I started working on this right after school ended in May, but I’m just now getting around to posting it. Our 2nd year at HBS actually starts tomorrow, so I thought I better finish this and post today. This is my first stab at posting to the blog and the below is my way of capturing the memories of the first year. It is rather long, so just bear with me. It has been a great experience and one that Brooke and I will cherish all of our lives. So, here goes…..
It seems like yesterday that I came home and told Brooke that I was going to apply to the Harvard Business School. There was not much more thought put into it than that really, just me deciding on a whim that this was what I wanted to do next. Of course, she thought this was just another one of my ridiculous ideas that I would never follow through with (I have a lot of these), and she probably still thought the same even after I purchased a GMAT study guide. She was most likely a little angry, too, that I wasted $100 on books that I would never use. I must admit, I was somewhat skeptical myself, especially the first time I opened the study guide and realized how much work I was going to need to put into preparing to take the GMAT. Not to mention the three months I would spend after the GMAT just writing the application essays. I was even more skeptical that they would actually let a country boy from Summerville, GA into a place like HBS. Certainly this wasn’t just yesterday? No, it was more like two years ago (Was it really April 2006? Wow!).
I also must admit that I knew very little about HBS when I came home and declared my intentions of applying. Sure, I had “researched” on the website and read the testimonials of current students, but that was about it. The truth is, I wanted to get an MBA and had always wanted to go to Harvard, so I figured why not try to get an MBA from Harvard. My plan went no further than that. With that in mind, you can imagine my surprise and excitement when they invited me for an interview in early December. After my interview my skepticism about actually getting into HBS grew, especially considering my answer to the question “Who should be Time’s Person of the Year?”. This was not a question I was even remotely prepared for, thus my 2 minute pause before declaring that Barack Obama should be awarded this honor. I knew nothing about Barack Obama, other than what I saw of him on Oprah (Brooke was in the habit of dvr’ing Oprah and subjecting me to the show as we ate dinner). Obama hadn’t really done anything big at that point in time, but he was the only person I could think of at the time. Time’s Person of the Year for 2006 was “You” (remember the mirror on the front of the magazine that was their way of telling everyone they deserved to win an award, what a ridiculous idea), so, if you think about it, I actually turned out to be right. You see why I was so skeptical. Nonetheless, on January 17, 2007 Brooke and I met at home over our lunch break to find out if I had been admitted or if I had received the dreaded rejection letter. As you probably know by now, I received good news that day and was admitted to the HBS Class of 2009 (otherwise why would I be writing a blog about my first year at HBS?). Obviously we were excited about my admission, but, now that the first year is over, I can honestly say there is no way our excitement that day was enough. We just didn’t realize how great this place was really going to be, in every way.
The best way to start telling you just how great this year has been for me is to tell you about Section F. If you talk to anyone that is affiliated with HBS about being a student, the first thing you hear about is the section experience. Now, when I first heard about this mystical “section” experience, I thought they were just exaggerating how great it was as a selling point to persuade people to attend HBS instead of Stanford. Can you put 90 complete strangers in a classroom together and get this magical experience? Is this place really worth what we have to pay for it? The answer to both questions is yes! For those of you who don’t know how HBS works, your first year is called your RC (required curriculum) year since everyone takes all the same required courses. You take each of your courses with your section, which is assigned to you by HBS. Each class at HBS is about 900 students and these 900 are divided into 10 sections of about 90 people, with Section F getting all the best people and the rest distributed to the other 9 sections. As you might suspect, Section F doesn’t really get the best; it’s just my way of putting a little section pride into this blog. The fact is they place people into sections based on background, with the goal being 10 sections that represent the overall diversity of the class.
Now that I have provided a description, you might be saying so ‘so what’. So what if you take all of your courses with the same 90 people, in the same classroom for an entire year? What’s the big deal? If you had asked me this on the first day of the school year, I would have told you the big deal is that it creates this awkward dynamic that makes everyone feel uncomfortable and out of place. If you had asked me this question the second or third week of the school year, I would have told you the same exact thing. But, if you asked me at any time after that, I would tell you that the big deal is that it creates an environment where people can have their viewpoint heard and respected by 89 other people. I would tell you that not only do those 89 other people listen and respect your viewpoint, but, more importantly, they challenge that viewpoint and challenge you to rethink your perspective on all topics, not just business related. Where else can you talk about anything from the spread of capitalism in China and its potential for bringing about political change in that country to the Bear Stearns collapse and government brokered sale to our philosophy on leadership in the face adversity? And the people that challenge you on these topics are not ordinary people by any stretch of the imagination. The section has investment bankers, consultants, private equity analysts, Ph.D.’s, a Navy SEAL, citizens of at least 29 different countries, a future M.D., at least one future president (watch out for President Souley Ba of Senegal in the future). But, most importantly, 89 people I will call friends for the rest of my life.
