sum up, I finished up the last few interviews that I had planned, got food poisoning (no details needed) and wrote my GMAT exam. Of course, the only time I've gotten sick in the past few months would be the day right before I write one of the most important exams I've written in a long time. Murphy's Law. Sometimes it seems that as much as you work, study or prepare yourself there is always something unexpected that comes along and completely derails your plan. I've learned this the hard way, but it's important to just go with the punches. It's impossible to prepare for those kinds of factors, and there is no reason to dwell on it for too long. Either way, it went alright, and I made it out alive.

I'm still waiting to hear back from the interviews. I'm trying to stay as positive and optimistic as possible, but I need to continue looking for different opportunities. This is a little different for me, as I'm used to getting the job I interview for. It's a small blow to the confidence, but I was warned this would happen. I was told not to expect the first, or the second or even the fifth job that I interviewed for. The best thing I can do right now is just to forge on and look for more opportunities that fit what I'm looking for. Even if I don't hear back from the companies I interviewed with, there are still two things I can take from this. The first is a new list of connections/contacts. I plan to stay in contact with these companies, and everyone I spoke with, in hopes that it could potentially lead to information about new jobs. The second is everything I learned from these interviews including, but not limited to, what I need to improve on and what I did well. My fingers are still crossed to hear back though (hasn't been too long).

Now to the main topic of the post. This post and the following one are actually going to work a little differently than the typical ones I've posted before. I was having an interesting argument with a friend recently, (sounding a little like a broken record machine) and asked him if he would write a little post regarding it. Being the fiery, young professional he is, he kindly obliged. I will introduce the topic in this post and then the next post will be his take on the topic, written by him, and then I will follow that up with my response to it.

It all started one afternoon, after watching yet another 'legitimate' university's advertisement on television. More promises that if you attend their school, you will graduate, get the job of your dreams, and live a long very successful life. As many of us have come to know about these schools, they don't quite come through on these promises, as they most likely spend more on advertising than on anything else. While cracking a joke about one of these schools, my friend remarked that many, if not all schools make these same very promises and fail to come through. I mean when you look back on your undergraduate degree, are you satisfied with what you got from it? I remember being told that when I graduate, the sky was the limit. This message wasn't only coming from the school itself, but from a number of sources including, friends, family, and society. While I know there aren't many other wise options other than to go back to school after high-school, I start to question if school, upon more school, upon more school is truly the most efficient way of getting to where you want to be or if this is just what has been pounded into our heads over the years. Without getting too far into my opinion, where I am right now in life, it seems that many more companies are looking for people with years of specific experience, experience I could have probably gotten after high school, while I was in university. I'll continue on my opinion in my response to the cameo post. I'm definitely interested in everyone's opinion on this, as I feel that most people reading this have very strong feelings on the topic.

Thanks for listening,
Rob Baral