Alternative 'paths'

I'm heading to Boston this weekend for an academic conference so I thought I'd have one last post before heading off for a weekend of intellectual discussion and just enjoying the city of Boston with my wife (hopefully more of the latter and less of the former). I read this interesting profile of Malaysians in the Star who opted to take alternative career paths instead of focusing on getting all those A's for their SPM.

There's King Wei, who opened her own seafood restaurant in Bukit Tambun, Penang, instead of going to university after scoring 10A1s for her SPM.

There's Jack Tang who only 4As (out of 9) for his SPM and "worked in a cybercafe for 10 months, studied information technology (IT) and networking on his own and started I Venture Circulation (IVC), a web-hosting company that has grown into a large business with offices in the United States, Singapore and China...and became a millionare at 23"

There's Huey Ying, who scored 7As out of 9 for her SPM and "studied finance and accounting in Kolej Tunku Abdul Rahman and Portsmouth University, Britain. She started her career in financial advising in September 2004, and finally bought a BMW recently."

There's Aida Nurlin Hanif who also scored 7As out of 9 for her SPM and "went on to study actuarial science in Universiti Teknologi Mara and was inspired by her sister Nor Akmar to get involved in business. Waking up early to meet clients before class started, Aida was committed back then to closing five-digit transactions of unit trusts every day. Today, the sisters are both millionaires."

There's Nicol David, who scored 7As for her SPM at the same time as she was climbing the squash rankings (and later became the first Asian woman to win the squash World Championships).

There's Aaron Gill, also a 7A scorer for his SPM, started his own company selling computer speakers after graduating from the Multimedia University with a degree in engineering.

Indeed, one could easily put our own Tony Pua in this category (though he is probably older than all of these young 'kids') since he started his own company after working for Accenture for a couple of years and taking his company public in the Singapore before finally selling off his share of Cyber Village earlier this year.

I think this article reminds me of two things:

Firstly, that we should be encouraged to take alternative academic paths. I, like Tony, commended Tiara for her efforts to promote alternative thoughts on higher education and where to go to study overseas. I highly recommend her blog to our readers especially those who want to explore different educational exepriences. Not all of us should dream of going to Harvard, Yale, Cambridge or Oxford (even though there's nothing wrong with going to these schools). Sometimes, Durham University (UK), Reed College (US), Multimedia University (Malaysia), NTU (Singapore) might be better options or more suitable for one's individual needs.

Secondly, that we should be encouraged to take alternative career paths. Not all of us should think about being a partner in a law firm or an accountancy firm by 35 or become a millionaire before we're 30 (even though there's nothing wrong with acheiving this). Sometimes, it might be more worthwile to pursue our dreams of opening up a restaurant or being a travel writer, a musician, a marine biologist, a social worker, and the list goes on.

Finally, if we're fortunate enough to be successful (financial or otherwise) in our endeavors, don't forget to give back to society!