Anyway, not going to go into much detail right now, even though there’s so much to talk about!  Let me just show a picture I took a couple hours ago while walking to a meeting…

Cloudy Day on the Charles

It’s kind of beautiful in it’s own way.  This was right before the sun started to shine… the first 5 minutes of sunlight in the last 4 days!  Anyway, another picture of what are sure to be many, many pictures of the Charles on this blog.

Also wanted to throw up two pictures of a major class project that has been consuming a bit of time lately.  We’re designing an “assembly line” for a manufacturing facility… namely, the construction of some circuit boards within Shad.  The circuit boards are fairly basic — 5 or so stripped wires, two resistors, a capacitor, an IC chip, a couple LEDs, and a buzzer… just enough to provide a few minutes of manufacturing time and output a testable product.  Still, it’s a fascinating exercise.  It’s a great way to experience first-hand all the difficulties (operating and financial decisions) that go into creating a steady-state manufacturing facility.  More to come.  For now, here’s a couple photos of the raw materials:

Shad Raw Materials #1

Shad Raw Materials #2

So, how do I feel about HBS?  At the moment, exhausted.  This is not a place to be if you prefer to take things slow.  The school calendar system, myHBS, shows that there are 10-15 events going on every day this week!  Then there are the section-related events.  Then there’s meeting with your learning team every day.  Then there’s the need to attend class 8-3 MWF and 8-12 on TTh.  Oh, and I almost forgot — you also need to find some time to read, study, and prepare 13 case studies each week… kind of important when your grade revolves around contributing insightful comments during class discussion.

Let’s add it up and see what we end up with:

• Classes for around 30hr/wk
• LT for another 5hr/wk
• Cases at 20hr/wk
• Section events at 10hr/wk
• School events at 15hr/wk

That gives us 80hr/wk! And we’re skipping 75% of the school events and avoiding networking like a weird social hermit.  (Not to mention the neglect on all outside relationships and activities).  It’s easy to see how this place can wear on you if you’re not careful.

So, how do I feel about HBS?  Well, fatigued, yes… but also excited!  This truly is a “Disney World for business people”.  There’s no other place on the planet where you actually consider turning down the chance to listen to a Fortune 50 CEO take Q&A because there are five other events going on – at the same time – that all sound fascinating and intriguing.  If you took all the events going on in one day and spread them out over an entire month at my undergrad, I would’ve gone to every one of them and talked about how fantastically lucky I was.  Here, it’s simply commonplace.  Not even worth mentioning.  I’ve heard that CEOs routinely find themselves with half-empty audiences as the year goes on…

This place is awash in possibilities.  It will definitely be a challenge to take advantage of every bit without burning out on all of it.