Monday, July 28, 2008

grad school? b-school? help?

Grad School anyone? B-school? Help?

One of my latest stresses and internal debates is whether or not I should try to get some of the grad school tests taken here and apply this fall/spring so that I can start school next fall (2009). Part of me thinks that taking the tests and getting the applications out of the way makes a lot of sense – I have time here to study and write essays – and that transitioning straight into school would be a pretty easy way to transition back into America. But, then part of me thinks I really want more experience – I want to work for an organization that IS successful – where I can learn from people who ARE good at evaluating success and problem-solving and where I have a team who can help me do that. AND, since I can’t take the GMAT in Zambia it means flying to Dar Es Salaam or Jo-burg, paying $250 (two hundred and fifty DOLLARS!! That’s more than I make in a month!) for the test, plus money for the plane ticket, lodging, food, cabs to and from and I imagine that taking a stupid test will cost me more than $600. That’s ridiculous (ETS, how I hate you!). It just makes me think “no wonder no one in Zambia goes to business school in America! It’s practically impossible!”

And then the question is b-school or, well, something else. I still find myself wanting to think about how to develop businesses here, in the developing world. That a successful business does a couple things: 1) generates income for a family, 2) helps develop the larger economy, and 3) rewards such behaviors as creative thinking, problem-solving skills, communication skills, math and literacy which in turn helps the society as a whole. And I think that helping NGOs that are doing other work here generate sustainable income is much better long term solution to development than aid. Aid doesn’t work. Tess and Emma just read a book (The Shackled Continent by Guest) that (on page 150, yay citations!) says Zambia has gotten more aid than almost any other country in the world since independence and with that aid the average income has gone down. DOWN! Sad. Time to think of another solution! So… business school anyone? But, I don’t want to end up on a business school corporate track where I realize I can’t get back to this kind of work and I don’t really know how to evaluate schools or tracks from here. Any help anyone wants to offer would be taken, processed, and, well, maybe even listened to!

1 comment:

Tim Bond said...

Hi Hannah,

As always, I find your thoughts interesting,your willingness to give of yourself impressive and your love for those around you incredible (not incredible that you do, but incredible in the amount). Your comments on the difficulty in finding the energy, drive and commitment among the people in you village to make change happen in the village are particularly poignant. I think that the success of the group in Nicaragua that my students and I are working with is largely a function of one or two of the women initially recognizing the importance of the small enterprise and local design parts of their solar cooker development as enablers or providers of more and better food for their families. Those women put significant energy and drive into the project, encouraging several other women to put energy into the group, also mostly for the benefit of their own families. The women are the key in this. Too many of the men are absent or not driven to support the family in the same way the women are. The group has been lucky enough to have a consistent and supportive set of contacts from the outside to encourage them through the hard times. Nicaragua has had substantial foreign aid that also seems not to have fostered longterm, significant change. The group has recently sold a bunch of their solar cookers to a local city, the mayor of which is trying to reduce the amount of wood used as cooking fuel in the city. The project provided some cash to the group and a tremendous amount of pride. Finding and encouraging the right people to make change is the first key; long term commitment and support is the second key.
Some b-schools, at least, have recognized the importance of enterprise and micro-enterprise in the solution of poverty and hunger in the world. Cornell's Johnson School has a program in its Center of Sustainable Global Enterprise (http://www.johnson.cornell.edu/sge/) which pursues the small scale as well as bigger scale development enterprises. I don't know a lot about this center, but have had at least one student from the center work with the solar cooker group on a business plan for the small scale development of a business building and selling the solar cookers. Would you be interested is more information on this program?

Love,
Tim Bond