A Fairy Tale for My Students

On mountains, maps, and the myth of happily ever after

Once upon a time, and I promise you this is a true story, there rose beyond the city a magnificent chain of mountains that ambitious families spoke of in hushed and hopeful tones. They shimmered in brochures, rose heroically in rankings tables, and were whispered about at dinner parties as if they held the secret to a prosperous and well furnished life.

Parents pointed toward their snowy peaks and said to their children, “Climb those, and you will find the rainbow. At its end waits a pot of gold called Career Security. You will live successfully ever after.”

So the children climbed. They paid their toll at the gate, endured the winds of finance and the fog of strategy, and carefully collected their golden diplomas as if they were enchanted coins.

When they reached the summit, slightly out of breath and heavily in debt, they looked around for the orchestra, the recruiter on a white horse, the golden chest.

There was nothing of the sort.

Instead, at their feet lay a single parchment. A map. Completely blank.

Now here is the part I tell my own students when the fire burns low and the illusions flicker. The mountain never promised gold. It offered altitude. Perspective. A harder lung capacity. A network of other climbers who might one day rope up with you.

Business school does not manufacture happiness. It does not guarantee employment. It’s personalization is modest, its job magic rather dismal, and its fairy dust mostly administrative.

What it can offer, if you insist on using it properly, is leverage. A higher vantage point from which to draw your own map.

The rainbow was always yours to paint.

And if there is a happily ever after, it will not be because a school handed it to you, but because you decided to build it.