Courtesy of one of our fearless CBS peer advisors, Dan from Israel:

The first 8 weeks of school are the most overwhelming. By now you have probably felt the stress, anxiety, and ups-and-downs that make an integral part of the curriculum.

As always, your peer advisors are here to give some advice. Since everyone has a different personality there is no one magic formula to deal with this situation. However, most of us found it useful to adhere to the following 10 simple rules. Here they come.

1. Prioritize

You have probably heard this before, but we can’t emphasize enough the importance of prioritizing. If you haven’t done so already, make a list of what’s most important to you in school and stick to it. Is recruiting your highest priority? Or is it the learning experience, the social life, or spending time with your significant other?

2. Compromise

Once your priorities are set comes the hardest part – compromising. Stop being Mr. or Ms. Perfect and fight that urge of doing everything perfectly right. Put your best effort into your highest priority, and scale back the rest. If you don’t learn to compromise, you will find it hard to get anything accomplished. Also, make sure you communicate your priorities with your learning team.

3. Don’t Procrastinate

As hard as it gets, try to stay on top of your priorities. Don’t leave unread emails in your inbox. Make it a habit to check the school’s calendar at least twice a week and add relevant events to your Outlook calendar. Send those thank-you notes on time. Make it a priority to get organized.

4. Take One Step at a Time

Relax – the amount of work is the same independent of whether you stress out or not. When you’re feeling overwhelmed, it helps to take a step back, list everything you have to do on a piece of paper and take things one step at a time. Don’t try to eat all the pie at once – make sure you slice it first to stay focused. In retrospect, we’ve all found out that everything is easier than it seems.

5. Take Some Time Off

Columbia Business School can be a pressure cooker. This is a stressful city to live in, and that stress is magnified here, a place that attracts successful people who are determined to succeed even more.

So here comes our most important tip: Deal with stress as it arises. Make time to go to the gym regularly – it will make you feel much better, both physically and mentally. Even if you think you’re too busy, make sure you take some time off during the weekends – take a trip, go to a museum, leave the Upper West Side and do something fun. Don’t let stress accumulate, otherwise you may find yourself losing focus and burning out.

6. Recall What Brought You Here

On a bad day, it’s easy to lose your self confidence and forget what you have achieved so far. Let us remind you. You are in one of the world’s most prestigious universities. You are in one of the world’s top business schools. You are in a globally-oriented institution that will open doors for you wherever you go from now till the day you retire. Think about how many people would dream to be in your shoes, and remember how hard you worked to get accepted. Remember what brought you here in the first place.

7. Remember: We’re All in the Same Boat

It looks like everyone is on top of everything, right? It’s only you who doesn’t understand something in class / feels lost and out of focus / has no idea what type of job you want / gets clumsy talking to recruiters / had a really bad informational. Relax – EVERYONE is in the same boat.

8. Talk to Someone

When you’re feeling overwhelmed, don’t keep it inside. Vent to a clustermate, an old friend, or someone you trust. It works like magic.

9. Ask For Help If You Need It

Too many people are hesitant to ask for help. Don’t be one of them. If you’re falling behind in class, attend a review session, go to the professor’s office hour or take a tutor. Also, don’t hesitate to reach out to the office of Student Academic Affairs – they are working for you.

10. Remember: You Cannot Screw Up

Funny but true – no matter how many P’s you get, no matter how many job interviews you screw up, things will turn out fine for you. Save this email on your computer and you’ll see for yourself: These are the best two years of your life. You have our word!

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Harvard Bschool doesn’t officially start until September 4^th, but over the past week they have been putting a quarter of the class of 09 through a rigorous pre-MBA program. They call it Analytics, and it is meant to groom those of us without undergraduate business degrees or Finance backgrounds into full fledged spreadsheet crunching master-of-the-universe wannabees.

The way they figure, the case method that HBS employs for 100% of its teaching requires that students be the major contributors to class discussion. In order for the class to keep the conversation at a consistent level even with students from such diverse backgrounds as the Military, Biology, and Fashion, they put us through a grueling two week simulation where they teach us all about Finance, Accounting and Quantitative Analysis.

So what do I think?

Love the case method: It’s absolutely amazing to come together as a class and help each other understand and learn. The professor guides the conversation, but the students lead it. I have learned so much from my classmates. I am so used to having a professor teach through a monologue that within one class I knew the case method was for me.

Hate preparing for cases: It is very frustrating to be given a case for which you do not have all the tools and skills needed to solve it. It’s like banging your head against a wall. Hopefully I’ll get the hang of this and it won’t be so hard in the future.

Miss sleeping: Learning teams go until 11:00pm, so there really is no time for anything other than work.

Where are the socials? At least for this week, the social aspect of the MBA has been a letdown. I was expecting constant socials and unending opportunities to meet interesting people from around the world. So far it’s been all academics and nothing else.

I have to get back work, we have a presentation tomorrow and I need to be ready for it. One last thing, if you are reading this and are part of HBS class of 09 post a comment or send me an email.

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I find myself conflicted– should I attempt to exempt out of some first term courses or not?

The issues are pretty straight forward. Exempting out of a course or two will allow me to take additional electives that directly interest me. I am well aware that there is not nearly enough time to take all the interesting courses during my two year bschool stint, so exempting out of intro finance or statistics will provide just a bit more flexibility to take that extra entrepreneurial class I just can’t seem to fit into my schedule.

On the flip side, exempting out may mean I have less opportunity to interact and connect with my peer 1^st-year classmates, or I may miss some valuable tid-bits of information relevant to taking more advanced courses down the road.

Ahhhhh! What should I do? Is there anyone out there who can offer some advice?

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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.

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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?

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I stumbled upon a very insightful blog posting on the recruiting process at bschool. For those of us gearing up for a long semester of info sessions and “get-to-know-you” events, this is very helpful information. Check out the full post on the AxeChick’s blog to read her thoughts.  Below is just a taste…

“Time to dispel some recruiting myths:

1. Once you get you’re (first) acceptance letter, Goldman/McKinsey/Microsoft/etc. will be banging down your down. This one is true and it’s not true at the same time…
2. You can interview with any company that you want….
3. Informational interviews are for gathering more information about a company or industry…”

The AxeChick finishes her posting with some interesting observations on the value of grades in business school (and I know we are all interested in this topic!):

“I know before I got to school I wondered how much academics matter once you get in. Again it’s really a personal choice and what industry you want to go into. I started out really focused on academics and then slacked off, due to recruiting and other extracurricular interests, now I’m trying to pull it back together for finals. I want to do well in all of my classes, but there are only a couple that I plan to study for really hard and that’s because I need to retain that information well beyond finals. You can’t really fail a class, and unless you are interested in ibanking or McKinsey/Bain, no one will ask about your grades and you could get straight P’s if you wanted. The work itself isn’t rocket science, it’s just about having enough time and motivation to study it. I can honestly say that there are some classes that even if I had magically powers to stop time and study them I wouldn’t. I’m just not interested and there are better things to spend my time on. On the other hand, there are some classes that I wish I could spend all day on and really learn.”

Thanks AxeChick.

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Following up on Ben’s post on grade disclosure and Kellog, I remember a post I read last year on Mark & Jie’s blog about student opposition to grade disclosure at HBS. I have yet to start my first MBA day, so I really don’t have perspective on this issue. However, the reasons for my going to business school are only 30% because of the actual classes and 70% because of the extracurriculars/network/opportunities outside of the classroom. If grade disclosure forces me to spend more time doing classwork and less time meeting new people, exploring new industries and participating in outside lectures, I am not sure I will be so happy.

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