Inside HBS » lead http://www.insidehbs.com Harvard Business School, MBA Blog Wed, 20 Oct 2010 14:15:52 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 Midterm Exam Week http://www.insidehbs.com/midterm-exam-week/ http://www.insidehbs.com/midterm-exam-week/#comments Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:38:53 +0000 rob http://www.insidehbs.com/?p=117 Continue reading →]]> Ahhh, the ugly monster of accountability and performance evaluation reared its head this week in the form of midterms.  As much time (and stress) that the student body plows into these things, they really aren’t that big of a deal.  Most of our classes have a fairly even split in the grading: 50% participation, 50% final, with a few adding a “10% midterm” component.  In a grading structure where it only really matters if you’re in the top 15% of the class (for “Honors” awards), all grades have zero impact on 85% of the students.  Midterms probably only substantially impact the 10 students who are in the margin of Honors.

You’d never know that by this past week, though.  I guess that’s the result of a lot of Type-A overachievers given the chance to fill out a scantron. Monday was FRC (Accounting).  It wasn’t bad at all, and I was pretty excited about my grade until I realized that the curve at HBS doesn’t leave much room for error.  Here’s the distribution chart they handed out:

FRC Midterm Distribution

FRC Midterm Distribution

There wasn’t any type of “do not distribute” disclaimer, so I think I’m OK posting that.  Anyway, I only missed a few, but I fell right at the top of the bell curve.  Which translates into around 5 / 10 points (or 50%) when you normalize it.  Ouch.  I guess that’s the beauty (and downfall) of curving.  I wish they had made it a bit more challenging… I’m one of those type of people who will probably miss 2-3 problems regardless.  Nothing conceptual, but my mind isn’t always in the details.

Wednesday was LEAD, and it was a standard “case” exam… the only non-multiple-choice exam of the week.  It was challenging, but mostly because it counted for 0% of our final grade (practice, I guess?)  The incentive structure wasn’t strong enough to keep me from being distracted throughout the exam.  I wandered over to Google Reader and read through various economics blogs for about one hour of the allotted three.  Oops.

Tomorrow is TOM (Ops Mgmt), and it’s the only truly challenging exam of the bunch.  Everyone’s a bit worried about it (and studying for hours).  But, seriously?  Why?  Like most of HBS, even the multiple-choice-exams have less to do with cramming facts and more to do with being awake and sharp while the exam is going on.  (Thinking about that… there’s probably a huge market here for nootropics.)

]]> http://www.insidehbs.com/midterm-exam-week/feed/ 1 The RC First Semester Courses http://www.insidehbs.com/the-rc-first-semester-courses/ http://www.insidehbs.com/the-rc-first-semester-courses/#comments Tue, 14 Oct 2008 01:05:31 +0000 rob http://www.insidehbs.com/?p=100 Continue reading →]]> As we approach midterms next week, I thought it might be a good idea to briefly comment on each of the courses we have the first semester.  First, it’s worth mentioning that HBS designs their curriculum so that every student takes the exact same courses taught the same way their first a.k.a. “required curriculum” (RC) year.  So, the Private Equity guru sits in Finance class next to the Marketing and Sales guy.  This is unusual among b-schools.  Most will test people into various levels of courses.  There are a number of reasons for this, but I think it just serves to emphasize that HBS is far less about technical knowledge and more about imprinting rapid information filtering and clear defensible decision-making via the case method.

So, without further ado, here are the classes every RC takes:

  1. LEAD: Leadership and Organizational Behavior
  2. TOM: Technology and Operations Management
  3. FRC: Financial Reporting and Control (aka. Accounting)
  4. MKT: Marketing
  5. FIN1: Finance I

At some point I’ll have to go through and discuss each of the courses in some depth, but for now I’ll leave you with that ranking (with #1 being my favorite and #5 being my least favorite).  One important point to note: I’ve found that my enjoyment of a course is directly related to how good the professor is.  As interactive and self-guided as the HBS case experience is, a steady and experienced professor is an absolute necessity.  My LEAD and TOM professors are phenomenal, and it shows through in the classes… the discussions are dynamic, thoughts move quickly, and new insights and experiences spring from my classmates without effort.

Stack of Finance Cases

FIN1 Books & Cases *

Some of the other courses… are less so spectacular.  I had lunch with a Professor last week and he expressed his amazement at how strongly HBS encourages teaching (over research).  This was in direct contrast to his experience at a few other leading business schools, and I can definitely agree with his observation.  At the same time, even with the strong incentives HBS sets forth, there are still professors that need a bit more experience.  Guiding a case method discussion really requires a lot of very difficult skills.  When it works, it’s a marvelous experience.  When it doesn’t, frustration abounds on all parts.

*[So far, FIN1 is the only class with actual books (which we've seldom used).  All learning is via cases.]

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