I just received an email from HBS informing me that my name card was to be printed and confirming the name that I wanted to be referred to in class. As soon as my law school student wife saw the email she laughed – it was her turn to lend a “supporting shoulder” as I endured two years worth of cold calls.

I have not yet had the pleasure of preparing for class knowing that I could be called on to answer a question on any part of the assigned reading. I have not yet felt the dizzying sensation of 180 eyes staring at me for an answer I do not have.  And I certainly have not had to play back in my mind and cringe at the thought of my spontaneous answer that was anything but coherent.  So take my opinions on this subject – and probably on all others too - with a grain of salt.

Disclaimer aside though, I am actually looking forward to the structured nature of a class system that employs cold calling. Few things bothered me more during my undergraduate studies than the know-it-alls sitting in the front row hogging class discussion and raising their hand every 23 seconds. It felt as though class discussion was a conversation between two or three people, and the other 20, 30, or 100 of us were just spectators in a very expensive class.

 I think I much prefer a system whereas the professor has the power to guide the conversation, the tools to curb those who like listening to themselves, and the ability to include the opinions of the not as trigger- happy students.

Will I be nervous and potentially uncomfortable being called on? Absolutely! Will it help me get the most out of every class? I think yes.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Share This

When I told a friend I was being interviewed for Stern’s Summer Start Program, her response was a quick “need a head-start on building up your alcohol tolerance?”

The assumption often is, that if an MBA is largely about whom you meet, not what you learn, it’s really all about getting to meet people in a social setting. And that very often means drinking.

This makes me wonder whether we’re turning business into an overly alcohol based venture. Should we be making active efforts to make more social meet-ups over food, coffee, or golf? Or perhaps we need to find a totally new business socializing medium:

- Going to the spa
- Shopping
- A few hands of Texas Hold ‘Em

Any bright ideas (clearly I’m fresh out of actual good ones)?

The truth is, there is something uniquely relaxing, low key, and convivial about joining someone for a drink. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing. But we do want to be careful to not make alcohol the focal point.

I wonder what actual alcohol companies do? If Morgan Stanley gets their deals done at the bar, does Jack Daniels invite their clients to a cubicle after hours to hammer out the big one?

I actually work for a company that won’t cover bar tabs in T&E for salespeople (although they will cover alcohol at meals). The point is to send a message that business is not to be done on alcohol alone.

Leave a comment and let us know what you think. Or should we meet up for a drink to discuss?

Popularity: 6% [?]

Share This

For those of us interested in working with (or working for) venture capitalists, Mark Davis of DFJ Gotham Ventures just launched a very interesting blog that “aims to explain the venture fundraising process to entrepreneurs.” There is a good amount of content to get the ball rolling, and it appears to be a very useful resources providing increased transparency to the previously opaque process of venture funding.

Yet again, this is another excellent example of the power of the blogsphere. Blogs provide us with a window into the mind and experience of people across the globe. In the past, our only opportunity to access this type of intellect and insight was by going to a lecture (maybe hearing an expert a few times in a lifetime) or purchasing a book (written only by those capable of overcoming the overwhelming barriers-to-entry of authorship). Television and radio expanded our access providing additional information channels, but even these mediums lacked the scope and depth of Internet-scale blogging as well as the on-demand nature of the web.

In stark contrast, today we have immediate access to an unfathomable vast collection of knowledge, all accessible within few mouse clicks. This access empowers us all – making us wiser both individually and as a collective.

I can’t help but feel fortunate to be alive during this revolutionary time.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Share This

Every year, millions of magazines are sold upon the release of the annual school rankings issue. Businessweek, US News & World Reports, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes and others conduct huge surveys capturing extensive data in their effort to rank the relative value of each school.

Anyone who has spent time perusing these rankings surely has noticed one thing – they are all completely different!

Check out the top 10 U.S. schools from a sampling of publications:

Every publication has vastly different and subjective criteria for its ranking system. No clear winners and losers emerge. How are we supposed to make sense of this mess?

While I am definitely no expert at ranking schools, I have one strategy (albeit admittedly imperfect) for thinking about relative value of various schools – look to the “market” for ranking. It’s quite simple really. If students were given a choice of schools to attend, where would they go? For example, of students who received admissions offers from both Wharton and HBS, I would guess that the vast majority choose HBS (with the exception of those hard-core financiers). Students choosing between Wharton and Columbia, on the other hand, would more often than not choose Wharton. One way to get some sense for how schools rank using this criterion is to look at the percentage of admitted student accepting their admissions offer.

Of course, there are many sampling factors making this strategy imperfect. Different people are looking for different things in a school – those interested in finance will likely favour Wharton and Columbia, management students may tend towards HBS or MIT, and entrepreneurs will look to Stanford or MIT. Another important decision factors is location - some prefer the West Coast chill (Stanford, Berkley, UCLA) while others crave the hustle and bustle of the East Coast (Columbia, NYU, Wharton).