You can imagine that after taking 11 classes with the same 89 people there would be a lot of memories. Of course there are. There were opening cold calls, with Anja getting the first one of the year on the first day of class in the Chattanooga Ice Cream case. I had a few cold calls myself, with my first coming in marketing on one of our many pharmaceutical cases and my hardest coming on the first BGIE (Business, Government, and the International Economy) case, German Hyperinflation (what does that even mean?). Sam Cohen volunteered to put his statement of cash flows up for everyone to critique, only to have it completely wrong (thank you Sam for doing that, this was the turning point for the section). Prof. Hawkins kept FRC (accounting) fun with his endless tales of HBS students going to jail, his days at Harvard College, his “sugardaddy” days in New York, and his professed love of scotch. Andrea’s declaration that Taran Swann, who was running Nickelodean – Latin America at the time, was “like my mother”. Jared Miller gave an oscar-winning performance as a vacuum cleaner salesman in rural India and RD calling Jack Welch a “toad man.” Hosam asked Prof. Hawkins, “how old is your daughter?”, and from then on was mocked for being a ‘cradle-robber’. Simmons had a breakout performance (TWSS) in wrapping up one of our TOM cases after barely saying a word for the first two months of school. There was Haven’s heartfelt 10-year memoir in LEAD about taking his daughter (who was born during the middle of the first semester) fishing, which made all 89 of us tear up. There was RD convincing me at 1 am that I shouldn’t worry about reading the TEM case for the next day, because, as he put it, “what’s the worst that could happen, you get cold called and you have to pass” – only to get cold called himself the next morning and passing. There was also the Chief Monster (of monster.com fame) and ‘tickle.com’, Rawi’s constant quotes in his BGIE wrap-ups, James David’s “utils” comment, Nitin’s “pizza party” comment, Jeremiah’s “bingo”, Erin McClure’s ‘Brad Barkin Factor’, and the ‘Brad Mashinter Smell Test” coined by none other than Stephen Cravens. We had shark day (everyone has to disagree with the person that comments before them for the entire class), Masters Friday (imagine people dressed as preppy as possible on the Friday of the Masters golf tournament), and shorts and blazers day. And of course there were the Skydecks, which are the weekly Friday roasts of the most ridiculous happenings in the section. I will forever remember the section retreat skydecks (Hide’s “pull on my andon cord”), Holidazzle skydecks (JB and Heltzer as Resch and Resch’s brother; JB and Heltzer as Gio and Andrea), Simmons’ skydecks (‘Day in the Life of …”; ‘Day in the Life of Brad Barkin’ was definitely my favorite, see “human subjects #43 and #44”), and, of course, Newport skydecks (thanks Hales for being so gullible).
The first year isn’t all about the classroom by any stretch of the imagination. It’s also about nights at Tommy Doyles for the 80’s party, karaoke, and the “Eye of the Exam Storm” party (this night resulted in me, Laura Ashley, and Brendan taking 45 minutes to walk home, which normally takes 10 minutes, because we got in several snowball fights with Harvard undergrads on the way), Wednesday nights at Daedalus, the boat cruise, Gypsy Bar, Casino Night, the “minners” (also known as guys night out) at shady Chinese restaurants, flip cup at The Bus Stop, scorpion bowls at the Kong, and section retreats. I must say, the section retreat in the fall was one of the most fun weekends ever. Imagine 90 graduate students, and their significant others (partners as they are called at HBS), renting out four houses in the middle-of-nowhere Maine so they can spend an entire weekend acting like they just turned 21 again, complete with an unfathomable amount of alcohol, dancing, and karaoke (Hottlieb is the king of karaoke). There were great nights in Harvard Square that started with dinner at Border Café and ended only after trips to Hong Kong and Tommy Doyle’s in the same night.
