Change, accelerate, be global and have fun

Hello everybody!

Here comes a quick review of my four motivations to do an MBA at this point in my life.

First, as with lots of my peers, I share what I believe are two of the most common drivers of MBA applicants: the need to change and the will to accelerate one's career.

Change.

Most of us have the feeling that we need a change in our careers, even in our lives, and sometimes we don't know exactly in which direction. By doing an MBA we are expecting to clarify our minds, either by experiencing the famous MBA transformational effect- after a period of confusion, discover a sector or activity new to us and enthusiastically embrace it - or simply by taking the time to reflect long and hard enough to be sure of what to do next. Ultimately we seek the right track for ourselves.

Accelerate.

I think simply by getting admitted, most of us, if not all, expect a substantial jump of position, responsibility or salary upon our graduation (it is also a need, we have the urge to get a return in our MBA investment!), irrespective of what we end up doing. Plus, I believe that generally speaking, people who are willing to multitask with work, GMAT, applications and to indebt themselves like crazy just to get to places more quickly, don’t like it slow.

Apart from these, there is a third very common driver: networking opportunities. If you ask a bunch of students about their MBA motivations, lots of them would even mention networking opportunities in the first place. Well, I partly agree, but in my case, I will put it in a more sophisticated way: I want to be part of the “homogeneous” group that international MBA students become. I know it sounds a totally bizarre statement, thus allow me to clarify it.

Be global.

MBA students at INSEAD (and other schools) come from different countries, backgrounds and have different mindsets; however, they all share a will to succeed in the global business arena. Therefore, this brutal number of gifted professionals that are very different in origin, need to compete in the same game and under the same rules. Moreover, for a limited period of time, they all join a community of international top-notch recruiters, faculty and other ambitious and energetic individuals such as themselves. As a consequence of these two facts, these future global competitors end up learning new behaviours, codes and patterns to effectively interact in that environment. These new behaviours, codes and patterns, are the ones used in the global sphere. Well, simply put, I want to do that process: first, contribute to and absorb from that global environment and after, master its language. In summary, I want to go deeper in my global citizenship. And by global here I do not only mean international. I mean to learn the ways of those with intellectual capacity, cultural perspective, professional dynamism and open-minded thinking.

And finally, of course, I want to have fun.

Have fun.

Fun exploring new paths, understanding new concepts, meeting new people, making mistakes, learning lessons from them, learning about new companies and sectors...etc. Fun in the old traditional way: travelling around, competing in sports, having interesting conversations during dinners…etc. And fun in its wild sense: clubbing, dancing, enjoying and forgetting that next year the whole thing will be over and that we will be back to a new normality!