First semester of HBS; a review by a former Army Officer at Harvard Business School

First semester of HBS just ended, but it does not feel like 25% of my MBA experience is already over! Often times I get the feeling of “where did all the time go?” But with some deeper introspection, I’ve realized that a lot has happened, and I’ve learned so much from it. Through all this, there are a few things that I wish someone have told me, and there are quite a few pieces of advice that really helped along the way. I will provide an after action review here so anyone starting school this fall can get a sense of what to expect and to better prepare for their first MBA semester.

List your Goals/Priorities Before B-School

Before business school got started, many people told me to list out my priorities so I could allocate resources (mostly time) accordingly. This was probably the BEST ADVICE that I’ve received for business school so far: there are so many things going on here that you will NOT be able to do. Some people attempt to do everything, but they quickly burn out and lose their grip. Instead, focus on a few things that matter and skimp out on the rest. The things that people usually try to balance are:

     


·          Employment – if you want to get a job in consulting and investment banking, be prepared to spend a good chunk of recruiting season (usually mid-October to early December) going to events, making networking phone calls, doing research of various subjects, and preparing for interviews. All of these things are very important if you want to land that dream job you wanted.

General Management roles have a similar time commitment. You will spend less time on interview prep, but can have multiple company presentations and mixers packed into one day. Effort spent networking varies, but for career switchers (i.e. people like us) it is very important and you should expect to see yourself perusing your school’s alumni database regularly.

It is also worth noting that every industry is very different in their emphasis, for instance, although consulting and I-banking both require interview preparation, the work that goes into the consulting case-interview prep is MUCH MORE elaborate than that of investment banking, so allocate time accordingly. I personally recommend everyone to pick ONE THING they want to do even before school starts, so you can concentrate your effort on one thing only, making your chances of landing that job much better and time-spent will be much more efficiently allocated.

·         Academics – school work varies at different schools, and the degree to which grades matter is different as well. However, in general, grades for MBA programs do not matter too much, unless you are doing really, really terrible, or if you are trying to go for the top, otherwise you should not worry about it. A former Marine at HBS who is a second year told me that he had never looked at his grades. He could be joking, but it is completely believable. However, for most people, it is really up to you on how much effort you wish to put into academics and get out of the education.

·         Networking – There are many approaches and purpose to this, but if you want to build a wide network of friends/contacts/acquaintances, then be prepared to spend time (and some money) going to social and club events. I’m not going into detail on how this should be done, as I am no expert nor do I think a few sentences can describe this subject, I do want to say that although there are lots of interesting people here, YOU ARE EVEN MORE interesting to people at business school, so leverage that to your greatest advantage. Also, there is this thing called FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), and if you are young and single, you’ll want to go out, trust me, FOMO is real. Therefore, take it into your planning considerations when you are prioritizing; it could put your entire goal list into jeopardy if you don’t control or account for it.

·         Others – Many people will have many different priorities, such as family, hobbies, volunteer work, etc., that only they can balance for themselves. For those that only have the three listed above, just be cognizant and considerate of those with other priorities.

Pre-MBA Course Work

At HBS, we have something called Analytics, which is a one-week accounting and finance “boot-camp” to bring the students who lack financial/accounting background (military, doctors, engineers, etc.) up to speed before the official academic year starts. I believe almost all business schools have programs of this kind. It costs a little bit of money, a thousand or two, but I find it to be THE MOST useful week in terms of academics that I’ve had at HBS. The program is intense, and goes from 0800 to 2200 at night (night time is a small group study session, but you are required to go, and attendance is taken), but you will learn everything you need to not only survive but also to do well in finance-related classes. Additionally, I believe it actually gave me a leg up on the “traditional” students because I already had a feel for what case preparation and in-class discussions were like. If you do not get an invitation to such a course (a few veterans didn’t at HBS, because they were Economics majors), then you should definitely try to find something that can at least get you some exposure to finance and accounting. This way, you are not trying to learn something completely new and trying to juggle the complexities of B-School at the same time.

Cases/Class preparation

This is more tailored to HBS and other case-heavy programs, but I think its general principles should apply to all schools, insert [homework assignment/projects] into [case]. At the beginning, I was spending on average 1.5 hours to prepare each case. However, it became very exhausting very quickly with the socializing, recruiting, and other great events that are happening around HBS, so it became impossible to spend that much time on every case. Eventually, I, along with the most of the students, started to find more efficient ways to manage case preparation. Below are some techniques that I’ve used/seen/heard:

·         Read the assignment questions first to get an idea of what the case is about, and then skim the case, focus only on relevant parts that can help you answer the questions. Often times, big chunks of the case material are not covered in class, so preparing for them will not be a great use of your limited time.

·         Leverage your discussion groups. Some teams assign one person to deep dive into each case, so the rest can skim them. This allows each person to spend just a few hours on a few cases each week, skim the rest, and have your fellow discussion group members teach you the details. However, this method does require everyone to be motivated, competent, and being on time, so a pre-requisite to this method is having a good discussion group, which may not be up to you.

          If you are a morning person, wake up early in the morning to do them. First, a morning-person like myself is very focused and efficient during morning hours in absorbing and solving problems, unlike night time where I’ll be tired and distracted. Second, if I know that my morning discussion group starts at 8, and it is 630 right now, it will give me a sense of urgency, forcing myself to be more effective. If you are someone who thrive under pressure, then this is a good way to put yourself in there.