CerealsMBA wrote:
Last summer I met one of the GSB alumni, who was an HEC undergrad, had worked for 3 years at McK, and got in in R3. When I asked her about extracurriculars as a consultants, she simply replied "If you want to do something, you can do it..."
I am hugely motivated to do "something". But I had postponed it and I plan to do it now.
My take on this is that individual is the smallest unit of society and family is the smallest collective uint of the society. Priority of our duties : 1-Slef, 2-Family, 3-Society. If I am postponing my plans to have a family for career (actually I am not), I would focus on these things first.
I have done some insignificant volunteer work too. But then I had to rethink. A sustainable and scalable solution to poverty, child health, environment and healthcare is not ging to evolve in the form of a volunteer organization. We, as a group of thoughtful and well informed people, do the best for the society when we start thinking about long term solutions to social problems. If one is capable of planning an innovative healthcare delivery moel and working towards implementing the same while doing all this for money, in my opinion one is underutilizing oneself by spending time volunteering.
From my experience on the side of the world that we talk about changing, it will need some serously "COMMITTED" individuals to make the difference significant enough. If we think about a cause strongly, I believe we should think seriously and plan, not jump in right away and do our small part. We always hear and assume that it is good things to be passionate, well, "Powerful passions cloud clear thinking."