Just in time for the end of the semester, HBS’s cross-registered guests are finally settling into the loveable norms the business school students have had forced down their throats for over a year. Though at first these visiting scholars stood out due to their adorable little name-tags, and the fact that they like to sit in the aisles, these students are now fitting in wonderfully.
A cross-registered Sloan student recently reflected upon what HBS has taught him: “After a rocky start, my HBS classmates have really been teaching me valuable lessons. For example, I’ve learned that I shouldn’t raise my hand, and keep it raised, while another student is talking. I also probably shouldn’t raise my hand when the professor is talking. Or before he’s started talking. Or before he’s started class. Or after class is over. And the lights have been turned off.”
A Law School student agreed, and reported a similarly positive experience: “At first, I was having trouble fitting in with the number-crunching monkey-drones that will inevitably one day report to me. But things have definitely improved over the course of the semester, especially after I stopped throwing my pencil at them when they’re wrong.”
“HBS is like, totally teaching me to like, listen, and stuff,” gushed one Kennedy School student, “I used to think that the whole point of raising your hand was to repeat the same thing someone else had already said, verbatim. Because, saying exactly the same thing, word-for-word, validates the original speaker and makes them feel wanted, right? Now though, I’m developing as a leader, and instead of merely repeating things that others have said, I’m now taking five whole minutes to fully develop my repetitive comment, being sure to enrich everyone else’s learning experience by including obscure references to feminist Chilean activists in the 1840’s.”
However, one cross-registered student is still not convinced of the HBS value proposition: “I have to admit that I’m still having trouble understanding what the big deal is about ‘learning through the case method’. I mean, it seems pretty easy to me: the case ends with some questions about what direction a company should take. Well, that’s certainly not so tough to figure out: all you have to do is go to the internet, look up what the company did in real life, read some articles in Business Week analyzing that decision, and come into class the next day and talk about it. Big whup!”
“I can’t believe these suckers are paying 60 grand a year for that!”
