A look into how students really felt over winter break.
Continuing a yearslong tradition at HBS, RCs and ECs handed in their travel diaries upon re-entering Spangler for the first time in seven weeks (only five short weeks for RCs). Disoriented, many thought the SAS team members collecting journals were simply there to take their coats. Students then proceeded into Spangler, only to find new, beautiful, expensive, functional furniture that would occupy at least half an hour of their daily complaining time for a week.
SAS handed over the travel journals to the Harbus Travel Correspondent, Tripp Aweek, who provided the following quotes to our editorial team based on a deep reading of all journals. Tripp spent 10 hours reviewing these quotes, so it is believed he spent more time than all professors combined did on grading finals.
Quotes from HBS Travel Diaries:
- “I am on day 17 and country number 12—I am beginning to regret traveling to this few countries over break and wasting one full day in each to check them off my bucket list. Will need to totally rethink my strategy for spring break.”
- “I cannot believe Jessica split the DAMN BILL evenly, since I only had three cocktails, not four. Absolutely zero consideration to anyone else in the group. Selfish as ever.”
- “I am really glad that I spent five years in consulting and staying in luxury hotels and am now sharing a bed with two other people in a disgusting AirBnB so I can afford all these trips—SO GLAD I CHOSE TO COME TO BUSINESS SCHOOL. SO GLAD. SO GLAD.”
- “I felt really bad abandoning two of my friends at the lounge entrance, but a two-guest limit is a two-guest limit.”
- “THIS HAS BEEN TRANSFORMATIONAL. I have LOVED understanding the people of this foreign land and really GETTING IN to the culture. I have never seen a Marriott so in tune with a country as this one.”
- “I went in thinking that a trip with seven people in my section that I absolutely can’t stand would be a good idea. And it turns out, I absolutely can’t stand them.”
Tripp also provided statistics on the travel journals:
- 142 students confessed to waiting up late at night or waking up early to check grades given their timezones, and they later denied, to themselves, that they cared about grades
- 492 friendships were ruined, 617 friendships were created, 19 relationships were ended, and 14 relationships will be ending based on the events over HBS travel
- 104 dinners were ruined due to pointless political debates over cocktails
Tripp Aweek is the Harbus Travel Correspondent and has more points than The Points Guy.
