Today is a good opportunity to take a break from describing to you my mundane routine. Less than a year ago, I could could not picture any part of the world that was south or east of New York city. On my mental map anything outside New England was grey space. That changed as of a month ago. Now I can’t see anything outside of the Korean peninsula! What a big improvement; my world has shifted but the size has stayed about the same.
Finding employment is a deep concern because graduation is creeping up on me. While chatting with a professor, I mentioned my desire to work Korea after graduation. If not Korea, perhaps within New Hampshire, Massachusetts or New York. She threw at me a short question that almost knocked me out of my chair, “Have you ever considered the west coast of the United States? My sister lives in San Francisco.” To be honest, that location wasn’t on my radar. How could I afford the rent in that region? How could I compete for a job against the high volume of educated people in that particular area? I further mentioned to her about my desire to earn an MBA in Korea. She asked, “Why not go to an Ivy League?”
While I am still figuring out the fundamentals of how to behave in a Confucius based society, I do find myself having one similarity with my Korean classmates. That is most of us have tunnel vision of the future. Another professor explained to us that we (in particular Korean students) are so efficient that everybody easily overlooks that there are multiple ways to solve a problem. In this example, the problem is how to reach our future goals? Lots of us only see one path. Our destinies do not need to be strait line, rather we can choose from many different paths that lead to where we want to go.
In conclusion, I will waste less time worrying about what I will do after graduation. It appears I can meet my goals no matter which location I live, what employment I stumble upon, or what graduate program I fall into.