CS @ HBS

Yes, I’ve been bad. Here’s what I’ve been up to recently:

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I originally planned to write this post about “Ahead of the Curve”, the new “Sensational” book about HBS. But considering the last week’s events, it felt more appropriate to start with that. More than anything, I think this week meant a lot of confusion and insecurity among HBS students. HBS administration did send us an email saying that recruiters (including in finance) are still recruiting MBA graduates and do not plan to decrease recruiting levels (or at least not at HBS) - not sure how much it helped to reduce stress levels. Networking events on campus this week held an impressive number of companies from all sectors - though I don’t know how this number compared to last year.

Many students at HBS are stressed and waiting to see how things unfold. I think that in our narrow world of MBAs, we still need to wait and see, but no doubt everyone acknowledges that this crisis will have a profound impact on Wall Street in particular and the US economy in general. In this context, the title of the book - and the post - seems quite ironic now.

But anyway, to the book…

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Good things about going back to school:

• Seeing everyone again and hearing about their summer.
• Choosing my courses! My courses so far look really good - will write a separate post about it a bit later. But so far even studying from 8:30 to 13:00 with almost no break isn’t that bad because I have some really good professors.
• Being in my apartment again. Seattle was awesome, but my Boston apartment just rocks. Not to mention two of my best friends here just moved to my building on campus.

Bad things about going back to school:

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Yes, I know, I disappeared for a while. By now my internship is almost over (this week is my last one) - I still need to do my final presentation to the SVP but that’s about it. The summer has been great - I became friends with some of the other interns (even though they weren’t all from HBS :)) and we went on trips exploring Seattle and the area, as well as Seattle’s restaurants and bars (with a strong preference to sushi). Work was good, too.

What they say about Seattle is true - in the summer, it’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever lived in. The weather is a perfect sunny 25 degrees almost every day, and within less than 100km from downtown there are lakes, waterfalls, glaciers and mountains (and good sushi restaurants). Too bad it’s like that only for the summer… You can skip to the end of the post to see some pictures.

We start second year at HBS after labor day weekend (first week of September). I’m excited about the second year, it’s supposed to be much better - at least easier - than the first one. Here are some of the differences between them:

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