Cold Calling
Students are taught business using the case method, adaptedfrom the law school. Instead of listening to lectures, they learnbusiness principles by analyzing real situations in class.Professors ``cold call'' students to present the assigned case,intensifying the pressure to be prepared. The first year's required curriculum -- 10 courses, five persemester -- covers the fundamentals of business, includingfinance, accounting, marketing, organizational behavior,leadership and corporate accountability. The second yearcurriculum is elective. Some students come to HBS with a purpose: Their companiessend them, or they want to make a career change. Others come tofind themselves. Our narrator falls into the second category. He struggles with technology (Word is the only Microsoftapplication he's ever used), concepts (liabilities are the moneybanks have, assets the money they don't) and a constant sense ofbeing behind his classmates, many of whom have started companies,run factories, served in the military and worked as consultantsand public servants.
Vice Presidents Anonymous
Where Delves Broughton excels is in applying hisjournalist's eye for detail. He's at his best -- and mosthilarious -- when describing his classmates and, by design ordefault, deprecating himself. For some members of his class, accustomed to 80-hourworkweeks, the 55 hours of academic work expected of studentsseemed like a vacation, he writes. One veteran of a privateequity firm ``did not expect to learn much, but she was lookingforward to sleeping, working out and taking long vacations.'' HBS is all about leadership, starting with the school'smission statement: ``to educate leaders who make a difference inthe world.'' Even lowly positions at student clubs are advertisedas ``leadership opportunities'' and carry the title of vicepresident. ``One day we, too, might be part of corporate America'sbulging vice-presidential class, so we may as well get used tothe weightlessness of the title,'' the author writes.
Advice and Consent
Delves Broughton wrestles with the prospect of corporatelife. He tries to reconcile the advice of the business luminarieswho come to HBS to share their wisdom -- do something you love,the money will follow, family comes first -- with the reality formost graduates. ``The degree enabled them to get jobs that robbed them oftheir private lives,'' he says. The consolation is that the moneythey accumulate eventually allows them ``to live the lives theywanted.'' After many job applications, dozens of interviews and aseries of rejections (McKinsey & Co.) from employers he didn'treject first (Google), Delves Broughton comes up empty-handed.(``You went to Harvard Business School and couldn't find a job?''he imagines people thinking when they meet him.) That doesn't mean the two years and $175,000 for tuition andliving expenses was for naught. In the end, he realizes HBS isn'tabout getting a job. ``It was about putting up the structure fora more interesting life,'' he writes. That may sound like a rationalization, but if this book isany indication, Philip Delves Broughton got his money's worthfrom Harvard Business School.
``Ahead of the Curve: Two Years at Harvard Business School''is published in the U.S. by the Penguin Press (283 pages,$25.95). It's published in the U.K. by Viking under the title``What They Teach You at Harvard Business School'' (12.99 pounds,paperback).
(Caroline Baum, author of ``Just What I Said,'' is aBloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)
For related news:Top arts and lifestyle stories: MUSE
--Editors: Laurie Muchnick, Yvette Ferreol.
No comments:
Post a Comment