People with whom I work and train martial arts can become tired because I am always critiquing a process, objective, or organization. Often, they see my critical statements as negative and believe that I should conform to accept the situation.
However, criticism is often the opposite. It is not the cry of a hopeless pessimist; it is the vision of an eternal optimist. I do not see things as how they currently are. I see them as how they could be, once their potential has been fulfilled.
It is with this optimism that I continue to criticize the school where I received my Master of Science in Business degree, the COPPEAD Graduate School of Business at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Known mainly by its acronym UFRJ, the university recently celebrated its centennial anniversary. Within that 100 years, COPPEAD has been around for 47. The latest version of COPPEAD, which is taught in English, has been around since 2014. An important factor to keep in mind is that this program is tuition free, as are all federal universities in Brazil. In addition to being tuition free, all students within the Master program receive a scholarship during the second year of studies.
During my time at COPPEAD, a classmate and I worked together to get a Diversity Group started. We envisioned an academic environment that supported people from all backgrounds, with an emphasis on…