How would you rank the top schools? What are the most important criteria to consider?

Popularity: 18% [?]

Share This

Since the crisis of business ethics earlier this decade, schools across the country have focused a great deal on their ethical training initiatives.  For example, Columbia Business School has an entire center dedicated to leadership and ethics (The Sanford C Bernstein & Co. Center for Leadership and Ethics) as well as a dedicated curriculum of courses and programs devised to help students shape their moral-ethical business values. 

I always found the concept of teaching ethics in a classroom somewhat confusing.  Unlike other business competencies, ethics are not learned from a book or by application in the office.  They are traits cultivated through a natural sense of right and wrong and fortified by living an ethical life. 

Nevertheless, I see value in business ethics programs.  Though I highly doubt these programs change the ethical tidings of participants, they serve at least two valuable purposes:

1. Illuminating the challenges we can expect to face in our careers and affording us the opportunity to devise pre-emptive and responsive strategies for dealing with the challenges appropriately
2. Offering practical guidance on what to do and what not to do by learning from the challenges, successes and failures of others What do you think about the effort schools are now making to impart strong business ethics to students?  Can ethics be taught through school programs?  What are some of the other benefits derived from these programs?

Popularity: 9% [?]

Share This

Round 1 for the class of 2010 is fully underway, so if you are thinking of applying in this round you really need to be in full-throttle mode.

Bschoolers.com allows you to hear from a wide sample of current business school students at some of the top MBA programs as they share their experiences and application advice. Where else can you find practical knowledge from successful admit students at HBS, Columbia, NYU, Stanford, and Wharton?

So in an effort to tap into our collective insights, please feel free to send in application questions and we will try to publish as many as possible. To ask a question send an email to ask@bschoolers.com and also please specify if you would like the question posted anonymously. 

We look forward to hearing from you.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Share This

I would love to hear how others have gone about making the decision of selecing the right job, but for me it comes down to one thing: happiness. In all likelihood you will spend between 50-70% of your waking life at work. With so much invested in it, it better be something you enjoy. Of course, everyone has their own way of achieving on-the-job happiness, but I’ve come up with a simple formula that works well for me:

Interest + Opportunity + Natural Fit = Career Happiness

1. Interest. Make sure you are fully interested in the field and subject matter which you deal with day in and day out. Pursue your interests and passions through your career and every day becomes exciting and enjoyable. Lose interest, and you are in for one hell of a long day at the office.
2. Opportunity. Position yourself in an environment of constant opportunity in which positive momentum is encouraged and nurtured, not obstructed. Your drive to capture opportunity – be it financial, social, environmental, educational, or otherwise – is a tremendous motivational force, and continued motivation is critical to your ability to wake up and spend the next 35 years of your life going to work everyday.
3. Natural Fit. Know yourself – know your skills and weakness, interests and passions, motivators and detractors, and anything else of relevance to finding your perfect fit. People enjoy doing things they are good at. Use your skills to your advantage and chose a career that best utilizes what you do best. Failure to appropriately match your skills and personality with your job will likely lead to lots of headaches and unnecessary frustration.

Many understandably find solving the above equation extremely difficult. Even if you do solve it, you will likely find yourself revising your conclusions as business dynamics and your personality evolve. If you’re really lucky, you may discover you have more than one path that will work for you. Whatever your situation may be, keep this simple formula in mind when considering your life-long career ambitions because at the end of the day it comes down to one thing, happiness.

How have you dealt with the challenge of finding your right job fit? How helpful has your school career service department been towards helping you find your match?

Popularity: 8% [?]

Share This

Just finished reading an article from the Wall Street Journal online about increasing MBA student interest in private equity. I always thought that was always a fairly strong interest among b-schoolers – a new interest to me would be, I don’t know, Circus Management (which I’m sure cannot be easy. Imagine the egos between all those lions and clowns!) The difference between private equity and circus management? The money, of course. Evidently it’s about as good as it gets straight out of school.

Jana Kierstead, Harvard’s director of M.B.A. career services notes in the article that “students also find it appealing because they get a lot of responsibility early in their careers.” Now there’s something I can respect. Shortsighted? Perhaps. “Doing your time” at a bank might lead to more interesting job opportunities later in life. But regardless of the initiative, recruiters should take note. Yes, M.B.A. grads want money. This is nothing new. But they want to take charge of something early as well. I’d have to imagine that this sort of thought process would lead to more b-schoolers going on to smaller companies, where the responsibilities are larger from the start, and the opportunity to take on more is greater as well.

Should larger banks and others tailor the responsibilities of their positions just to appeal to M.B.A.s? Obviously in this community we’d think the answer is a resounding yes. But the reality is that the investment in human capitol can’t be ignored, and if you’re losing talent to other industries or firms, you need to figure out a way to stop the bleeding. And after all, letting smart, educated people take a little more ownership in their work probably has its own merits anyway.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Share This