Cases, Creme Brulee and Rugby. (A.k.a.: my first full week at HBS)

Having completed a full week of classes, I’m starting to get into the rhythm of life here. It’s almost killing me. There is so much work to do that I barely get 5 hours of sleep a night. Days begin at 6:30 in the morning to meet my “learning team” (study group of 6 people) to discuss the days cases, and end after midnight preparing cases for the next day. I’m sure I’ll become faster at this the more experience I gain, and, significantly, my learning team will become more realistic about the level of preparedness they feel comfortable with…but in the meantime it’s overwhelming.

I don’t mean to sound negative, however. It has been highly educational so far; my professors and classmates are of a much higher caliber than I was expecting. The classroom is a high energy, high intensity place where every one of the 90 students is well prepared and eager to participate in the class discussion…this is easily the most enriching learning environment I’ve witnessed, let alone been a part of.

Jeff was in town this past week on business, so I managed a rare few hours of socializing with him over dinner Wednesday and Thursday evenings. Nice to see someone from home, and hear the updates on what’s happening in Toronto.
This week, Tim will be here on business as well, and is planning on staying the weekend. I have already publicized among my social group that I will ensure that Tim prepares one of his legendary dinners for us—may as well put him to work for his lodging.

In a related story, I hosted my first Harvard dinner party last night. A resounding success, too. Huge accolades on the lamb, the wine, the music, and (of course), the crème brulee. Most of all though, it was great to get people together in a relaxed setting and enjoy some conversation.

I’ve officially joined the Rugby Team (http://www.hbsrugby.com/). This is an intense bunch. The practices are serious, focused and disciplined. Our coaching staff (external to the school) are Aussies with no patience for slouches. There are two teams, the “A-Side”, which is the stronger team made up of mainly of 2nd year students, with most of the stars being foreigners. (The captain, for example, played semi-pro in northern England, and was the captain of his team at Cambridge or Oxford…one of the two). The B-Side, where I play, is less skilled on average, as about 50% of the players have little to no experience with the game. The good thing however, is that many rugby clubs have both an A-Side and a B-Side, so my team sees a competitive game most weekends. We belong to the New England Rugby Football Union (www.nerfu.org) and play other schools as well as club teams from around New England.

A team is divided into “forwards” (the big guys) and “backs” (the agile, take the ball and run-up-the-sidelines-as-fast-as-possible, players). Clearly, I’m a Back. It’s a great group of guys on the team, lots of fun and camaraderie. After matches, the home team takes the other side out for beer. At night, the rugby team gets together at a bar in Cambridge (that sponsors us) and has a night of ruckus and sing-songs. (This sing song business is new to me, though it seems to be a large part of Rugby culture. Everyone has a song they need to sing, and I’ve heard it gets pretty rowdy, though I had to miss it this week as I’d already scheduled the dinner party. Looking forward to next Saturday).

The work keeps piling on, and I’ve just come down with a crippling head cold. I need to get my case preparations over with this afternoon to allow sufficient time for a good night of sleep. Starting Monday on a sleep deficit is a sure fire path to a painful week.

Initial Ramblings...

(This post is a week late, as I was having some technical problems with Blogger).

It has been just over a week since I arrived in Boston, and I’m finally settling into something that feels normal.

The drive down was longer than expected thanks to some serious traffic problems outside of Boston, but the border crossing couldn’t have been smoother. In fact, I’ll say that it was an absolute pleasure (which isn’t how I usually describe crossings into the US). The guardsmen were efficient, polite, and asked friendly questions about school, wishing us the best of luck as we left the station.

At one of the many stoppages in traffic, 3 fighter planes screamed over the highway, only a few hundred feet above us…it was really a sight to behold. John and I were both thrilled by it and worried, thinking that perhaps an emergency was underway somewhere.

And in fact one was, though the flooding in New Orleans was probably unrelated to the jets. There are a few HBS students I’ve run into that are from the affected region, but so far the families of those I’ve come in contact with had the sense to evacuate before the storm hit; one family’s house was completely destroyed.

Our apartment is coming together nicely. We are fairly well equipped by most measures, let alone student standards, though I should mention that MBA students generally use a different scale to measure creature comforts than do undergrads. Kitchen equipment, A/V infrastructure and bedroom furniture are all in place. We even have a very well stocked liquor cabinet. All that remains is to find a suitable couch…and I’m fighting the urge to erode the definition of suitable, though it is getting near zero hour.

Orientation has been a good time. I’ve met countless people, and everyone is in a highly social state of mind right now, with random approaches being the norm rather than the exception. HBS has done a good job of organizing events, including a series of dinners for 6, whereby you get an invitation to a local restaurant to meet up with an unknown group of students and get to know them over dinner. This has worked really well and has probably been my favourite event. Most nights end up at one of 3-4 bars in Cambridge, just across the footbridge from the Business School campus (and right in the heart of the main Harvard campus).

Another highlight of the orientation was our first career planning workshop. Over the summer I had to complete a very tedious series of tests which was used to gauged my interests, abilities, and most of all, what I value out of a career (e.g. challenge, autonomy, interaction with others, financial gain, positive impact on others etc.)
I was given my results this week as a series of scores against these many dimensions, and they were interesting, though not altogether surprising. At first glance, my motivations and interests seem to match up rather well with the profile of a consultant, though the tool is actually pretty rich, and I’ll need to spend some more time investigating it, and thinking it over before companies begin coming to campus in November.

This week our group of 900 first year students will be divided into our sections of 90. From all indications, this group will become my HBS identity. We share the same classroom (with assigned seating) for the entire year, organize social events together, take trips together and generally spend most waking hours together. From what I can tell, it really is the foundation of social life here at the school, and has a lifetime impact on people who experience it. For example, alumni from 50 years ago still introduce themselves to others in the HBS community by their section. For example: “Hello, I’m John Harvard from the class of 1955, section A.” (Incidentally, I’m in section H).

With classes getting underway in earnest next week, I’m already beginning to feel busy. We have a two day business simulation starting tomorrow that is supposed to be very intense, and sort of like the tasks given to participants on the T.V. show “The Apprentice”, although in our case we go through several iterations, learning new analysis frameworks, improving processes and generating analyst reports and financial statements.

As for the off hours, I’m interested in joining a sports club, but have so far been unable to decide between the Rugby and Soccer clubs. I think I’ll go to 1-2 practices of each, and see which seems to be the best fit for me.

This afternoon (it’s the Labour Day Monday) I’m going to read over a couple of the cases for this week, then stretch out in preparation for a Rugby practice at 5:00. I haven’t fully recovered from the back strain I suffered sailing a month ago, but I think I’m in good enough shape for a decent workout.