CS @ HBS

(unfortunately my titles aren’t very creative, I guess my creativity is elsewhere these days)

First week of classes ended, and it’s been a wild ride. Adjusting to waking up at 6:30 or 7am every day isn’t easy, but fortunately the day certainly improves after this start.

My classes are great. All First-Year students take the same 5 classes in the first term: Accounting, Finance 1, Marketing, Lead(ership) and Technology and Operations. You can read more about the content of the courses here. What I personally have found out, at least up until now, is that how much I enjoy a course almost entirely depends on the professor. So my current favorite is, perhaps surprisingly, accounting (my parents would be proud :)). That said, classes require a tremendous amount of work preparing for them, and class participation can be quite stressful.

A few highlights from this and last week:

Baker Library

During the Orientation Week we had a tour of the Baker Library at HBS. It’s the largest business-related library in the world (not sure in which parameter exactly, but still the largest…), and is very impressive. I’m a sucker for libraries, but considering any objective standards this library is amazing. Naturally it offers lots of places for personal and group study, tons of books, magazines and other material – include newspapers and magazines from all over the world, and all is done “HBS style” – meaning leather sofas, chandeliers and high ceilings (very important).

The amount of online resources the library offers is crazy. We can search hundreds of different online databases – without even going to the library: company information, financial reports, country information, people information… We had a guided tour at the library, and at some point I thought that maybe our tuition is actually justified…

Photo of Baker Library, from here.
International Day

Out of the 3 days of orientation, one was devoted to international issues. I think this really shows the commitment of HBS to the topic of global business. The day started with a fascinating case about a South African for-profit social enterprise called LapDesk . In short, in South Africa many school children lack basic school equipment, including desks; in order to write they sit on the floor and use their chairs as tables. LapDesk registered a patent for a bean-shaped plastic piece that a child can put in his lap when seating and thus use it as a writing surface. Their business model was to get big companies to buy these as a donation (Kellogg, the cereals company, was one of their early, largest sponsors). In class we discussed this very recent (2007) case, and then all 10 sections had a simultaneous video conference with the entrepreneur, Shane Immelman, who answered our questions from South Africa. You can read more about this company here.

After this class, we had a one-hour panel about globalization, featuring Prof. Michael Porter, probably the world’s most famous business professor. Here are a couple of photos, also showing a large portion of my class:

Fun @ HBS, OR: The truth behind HBS myths, #1

I got a good question via email:

“… I am a friendly person and I enjoy socializing (parties, restaurants and everything) It’s really important for me to be aroung friendly fun people. So I wanted to ask you, are the people in Harvard friendly? is there a good vibe or does it feel like a very competitve place? Plus do you find it nice and get to have some fun like you did in Israel or is it all about the studies?”

I hope my previous few posts managed to convey the fun and truly great time I’ve been having here. Now that school started I can honestly say that I don’t feel competition in classes. True, everyone wants to talk and participate, but the professors are doing an excellent job of including everyone – this is exactly what they’re trained for.

Your learning team is composed of 6 people from different sections, who are there to study together and support one another, in addition to doing graded team projects together later on in the semester. Apart from the learning teams, many people prepare to class with friends, helping each other on weaker subjects. There’s a true sense of mutual help and caring for each other.

About social activities and going out… Let’s just say that I’ve never partied more in my life. Every single night I can choose between 3-4 social events, and weekends are even more “problematic” in that sense. Sample from last weekend – a boat cruise (combined with a party), a dance party, free movie screening in school and a brunch. This weekend – casino night, 3 parties, pre-parties, Boston Duck Tour (did that one, was fun!), section girls brunch, Jewish “Rosh HaShana” party…

Actually, simple calculation shows that in a class of 900 people, more than 2 will have their birthday on any given day, and will probably celebrate it in one of the numerous bars in Harvard Square… Cambridge and Boston are student cities, so there are tons of bars, cheap (and not so cheap) restaurants, cute coffee shops to meet and study with friends, cool stores, parties, concerts… it’s really a great place except for one awful, horrible thing – The Weather. But it’s September, so I’m not going to get into that now :) In short, all students here are well aware of the fact that socializing is at least as important as school. Some people go out every single night of the week, so it’s really all up to you.

Hopefully that answers the question…

Shana Tova and Gmar Hatima Tova :)

Related posts:

1. First Day of School!!!!!1!!
2. School Selection
3. HBS Orientation Week schedule and a few packing observations…
4. First days at school and Operation: Apartment
5. Pre-MBA First Week & MicroFridge