GRE阅读素材：读MBA的作用

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　　Have you noticed how many universities are rushingto create entrepreneurship programs as part of theirM.B.A. offerings? As The Wall Street Journal recentlynoted, the answer is quite a few. One might saybetter late than never — or even think that thetraditional M.B.A. program is finally gaining somerelevance and teaching people how to build abusiness. Think again.In reality, many of the changes are window dressing with schools just trying to keep their cashcow M.B.A. programs alive by attempting to ride the entrepreneurial fever breaking outacross the country. The truth is you have a better chance of getting the Tea Party to embracethe Affordable Care Act than getting traditional business schools to teach real-world, hard-knocks entrepreneurship.

　　你是否有注意到，有多少大学正急着将创业项目作为MBA项目中的选择之一?就像《华尔街日报》(The Wall StreetJournal)最近报道的，这其中原因有很多。有人可能会说，迟到总比缺席好——甚至会觉得，传统的MBA项目终于与时代有了一点相关性，终于开始教人们如何创立一份事业了。请再思量一下吧。在现实生活中，有许多此类变革其实只是装点门面而已，学校们想要让MBA项目这棵摇钱树保持活力，于是就趁着全国刮起的这一股创业风潮来赶时髦。事实是，让传统的商学院教在真实世界中艰难前行的创业方法，还不如让茶党(Tea Party)接受平价医疗法案(Affordable Care Act)的可能性大。

　　Here is why: traditional M.B.A. programs are classroom-centric. They give students little realaccess to business leaders or to the places where business is done. And as best I can tell, manyacademics want to keep it that way. Their big idea has been to bring in retired entrepreneurs toteach in the classroom. This is like putting a catfish in a bathtub and calling it a river.Entrepreneurs generally don't do well outside their preferred environment (the real world), andthe students don't get any real sense of how fast the business world moves. I think we mayeven have reached the point where some M.B.A.'s actually damage up-and-comingentrepreneurs. Go sit in a classroom, then go work in a fast-growth company. Talk about thedifference between night and day! You will see why the classroom is a dangerous place fromwhich to view the business world.

　　理由如下：传统的MBA项目是以课堂教学为主的。他们很少为学生提供真切接触商业领袖或者商业场合的机会。据我所知，许多学院想要保持这种方式。他们的伟大创意是请退休的企业家来教室中上课。这就像是把一条鲶鱼放到浴缸里，然后声称这是一条河。在企业家们所偏爱的环境(也就是现实世界)之外，他们往往表现得不好，学生们也没办法真切感受到商业世界运转得有多快速。我觉得我们可能甚至已经抵达了一个问题的核心：为什么事实上有些MBA反而毁掉了一些前途大好的创业家。你可以去坐在一间教室里，然后再试试去在一个飞速发展的公司里工作。这样的差异就跟白天和黑夜一样巨大!你会把教室视为一个危险的、无法看清商业世界的地方。

　　For example, Gianine Abdallah, an entrepreneur based in Atlanta, recently started an onlineapparel company that was profitable in its first week. Like most fast-growth entrepreneurs,she wants to move fast. So when she asked me if I thought getting a classroom M.B.A. wouldbe helpful, I responded that I did not think it made much sense for her, logistically oracademically. Does she really have the time to drive across town to sit in a class or to spendhours with an online program that doesn't give her real-world business experience?What she needs, I think, is not years of studying business theory out of a textbook, butexposure and access to business leaders and partners that can help her now. She needs toconnect and have her real-time questions answered by someone like Susan Nethero, who builtand sold a lingerie company, Intimacy.

