Hey G'club b-schoolers. I'm guessing that by now we've been at school for at least a month, upto a maximum of about 4 months for those who started with some pre-courses. I'm setting up this thread so we can comment on our experiences so far. Feel free to write more than I did, if you have the energy & time to do so. Rants: I'm overspending my budget by about 2x. Raves: I've entered this parallel world in which everything seems possible. War stories: I didn't think I could pull it off at my age (30) but I've been consistently going out at least twice during the week and still making it to my learning time (at 7.30am) on time. L.

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1 - 4 month mark: share your rants, raves and war stories

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lepium

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13 Jan 2008, 19:44

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3underscore

I am readily finding that the break between semesters doesn't really exist, and is in fact just "no assignments" time.

I had another bank event this morning (4 hours, there place), a full day on valuation tomorrow, and then all the interviews begin next week. Not too sure what to make of it all right now - it seems like the deadlines don't stop until maybe 20 Jan, then we start up again around then anyway.

I better have more time to go drinking next semester, but am assured that I will have.

Wow, you finance folk have it tough. I'm just coming back to school after taking a 2-week trip in South America with some classmates. I'm exhausted, but only because we kept partying at night and hitting the neat spots during the day. The fact that I've been stranded at an airport for the last 12 hours does not help, either.

L.

lepium

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13 Jan 2008, 19:57

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aaudetat

you guys won't believe how much you stop thinking about this stuff once you're in. At least, no one's talking to me about it. You are where you are and you're going to do what you're going to do. Who cares what HBS et companie are doing. (No offense, L, your school just gets the coveted "we're the number 1" role when talking about rankings...)

We have to live with that. The perception is that HBS students are arrogant, so we try and make efforts to counter the reputation. There are several initiatives we (the community as a whole) take on a daily basis to counter this, but some facts we just can't change.
One big complaint with some employers, for eg, was:

- "I come to HBS year after year, interview your students, make X offers and only very few accept. I feel that your students are arrogant."

We could argue about this caselet all day, but reality is that if the opportunities are there, students will take them. They'll follow appropriate procedures, send a decline letter and not accept offers they will not honor, but other than that, I know of nobody that would take a job they don't really want out of politeness.

L.

aaudetat

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13 Jan 2008, 20:40

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lepium

aaudetat

that makes me wonder if HBS gets more offers per student than other schools. Because students obviously turn down offers, provided they get more than one. I have two hypotheses:

1. Employers think you guys are hot, so they all pant after you like dogs in heat. You all get lots of offers, and can obviously only do one. The outcome: sad recruiters with sour grapes.

2. Employers think that you think that you're hot. When they get turned down, they call you arrogant. When Team-Fuquans turn them down, they think, "golly, that sure was a nice fella. hope he'll apply with us next year."

There's some term for that -- expected something or another.

GMATT73

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25 Jan 2008, 19:24

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braindancer

Rants:
- budget totally screwed. Lots of unexpected expenditures (having never traveled abroad before B-school sucks)
- time management is a pain. LOTS of things happening; wherever you are, you're missing something cool elsewhere.
- being 'second-tier' sucks. I want HBS's 800-pound-gorilla feeling.
- career office is struggling to sell us, but I feel they could do much better job.
- most clubs are totally disorganized.
- some professors are booooooring.
- some classes are too basic - looks like same class at Wharton has a 3 times longer syllabus.
- some classmates are retarded. (just a few though.)
- my study group was full of hardcore 4.0 maniacs.

Raves:
- my study group was full of hardcore 4.0 maniacs. With some skill, it eases things up.
- LOTS of collaboration and positive attitude. People are incredibly laid-back.
- most people are damn smart. Some are totally razor-sharp.
- looks like MUCH less stress, pain and frustration than other schools.
- most times, I sleep stable 7-8 hours, work out 3 times a week and travel the roundabouts on weekends.
- LOADS of interesting things to learn. Marketing class was awesome.
- LOTS of clubs - which, being quite disorganized, are an excellent opportunity to exercise your leadership skill.
- 5-week break ROCKS! I'm pretty much idling for 2 weeks now, and will idle more. :-P

Overall: if you don't want to stress your a$$ off, West Coast is your spot. The smell of pot is the most characteristic thing about these places, if you know what I mean,

Sounds familiar. A close colleague graduated from Haas in 2002 (worst year imaginable) and still managed to get into GS. Overall he's a modest guy, so when he says he took four day took road trips to Kirkwood and Northstar every other weekend and still managed to pull off a 3.5, I believe him. Indeed, intensity levels here on the west coast are low; lower yet if you study up in the great PacNW 8-)

ishcabibble

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30 Jan 2008, 15:07

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So I've been in school for just about 1 month now and can finally join in on the rants/raves!

Raves:
-feeling that I'm finally moving forward in life
-I have fabulous group members
-the fact that I'm surrounded by motivated, intelligent people who actually want to be there and come to class prepared
-Profs that understand and acknowledge that you have other classes, actually know your other professors, and are willing to accommodate their classes at times because of that
-The feeling that I'm learning useful, practical knowlege rather than just how to analyze a poem or other useless undergrad-type stuff

Rants:
-Having to buy a laptop (yeah, I knew that I would probably have to break down and buy one eventually, however, I didn't think I'd have to have one for my very first day - I'm taking a stats class)
-Having to learn how to function at both work and class on much less sleep than my body is used to
-the horrible, horrible Operations Management midterm I just took last night. Seriously, it seems that no one I talked to had prepared properly for that test. Probably because the prof. had given us absolutely no clues as to the format of the test.

I would now like to share the best piece of advice I have heard yet. In one of my classes, an abbreviation of a term was being thrown around as if everyone in the class knew it (it wasn't anything from the book or readings - it was a conversation based around a comment made by a student). It took me a few minutes of feeling stupid, but I thought that I finally knew what the abbreviation meant. Then, a classmate sitting next to me leaned over and asked if I knew what it meant. I told him what I thought it meant but that I wasn't positive. After class, he asked another classmate who confirmed that it was what I thought. I was so proud of myself for figuring it out. However, I then said that I was so happy that I wasn't the only one in these classes who wasn't already a business expert.

He told me, "Don't worry, most of these people just act like they know all this stuff."

branson

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04 Feb 2008, 04:16

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Fake it til you make it.

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05 Feb 2008, 13:33

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See... now I wanna know the term...

ishcabibble

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14 Feb 2008, 11:00

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Quote:

See... now I wanna know the term...

It wasn’t anything terribly exciting or difficult. People were talking about POS technology, which finally dawned on me meant Point-of-Sale. However, it’s just not a term used in my line of business and somehow I was able to reach deep into the recesses of my brain and recall it from my days working retail.