QS Scholarship Winner: We All Have a Hero Complex

“I believe we all have a hero complex inside of us,” reflects Sophia Zhe Zhang, an MBA candidate at Goizueta Business School. Zhang was awarded a QS Community MBA Scholarship in recognition of the volunteering work she did at a school in her native Fenghua.

The students of the school were largely the children of poor migrant workers. They were not unruly, recalls Zhang, but they simply had no interest in education – having never been able to comprehend the doors it could open for them.

For Zhang, for whom social responsibility is clearly extremely important, this was a wonderful opportunity to make a difference – the main criterion for winning a QS MBA Scholarship. “I always dreamed of being the hero, impacting others’ lives in a positive way. When I was younger, I observed my own teachers, and started thinking about how one could be a good teacher. When I grew up and got an opportunity to be a volunteer teacher and realize my dream, I decided to do it without hesitation.”

Faced with this challenge, she was reminded of her own childhood in a newly-opened up China. Zhang was primarily raised by her grandparents while her parents worked long hours in minimum wage positions. However, the enduring memory from this time is a quote of her mother’s she was led to recall by the situation in which she found herself: “Appreciation leads you to optimism, persistence, and eventually success”.

This was a lesson from which the young teacher believed her students could benefit. Therefore, she set an assignment to help them appreciate that their parents were working to try to create a better life for them, but they would need to forge their own destinies rather than grudgingly accepting their circumstances.

They were all told to go do something to surprise their parents and then write an essay about their parents’ responses. The results, she says, were moving, with both parents and students coming to develop an awareness of the situation of passivity – particularly difficult in the case of the former, largely powerless in the face of economic conditions.   

However, the change was palpable, and the students began to show improvements. Zhang was reassured that they were on the right track, and even after the migrant families moved away, many stayed in touch. Recent phone calls from some of the parents reassured her that her feeling was correct.

It’s clear this work meant a lot to her; as well as a sense of achievement, she says it gave her nothing less than, “a better understanding of the meaning of life.”

Goizueta Business School: More opportunities to change lives

In her professional non-volunteering career in Beijing, Zhang worked first for KPMG as an accountant, and then Ernst & Young as a consultant. Her sense of social responsibility remained undiminished in these roles. She participated in a tree planting scheme, visited seniors and did a little more volunteer teaching. 

Additionally, she strove to make sure her professional actions remained within sphere of social responsibility; “I always tried to work to a high moral standard. For instance, I made suggestions to clients about how to use less energy.”

She decided that she wanted do an MBA in order to climb to the next rung of the career ladder. “I had accumulated enough accounting and financial knowledge; now I want to learn more about operation and strategy to leverage my career onto a managerial path.” Integrated knowledge, she says, is the main thing she hopes to gain, helping her to properly understand the big picture.

Nonetheless, social responsibility again came into play when choosing a business school. “Goizueta Business School is strong in social enterprise studies. This will help me get more opportunities to take on social enterprises roles and hopefully change more people’s lives!” She was also attracted, she says, by the close-knit community at the school.

What does the MBA scholarship winner think she will bring to the Goizueta Business School classroom? “My financial knowledge, a cross-industry background, knowledge of Chinese culture, and a skeptical mindset generated from my past work.”

And clearly, a sense of social responsibility. She intends to stay in the field of management consulting or perhaps try a position in corporate strategy. And, of course, look for more opportunities to make a difference: “I intend to give back to the community by taking on more of the volunteer opportunities which come my way through study and work, and if possible, take on a part-time job at a social enterprise, to help it to support more people. I think I might continue to focus on education, or perhaps shift my focus to seniors.

“I’ve made a promise to myself,” she concludes, “that, in the future, I will exert more of my own energy, and involve others, to contribute to a better life for the overall community.”