　　举例来说，吉阿妮·阿卜杜拉是一位主要在亚特兰大发展的创业者，她最近创立了一家在线服装公司，在第一周就实现了盈利。像其他快速发展的企业家一样，她想要飞快地前进。所以当她问我去上MBA的课会不会有帮助时，我的回答是我不觉得它对她来说有太多意义，不管是在逻辑上还是学术上。她是不是真的有时间开车穿过城市去上课，或者把时间花在一个无法给予她真实世界商业经验的在线课程上?她所需要的，我觉得，不是花时间在教科书中学习商业理论，在商业领袖与合伙人前亮相或者与其接触的机会才是现在能帮助到她的。她需要建立人脉，让她在现实世界中遇到的问题能由像苏珊·内瑟罗(SusanNethero)这样建立以及售出一家女性内衣公司Intimacy的人来解答。

　　Yes, of course, Ms. Abdallah and all other entrepreneurial students could use some accountingand finance, but why not take them online? In past years this may have been a poor option,but technology and online teaching methods have improved so much that one study for theDepartment of Education found that "on average, students in online learning conditionsperformed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction."When I got my M.B.A. from Emory in 1994, I was already an information technology leader at.U.P.S, and I was consumed with climbing the corporate ladder – just like most of my fellowstudents from other big companies. But today, many M.B.A. students want to do their ownthing and start their own companies.My general management M.B.A. was worthwhile for me while I was at U.P.S. because it gaveme exposure to other disciplines beyond information technology, like marketing and strategy.The accounting and strategy courses were useful even when I was building my business.

　　当然了，阿卜杜拉和其他创业的学生可以用得上一些会计与金融的知识，但为什么不在网上学习呢?在过去，这可能算不上一个好选择，但科技与在线教学技术现在已经进步了许多，美国教育部(Department ofEducation)的一个研究发现，“平均来说，在线学习的学生比那些接受面对面教学的学生要表现得更好。”当我在1994年在埃默里大学(Emory University)拿到MBA学位时，我已经是UPS快递的信息技术负责人了，满心想的都是要继续在公司内部往上攀登——就像绝大多数来自其他大公司的同学们一样。但现在，许多MBA学生想要做自己的事，开创他们自己的公司。对于当时还在UPS的我来说，综合管理MBA的学习已经够用了，因为它给我机会接触信息技术以外的其他领域，比如市场以及战略。会计课和战略课非常有用，即使在我创业的时候也还能用到这些知识。

　　But here is the biggest difference 20 years makes and why I think many M.B.A.'s haven't beenrelevant since the '90s: When I started my company, STI Knowledge, we had about threeyears to stay ahead of the competition. With today's technology, entrepreneurs tell me theyhave about three months. Data that used to take days or even months to acquire can now beobtained in real time. With the new speed of business, the traditional M.B.A. and theclassroom have been left in the dust.

　　但20年光阴带来的不同之处以及我认为在上世纪90年代之后许多MBA项目有些跟不上时代的原因是：当我创立我的公司STI Knowledge的时候，我们在投入竞争拼杀之前有三年时间。而创业者们告诉我，以如今的技术发展水平，他们拥有的时间只有三个月。以前需要几天甚至几个月来获取的数据现在可以即时获得。商业世界的新速度如此之快，传统的MBA与教室教学已经被远远地抛在了尘土之中。

　　After I sold STI Knowledge, I decided I wanted to address these changes by helping to create anew kind of M.B.A. I gave my alma mater money to transform its executive M.B.A. programinto an entrepreneurial M.B.A. program. People at the school called me an educationalvisionary and gladly took my money. I was bright-eyed and big-headed — but totally na?ve tothink I could persuade a university to offer an entrepreneurship program that gets studentsout of the classroom. Talk about stirring up a hornet's nest!

　　在我出售了STI Knowledge之后，我决定，我要把这些改变公之于众，创建一种新型的MBA.我为我的母校捐钱，以将他们的执行管理MBA项目改进为一个创业型的M.B.A.项目。学校里的那些人说我教育方面具有远见卓识，高兴地收下了我的钱。我的确很有眼光，也很聪明——但我太天真地以为，我可以说服一所大学提供一个让学生走出教室的创业项目。还不如去捅马蜂窝呢!

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