The first year was also about section pride, in intramurals and section olympics. For those of you who know me at all, I love sports. So, it should come at no surprise that I played both intramural flag football and basketball with the section and loved every minute of it. I must admit up front, when looking at our section in the classroom you would have thought there was no way any of us had any amount of athletic ability. Oh, how looks are deceiving. Not only were we competitive, we actually made the playoffs in both sports (as well as soccer; I would have played that as well, but there were way too many really good soccer, excuse me, football players). I had a great time playing basketball, but the most fun for me was making it to the championship game of flag football. Below are a couple of pictures (to be posted soon) from the semi-final game, which we one on a last minute touchdown in the pouring rain over an EC section that was probably better than us. But, we played great together all year long and had a great time representing Section F. We also fared very well in the Section Olympics, which is an afternoon of the most ridiculous games (see three-legged race, water balloon toss, tug of war, and, my favorite, corn hole) that resulted in some fierce competition between sections. After what seemed like an hour of deliberation by the section presidents at the end of the Olympics, it was declared a tie between Section F and Section B. (No, Grantham, Section H actually didn’t win, despite the trophy and medals you guys bought yourself as a prize.) HBS is not really a competitive place in the classroom, but it most definitely is between sections. So, we carried the trophy to TGIF in the Grille the day after the win to show it off to the losing sections.
HBS is not just about the section experience, it’s about getting to know people outside your section as well. Brooke and I have been very lucky in this area, meeting some really great people. Most of those people we met during Analytics, which is two weeks of hell HBS makes everyone with little to no business knowledge endure prior to starting regular classes (also known as math camp). Teal and Laren, Luke and Abbey, Ryan and Alisha, Will and Ginny, and the list keeps going. Teal, Luke, and myself formed a study group during Analytics that continued throughout the majority of the first semester. We would meet every afternoon after class to read and analyze cases, with many hours spent in small rooms together talking through each case. These were, and still are, the best discussions I have had at HBS. While it only lasted for the first semester, our study group will be one of the biggest things I miss when our time at HBS is over. Of course, all of our time with this group of friends was not spent talking about cases. We enjoyed dinners at one another’s apartments, drinks in Harvard Square, golf at Newton, the Sam Adams brewery tour, the Oklahoma/Texas football game (Luke still has to swim across the Charles River), the Celtics for Ryan’s and Alisha’s birthdays, and many Partners’ Club events. We even ventured to South Boston, also known as Southie, with the Carlocks. We actually went to L Street Tavern, which is the bar in Good Will Hunting where Will (Matt Damon) and his buddies always hang out. We looked like tourists when we walked into the bar. But, we definitely confirmed it when we decided we wanted to order some food. The bartender just looked at us funny when we asked what they had to eat. It turns out the only thing L Street Tavern has to eat is frozen pizza that they microwave for you, but we were extremely hungry so we decided to order two. While Teal and I stood at the bar waiting on the pizza we struck up a conversation with one of the locals (there were only locals), who proceeded to inform us that he had been coming there for 20 years and we were the first people he had ever seen order the pizza. The pizza aside, we got to sit in the same booth they sit in in the movie and had a great time in general. There are also plenty of stories to tell about hanging out with the rest of the group, but the best story to tell is about Luke. To know Luke is to be entertained. There are no boundaries to what Luke will do and the last week of class he proved just that. As part of his section’s charity auction, he auctioned off that he would bust into another sections classroom in the middle of a class and steal someone’s name tag, all on video tape, (seems harmless enough right?) while wearing nothing but a woman’s bikini top and bottom, sunglasses, and a hat. He followed through with the promise – in my section. Sitting in TEM class during the last week, we were all startled by someone swinging the door open, running in, and grabbing Andrea’s name tag. Now, I knew nothing at all about his plan before it happened, and the person that ran in and out so quickly was unrecognizable by everyone else in my section. Not for me. As soon as I looked down to see who it was I knew it was Luke, even through the dark sunglasses and hat. There are many other great moments with this group I could talk about, but the best thing I can say is that they played a big part in elevating our HBS experience to the “great” level. I know Brooke and I will make a concerted effort to keep in touch with all of these people after school and hopefully remain friends for the rest of our lives.
As the second year gets ready to start tomorrow, I can only imagine that it will be just as great as the first. There won’t be any classroom antics like shark day, the “Brad Mashinter smell test”, the “Brad Barkin factor”, or the JD supersized (thanks Simmons for paying for at least one lunch per week for the second half of last year), but you can bet there will be more good times than I will be able to remember when writing the “HBS EC year” blog.
