为何出国攻读管理学硕士？

Outsiders often bounce off Paris’s surface — something I experienced when I was a foreign correspondent there a decade ago. The social networks built up by the French at school can persist at university and carry through to work, creating an impenetrable knot for newcomers. At least that was my excuse for the woeful lack of dinner party invitations I received when I was living there; I’m sure Parisians had their own reasons — ones that were perhaps less consoling to my eggshell ego.

当外来者想融入巴黎时，往往会无从着手——这是10年前我担任驻巴黎记者时体会到的。法国人在学校建立的人脉网可能维持至大学，然后带入职场，对新来者构成难以克服的屏障。至少这是我在巴黎生活期间极少收到晚宴邀请的借口;我肯定巴黎人有自己的理由——或许难以抚慰我的蛋壳般的虚荣心。

Qihua Wang is obviously faring a lot better than I ever did. A student on the MSc in Management programme at France’s Essec business school — and a settled Parisian — she is something of an advert for the cross-border movement of talent in an age when the globalisation of professional careers is under threat from political isolationism and slower economic growth.

王琪华(音)显然比我成功得多。她在法国巴黎高等经济商业学院(Essec)攻读管理学硕士课程，并已定居巴黎。在职业生涯全球化面临政治孤立主义和经济增长放缓威胁的当今时代，她是人才跨境流动的典型代表。

The 24-year-old Wang’s knack is partly a result of taking things slowly. Having studied for a degree in English literature at Tsinghua University in Beijing, she worked out that a higher degree in the arts might be a little too abstract. She instead cast her eye over masters courses in both management and finance in the UK, the US and France. She opted for Essec, partly because she wanted to learn a new language, partly because it allowed her to spread the course over several years, aiding her French assimilation.

24岁的王琪华得以融入巴黎，部分是因为她从长计议。在北京清华大学拿到了英国文学学士学位后，她认识到攻读人文学科的更高学位可能有点抽象。于是，她把目光投向英国、美国和法国管理学和金融学方面的硕士课程。她最终选择Essec，一方面是因为她想学一门新语言，另一方面是因为该课程允许她分几年学完，有助于她融入法国。

Now, coming into the third and final year of her course — and after various internships and an international case study competition in which she represented Essec and France — she has an offer from the French arm of KPMG to work as a junior consultant in its Paris offices.

如今，进入课程的第三年、也是最后一年之际，在完成了各种实习，并代表Essec和法国参加一次国际案例研究竞赛后，她得到了在毕马威(KPMG)法国分公司的offer，在其巴黎办事处当初级咨询顾问。

But does she not feel she is missing out on a more dynamic career back home in Beijing by putting down roots in Paris? “It is true that there are much more growth opportunities in China. I guess you have to choose the lifestyle as well. I really like the lifestyle in France. It’s much more relaxing,” she says, without ruling out a return to China later in her career.

但是，落户巴黎的她，难道不觉得自己错过了回到北京踏上更有前途的职业生涯的机会吗?“中国确实有更多的成长机会。我猜你也不得不选择生活方式。我真的很喜欢法国的生活方式。这里放松得多，”她称，但她也不排除未来回到中国寻求职业发展的可能。

Wang’s experience highlights the resolute — and highly individual, even idiosyncratic — personal determination that drives many young people to criss-cross the globe picking up the skills they feel they need to prosper over the course of their careers. As Andrew Hill, the Financial Times’ management editor, explains, these working lives are likely to be much longer than those of their grandparents and parents — perhaps even as long as seven decades.

王琪华的经历突显了坚定——以及高度个人主义、甚至特殊——的决心，这种决心推动很多年轻人奔赴地球的另一个角落，学习他们认为在自己的职业生涯中取得成功所需的技能。正如英国《金融时报》管理编辑安德鲁•希尔(Andrew Hill)解释的那样，这些年轻人的工作生涯很可能远远超过他们的父辈和祖辈——或许长达70年。

The prospect of such a long haul before retirement is a complication for business schools seeking to design a curriculum that can at least have a shot at remaining relevant over the course of such a long period of employment. But it also underlines the need for today’s twentysomethings to launch themselves successfully into the world of work at the start of their careers.

在退休前要工作如此长的时间，这种前景成了商学院在设计课程时面临的一个复杂问题，此类课程至少要试着在如此漫长的职业生涯中保持相关性。但这也突显了现在20多岁的年轻人有必要在职业生涯的开端成功踏入职场。

This in turn suggests that it will take more than a hardening of political rhetoric against globalisation or deceleration of growth to choke off demand for masters in management courses akin to the one Wang chose to follow.

这进而表明，想要打消人们对管理学硕士课程(类似王琪华选择的课程)的需求，仅仅加强对全球化的反对或增长放缓是不够的。

One enterprising graduate of these pre-experience masters courses profiled elsewhere in this report is Tim Kunde, the 36-year-old founder of Friendsurance, a peer-to-peer insurance start-up based in the German capital of Berlin. He tells Guy Chazan, the FT’s Berlin correspondent, that his masters in management degree at WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management — including stints in Kobe, Japan, and Lyon in France — instilled in him “a kind of business instinct . . . with an academic underpinning”, something that chimes with the idea that flexibility will be the watchword in the new world of work.

在这一系列报道中，另一位完成了这类无工作经验硕士课程的具有创业精神的毕业生是36岁的Friendsurance创始人蒂姆•孔德(Tim Kunde)。这是一家位于德国首都柏林的P2P保险初创企业。他告诉英国《金融时报》驻柏林记者盖伊•查赞(Guy Chazan)，他在德国科布伦茨奥托贝森管理研究院(WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management)学习的管理学硕士课程——包括在日本神户和法国里昂的短期课程——给他灌输了“某种商业本能……其带有学术基础”，这与“灵活性将成为新职场关键词”的观念相吻合。

But value for money is still vital for young graduates contemplating a masters in management — and the debt burden of tens of thousands of euros that most of these courses will create. The rankings of business school courses, are a powerful tool that looks at salary gain, international mobility and many other factors to help graduates choose.

但是物有所值仍然是年轻毕业生在考虑攻读管理学硕士——并背上绝大多数此类课程将带来的数万欧元债务负担——的关键因素。商学院课程排名是一种有效工具，列出了薪资涨幅、国际流动性以及其他许多因素，可帮助毕业生选择课程。

The tables also break new ground in including for the first time a US business school: the WP Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. This addition highlights a diversification of the masters in management qualification away from its European heartland. The horizons are not narrowing for the world’s ambitious footloose youth, it seems, even as the gaze of their elders turns inwards.

今年的榜单还实现了新突破，首次纳入了一所美国商学院：亚利桑那州立大学(Arizona State University)的WP凯瑞商学院(WP Carey School of Business)。此举突显了管理学硕士课程的学历正从欧洲老家向其他地区扩散。对于世界各地雄心勃勃且志在四方的青年来说，他们的视野似乎没有变窄，即便他们的长辈正在将目光转向国内。