side effects of the globally-oriented education (1)
(I wrote this on the train on Friday)
Last night I was in a taxi in New York City headed to a bar when I heard on the radio that there had been bombings at western hotels in Jakarta Indonesia. Prior to school this would have been just another sad headline. Now, though, I have a sectionmate who is working in Jakarta this summer and my stomach jumped when I heard the news.
Fortunately I was able to get in touch with him in minutes (modern communications FTW) and learned he was safe. He had been scheduled to be at one of the targeted hotels for breakfast the morning the bombs went off, but fortunately his plans changed last minute and he was not there.
Phew.
An indicator, perhaps, of the way life will be post-school with friends and classmates scattered around the globe.
bank issues report on teen media consumption: sample size 1, bank’s teenage intern
This article on Bloomberg this week caught my attention for its claim: “Morgan Stanley Intern Says Teens Don’t Twitter, Prefer Events”
For those that might not know, large financial institutions publish large amounts of research as part of their product offerings (they both sell this research and use it internally to inform invesment decisions). This report, published on a topic I care about, purports (according to the article):
Teenagers spend money on game consoles, movies and music concerts while ignoring newspapers, a Morgan Stanley report said, citing Matthew Robson. Robson should know: He is a 15-year-old intern at the securities firm.
The schoolboy was asked by the bank’s European media analysts to report on what he and his peers look for in the information-entertainment industries. What they got was one of the “clearest and most thought-provoking insights we have seen,” the analysts said.
“Teenagers are consuming more media, but in entirely different ways and are almost certainly not prepared to pay for it,” Morgan Stanley analysts Edward Hill-Wood, Patrick Wellington and Julien Rossi said in a note, citing Robson.
Call me crazy, but I had two reactions to this:
- duh. (on the last part. not sure I buy that “teens don’t twitter”)
- are banks in the habit of publishing research that is anecdotally single sourced?
point of order: the post office
I had to visit a US Post Office recently. After spending the year learning about operations management, process improvement, and organizational behavior, I must admit that the visit irked me on so many levels I could feel myself clamming up and needing to get out as fast as possible.
The thing is, I needed to mail my rent to Boston (from New York). This is probably the only part of my life that has not evolved into even the 20th century yet. I still pay rent by check and I still send it via the mail. In order to do this I needed two things: an envelope and a stamp.
Unable to find these things in single serving size at a deli (because why would I?), I set off to the Post Office. (Which, by the way is not conveniently located and keeps inconvenient hours). Imagine my surprise when I got there to discover A) no envelopes for sale (isn’t that kind of a natural COMPLEMENT (thanks Prof Collis) to selling postal services) and B) no easy way to get stamps. The line was 15 people deep, and I went to a machine where my only option was to buy 40 stamps. (Credit to the USPS 1 point for the “forever” stamp.)
Then off to Duane Reade to buy 80 (79 of which I don’t need) envelopes.
And then back in search of a blue mailbox.
Short point: postal mail sucks. The government should dissolve it, force everyone to go paperless, offer it as an uber premium service (or make FedEx pickup and manage the business), and be done with it as it is now.
spring break: colombia
When we started the school year, our Section Chair, Professor Frances Frei mentioned it was common for students to earn between 6 and 12 visas travelling during their time at HBS. I’m not sure I believed it at the time, but I’m on the way to that now.
Over spring break in March, a great friend of mine from section, Vicente, lead a few dozen of us on a trek to his home country, Colombia. We spent a few days in Bogota, then a few days in Cartagena, a night on a remote island, before circling back and returning to Boston.
I could bore you with the details, but suffice it to say it was far and away the most memorable trips I’ve been on and I wanted to point to the flickr set from the trip from the blog… so here you are:
colorful colombian crafts
section, my section
The section experience is one of the cornerstones of the MBA program at HBS. In the first year of school (the RC, or required curriculum year), the class is divided into 10 groups of 90, called sections. Each section is given a letter, A through J, and its own classroom which it the occupies for the entire year. That group of 90 spends the first semester in the same seats, its five professors cycling in and out of the classroom; and then changes seats and professors before repeating the same exercise in the second semester.
The group elects its own leadership, develops its own norms (rules governing behavior within the section), and basically becomes the nucleus for all school activity in the first year. It’s likely that the section experience was borne out of an examination of the case method of teaching and a need for best practices which would engender more substantive debate. But there are social benefits to the section experience, too.
Given that the whole class is about 900 students, it would be pretty overwhelming to have to build strong friendships while floating in that sea in the first year. The section acts as a microcosm of the rest of the school, mirroring the diversity of background, origin, gender, age, etc. The benefit is that first year students can grow with the group around them, before endeavoring to meet people elsewhere in the class with similar career interests, etc in the second year.
But the section experience doesn’t stop there. It (according to those who came before me) is a lifelong bond – an extended family if you will.
I’ll pause my high-level view there, because I can’t honestly say more without falsely projecting the future.
What I can say is that my section was the best section. I was in Section C (notable alumni include George W Bush). We were in Aldrich 009 all year. We nicknamed ourselves Sec-C (sounds like sexy). While everything that happened in that room stays in that room, I’m pretty comfortable saying that my experience with this group of people was among the more incredible ones I’ve had in my life. A group of 90 of the most intelligent, compassionate, challenging people I’ve ever met: now counted among my friends.
To illustrate the type of bond that develops in the section, I’d share what we’re doing this summer. Whereas one might expect connection to fall off for the summer while everyone goes off to interships, our section is updating the section on their lives, one person a day, all summer long. It’s been a blast keeping up with people all summer and I really can’t wait to reunite with this group in September and share learnings from the summer (and also reconvene wine and scotch tastings).
