Online education company founder Jamie Beaton says getting into the top universities in the world has opened up enormous opportunities for him.
Jamie Beaton has a suggestion to help Australia plug the great skills gap, meet the mind-boggling challenge of hitting its net zero emissions target by 2050 and create a richer, more innovative economy.
The island nation should send more students to the world’s major universities, where education standards are high in key study areas and which are close to top global employers and billions of dollars of venture capital.
Jamie Beaton is studying his seventh degree, a law degree at Yale.
Beaton understands all too well the advantages of studying at top international schools. The 27-year-old founder of an online education company is studying his seventh degree – at Yale. His first two degrees were at Harvard, where his undergraduate thesis adviser was former treasury secretary Larry Summers, followed by two at Stanford, one at Oxford and one at China’s Tsinghua University.
From Harvard, he has a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics and economics and a master’s in the same disciplines. At Stanford, Beaton completed an MBA and a master’s in education, at Oxford he studied public policy, and he did a master’s of global affairs at Tsinghua in Beijing. At Yale he is studying law. And yes, Beaton says he loves studying.
“If you look at the highest-ranked universities in the world, of the top 20, depending on which ranking you look at, normally about 17 are in the US and the UK, and normally New Zealand and Australia don’t have any schools in the top 20,” says Beaton, who grew up in Auckland and is based in New York.
“It’s generally true that if you can get into these schools, it’s going to open up a lot of opportunities.
“I went to Harvard. I got this job on Wall Street I could never have got from New Zealand.
“My mind was blown by all these different opportunities. People can create their own companies, people can work for these awesome investing firms, people can work for these great technology companies.”
Beyond the quality of the education and the employment opportunities, there is the ability to make friends with the best and brightest in the world. Ideally, the students will bring their skills and experience back to Australia, he says.
“[Young people] bring that experience back to Australia. They can be very impactful. I think that knowledge transfer is critical, and it’s a really good time to go when you’re young.
“Some will stay [offshore]. Some will come back. You want the best and brightest to go to the best possible schools and receive the best possible education. It’s good for the country,” says Beaton, the founder of education consultancy Crimson Education and global online high school Crimson Global Academy.
But getting into the best international schools is no easy task. Beaton got serious about it at the age of 13. He was already a keen studier, taking extra classes since the age of three, and when he was 13 Beaton struck up a conversation on a train with an older boy, who was dux of his high school and had secured a place at Yale. The seed was planted in Beaton.
“That really resonated, and I made it my mission. From 13 to 18, I was really focused on this, and I did all kinds of different activities to develop my profile to get into the schools,” Beaton recalls.
At school in Auckland, Beaton had the choice of following Britain’s education system, which he opted to do, and took 10 “A levels”, against the three or four A levels most students take. He also knew the major offshore universities would want to see a track record of extracurricular activities and examples of leadership, so Beaton launched clubs at school, played tennis and hockey and took part in theatre and debating.
Beaton wanted to help other young people do what he has done so in 2013 he set up Crimson Education, a company that helps students prepare themselves for entry into the world’s top universities.
“We help them figure out what academic subjects to take, what extracurriculars to take, what summer programs to take, what online courses they can take, what initiatives they might want to launch,” Beaton says. The company has 630 full-time staff and another 3000 tutors and mentors.
Beaton got the idea for an online high school when he was at Stanford, where he discovered one where Elon Musk had sent at least one of his children. He launched his online high school, Crimson Global Academy, three years ago. It now has 900 students.
On a personal note, Beaton says he has not given up studying yet.
“I have plenty of other academic interests. I’m sure I’ll keep going.”
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