Self-Curated MBA

June 2020

I coined the expression “self-curated MBA” when sipping some cold press juice cocktails with a girlfriend at a cozy vegan restaurant in Queen West, an artsy neighborhood in downtown Toronto. We were excited about the start of our new lives after leaving a corporate job, and as for me, a long list of business books I have always wanted to read when I have the time.

A couple of weeks before that I interviewed an ambitious and successful woman for her inspiring decision to drop out of Harvard MBA after a year into the two-year program. She had such clarity over how she would rather spend her time and money. In her case, learning Spanish and coding while travelling in a foreign country means much more than another year at Harvard. Plus, she has made enough friends in the first year and secured a top job in New York.

Out of nostalgia over my days in mainland China, I watched a 2006 film named “Little Red Flowers.” It is about a free-spirited little boy trying (or refusing) to fit into an overly organized and scrutinized life at a state kindergarten. It aims at insulting the level of institutionalization in the post-revolution era of China. Kids were rewarded red little paper flowers for good behaviors. The movie reminded me of how education used to be rendered only in a school, a sharp contrast to the abundance of quality information that is now available to earnest learners to consume anywhere anytime.

Learning now takes different forms.

My younger brother is learning Python online in his free time, and the last time we caught up, he was creating a blackjack website.

I have been reading papers in the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) about new studies of diseases in which I took an interest.

If education no longer equates to a formal degree or in-class experience, then what is it?

No one describes education better than Tara Westover, the author of Educated: it leads one to see and experience more truths than those given by their parents, and to use those truths to construct one’s own mind.

In my view, after formulating years of early schooling, learning becomes an intimate part of personal growth and an individualistic expression of who one wants to be. No school could better curate the contents of this personal journey, than the learner themselves.