Stacy Blackman’s B-School Buzz
Each week, we bring you news from the front lines with business school bloggers sounding off on life in the trenches.
Like most of her peers, MaybeMBA chose Chicago Graduate School of Business, now known as Chicago Booth, for its flexible curriculum and great academic standards. Even though she can’t imagine redoing that decision, she offers an enlightening post that reveals the flaws of this top school and should be required reading for anyone applying to it.
Ashley L. (Tuck) explains the phenomenon known at business schools far and wide as Black Monday–the Monday after Thanksgiving when everyone comes back from their holiday break having become…newly single. In this post, she shares suggestions culled from other Tuckies on how to manage to delicate Significant Other dance while in B-school.
The Ruminator has a laundry list of ways LBS can become a better business school, including building a decent-sized auditorium to accomodate guest lecturers and listening to students’ feedback once in a while. Remember, students are not only paying customers, he says. They are future alumni. Ignore them at your endowment’s peril.
Sacha Gera (Richard Ivey School of Business) provides a review of two inspiring speeches given by two inspiring men who happened to visit Ivey on the same day: William Jefferson Clinton and former prime minister of Canada, Paul Martin. His overall thoughts? Clinton’s charisma and communication skills are second to none (even on a tired day), and what Gera liked most about Martin was his honesty. When he didn’t know the answer to a question he admitted it and simply said, “I don’t have to pretend that I know the answer to everything anymore ”“ I’m no longer Prime Minister.”
Mike Murphy, just finishing up the first semester of his second year at Darden, offers a nostalgic post titled the tunnel at the end of the light. Having accepted an offer by a consulting firm, Murphy can now relax a bit and reflect upon what may well be his final academic experience. “Of course, returning to the real world and the workforce doesn’t have to be the ‘tunnel’”¦,” he says, “But I don’t think it will ever be as bright, at least for me, as that which I enjoy while living the life of a student.”
Paragon2Pieces (McCombs) wishes the school would dump the strategic career planning course first years must take and place more emphasis on practicing and refining business writing skills. The ability to communicate clearly and precisely will be important to all of us–the quantitative and qualitative folks–after we leave McCombs, she says.
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