Studying in the Morning

Life has been busy lately. Cases are long, and it’s definitely been harder to get in on the discussion. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately (particularly since I feel like I’m working harder than ever yet seeing fewer returns when I skimmed the cases last year!)

Two potential explanations:

1. EC professors are more directive, so there’s less room for discussion and debate. I keep on waiting to respond to classmates comments, but the professors this year seem to forcibly lead the classes with questions rather than simply moderating to maintain momentum. Maybe I need to just start answering instead of sitting on my hands waiting.
2. I intentionally chose classes where my knowledge and experience is lacking, but I don’t think that was a universal principle. My finance classes are full of people from hedge funds and investment banks… Not ex-corporate guys with consulting experience. I actually have to read the book to understand what people are saying, and even then — it’s tough to synthesize the nuances of many of the arguments.

Back to cases!

I’ve spent most of this weekend trying to catch up on case interview prep.  Over the last few weeks, I’ve only taken the time to do about 4 mock case interviews.  The first one was an absolute catastrophe.  The second one was only a mild disaster.  During the last two I started to feel vaguely competent.  I was probably able to run through another few this weekend, building the total up to around 10 (of varying quality).  Nothing spectacular, but I feel modestly prepared.  I would feel a lot better if I were like some of my classmates… some have done 30-40!  That’s incredible. 

Although, I do wonder if some of the preparation that goes on defeats the entire purpose of the interview.  At what point does it become more of a memorized response to typical business scenarios rather than a measure of cognitive speed and clarity?  Hard to say…