What’s So Special About Harvard Business School?
Quite a bit, according to an open letter published last week by Ryan Allis ’14 as he reflected on his first semester for the Harvard Business School Class of 2015 pre-matriculation blog. Like any top-tier MBA program, HBS students learn finance, marketing, operations and the like. But Allis says he’s taken away much more than that over the last four months.
For example, Harvard Business School:
- Teaches you a deeply analytical thinking process critical to making high quality decisions and becoming a transformational leader.
- Enables you to build a team or find a team of superstars to go after any big world challenge that you wish.
- Gives you constant psychological reinforcement and mentors that enable you to refine and then actually execute on your dreams to make a difference.
In just one semester, Allis says his thinking process and decision-making ability has been refined, because “HBS teaches you to see one problem from ninety angles”“equal to the number of classmates in your first year section with whom you’ll take each class and form meaningful lifelong bonds.”
Also, HBS changes the caliber of the people in your life as you build lifelong ties with highly competent people who want to make a big difference in the world. Allis adds that this greatly expands the frontier of opportunities available to you and your ability to find leverage points to influence the world.
Thirdly, Allis believes Harvard Business School can help you use your life to make a bigger difference in the world. “Whether or not you already have your life dreams mapped out,” Allis says, “HBS provides the landscape for wide-ranging exploration and reflection and the support to go in any direction you wish.”
Finally, this first-year student is amazed at the psychological value and self-fulfilling prophecy of being around people who assume you’re going to do something special in the world. “If you crave the combination of an inspiring environment with access to the people who can help you do anything you set your mind to,” says Allis, “You’ll love your time at HBS.”
