79.9

As AEOs, we all made the decision to come to Western, arguably one of the best schools around. We knew what we were getting when we clicked that “accept” button: a great education, amazing school spirit, a beautiful campus, unforgettable memories, and of course, the possibility of an Ivey HBA degree. Most of us will admit that the last point was one of the biggest deciding factors in our choice to come to UWO. We are all ambitious, we all have big goals, and for most of us, we hope that Ivey will help us get there. But perhaps we are placing too much emphasis on our school’s role in determining our future success, and too little on our own abilities.

Like many students, when I applied for AEO status back in high school, my incentive was mainly Ivey’s prestige (see “The Ivey Edge”). Somewhere in the back of my mind, I subconsciously held the notion that Ivey was the be all and end all of business schools, the one school that meant the difference between a modest secretarial job and say, a high-paying banking career. One day, I came across an interview with a former partner of KPMG, a Big 4 accounting company, and he said something that stood out to me: “You can survive in life with or without your CA [an accounting designation]. Don’t make the CA something it is not. I am a CA, but my name goes before it. If you are good in business, your name is the only designation you will ever need.” (Source: http://iwanttobeaca.blogspot.com/2009/05/interview-with-partner.html)

While not all of us strive to be CAs, the message applies to all students: We shouldn’t measure ourselves by our degrees and/or designations. Ivey, and Western, is like the car that will take us along on our road to success. But while it is a valuable and important resource, it is us who will drive the car, and us who will control where to go and how to get there, not the piece of paper that says where we graduated from.