
Business School is a Joke - imgabe
http://web.archive.org/web/20080402234209/insixitive.com/2006/12/03/business-school-is-a-joke/
======
dschobel
For a different point of view.

Coming from an engineering background, I sat in on an entrepreneurship class
at UChicago Booth and I was totally blown away.

The angle was completely different. The previous class the students were all
given the details about hypothetical ventures with some background on the
market and they were asked to say whether they would invest or not invest
should such a proposal cross their desk.

Then the class I was in, the big twist was that a lot of the ventures were
real, and the founders were there that day.

The experience of being there when a room full of really bright and really
accomplished kids learned that the company that 9/10 had passed on became a
multi-million dollar success was priceless (and vice-versa). The message was
unmistakeable.

Regarding the student body: I struck up a conversation with an enrolled
student next to me, and it turns out the guy was one of the first 10 employees
at ICQ. Pretty cool.

Take which anecdote (mine or the author's) you will. Also consider that the
author's program was an undergraduate program and try to remember how
experienced or useful you were at 18-21.

~~~
tsally
UChicago teaches business differently that basically every business school in
the country, so take this anecdote with a grain of salt. The have a
quantitative/scientific focus that many other schools lack. Your example shows
this perfectly, as the professor presented real data to you instead of
fictional data.

On the whole, there is still a large problem with undergraduate degrees in
business.

~~~
jakarta
Actually, I'd argue that among the top 7 business schools, there are certain
distinctions between them that will appeal to different people with different
professional goals.

MIT, UChicago, and Stanford all seem to appeal more to engineering types and
offer a more quantitative / scientific focus.

Wharton is known for their emphasis on finance and is usually ideal for people
wanting to become IBankers.

Columbia has its roots in Benjamin Graham-style investing and you'll see a lot
of students there go on to those types of hedge funds.

Harvard is more regarded for its emphasis on management and heavy use of case
studies, and the people that go there tend to seek out consulting or
rotational programs within the F500.

~~~
tsally
Fair point, but you have to consider where the distinctions come from. For
example, at MIT I'd be willing to bet the quantitative focus comes from the
fact that many engineers who go there pick us business as a second degree as
an undergrad. At Chicago, the quantitative/scientific focus stems from the
fact that the department truly believes in it as a method of investigation.
Chicago is all about the raw data and real life case studies. It's my
understanding that many other business departments differ in this respect.

Of course, this is all anecdotal evidence I've gathered from talking to
Chicago alumni, so take it for what you will.

------
zaidf
I have been on both sides of this feeling. In my freshman and sophomore year,
I believed school was crap. Here are the feelings and attitudes I had:

1\. school can't teach me much

2\. I already know so much

3\. Gosh why am I here?

4\. Am I ever going to use this?

I was so turned off by the busi100 classes that I gave up even applying for
business. Instead, I chose the easiest major on campus(communications) in
hopes that I can quickly get my degree requirements and then drop in to higher
level busi classes bypassing the annoying b-school prerequisites.

So after sophomore year I took a 3 semester break. During that time, I was
working on my startup and living life as a non-student. It is also when I
realized the holes in my "skillset"(for a lack of better word). I returned to
school with a new attitude: I am going to nitpick classes to fill up the
obvious holes.

My attitude upon return:

1\. I have stuff to learn

2\. I will take very specific classes fill up specific holes

3\. I don't expect the class in itself to teach me as much as for it to
provoke thought in me

My experience has been a complete opposite since return. I have learned _a
tonne_ from a few specific classes(sales management, market strat, market
analysis). I am a startup guy. So when I say learned, I am talking about very
practical shit that I am putting to use _right now_.

It's all about the attitude IMO. A subtle thing I realized: the classes in
itself might not teach you but they can provoke thought in you that pushes you
to learn specific stuff yourself that you wouldn't have known about.

If you think school can't teach you anything, take time off! It'll validate or
invalidate your thinking.

~~~
robryan
I would say the same, a lot of the uni I've done, especially the straight
computer science stuff has been basic looks which I picked up before I took
the classes online.

There are though benefits in that these classes kind of force you to take a
slower and more in depth look at some things and you end up learning the area
better. I know with my operating systems class, I already knew a lot of the
basics about how it all worked, but taking the focus to learn it well taught
be quiet a bit I think.

------
mr_november
I feel the HN title is a touch misleading - when I hear B-school, I think MBA,
maybe that's just me. The fact that this is undergrad is significant. In my
opinion, thought leaders, both from the external 'business' world as well as
top professors, often feel it is a waste of their time teaching undergrads,
many of whom are there because it is what one is supposed to do (ie. go out
and get an education) rather than because they really want to, and have paid
out of their own pocket, to be there, which is most often the case with MBA's.

I know that in my Computer Science undergrad, while I was interested in
learning, I was more interested in living the student life. I just recently
finished an MBA and while it fell short on some fronts, the talent of the
professors, many of whom were doing real work and affecting change in the real
world, did not disappoint, especially in the fully elective 2nd year. Further,
students have much more to contribute after they have done, and have been
vetted on what they have done, in the years after finishing their undergrad,
rather than on what clubs they joined in their first of year of general
undergrad. Undergrad Business degree != MBA.

~~~
fhirzall
Long time lurker here =).

Agreed, I'm doing an M.S now (non-business) and I've always been under the
impression that the MBA crowd is a little bit older - not too old, but people
that have had a few years of experience in an industry. Don't quote me on this
but don't most Ivy MBA programs require 3-5 years of actual work experience
for acceptance?

I also have a few friends doing MBAs and most of what they do involves case
studies of real companies and problems that they faced.

\-- Not advocating everyone go out there and get an MBA, but the title should
mention that it's undergrad business school.

------
danteembermage
Most of the ivies do not have undergraduate business programs, probably for
this very reason. In that context the MBA makes more sense; acquire a broad
quality liberal arts education as an undergraduate (electrical engineering,
math, Spanish, philosophy, sociology, ...) and then supplement with the best
parts of management, marketing, finance, supply chain management, IT, and
accounting. The undergrad major is more a supply and demand story; students
irrationally demand it so it gets supplied. Good luck getting a management
position with your management undergrad degree and good luck going to graduate
school with the skills you've acquired. But they sign up in droves so...

That said there are definitely skills acquired in a finance or accounting or
IT program. I can't say for sure with marketing but I would suspect to a
lesser degree them too. His beef seems to be primarily with a management major
and I'm totally sympathetic to that point.

------
jasonlbaptiste
"Mandatory group work ... teaches kids how to assign tasks to people who
aren’t capable of doing them, how to schedule wasteful meetings to re-format
and explain individuals’ work, and how to make bad and inconsistent PowerPoint
presentations."

So much group work I had in college started out with "keep meeting with your
team". It was all just an exercise in seeing how much time we could waste in
pointless meetings. Of course when I tried to delegate work, so we could
actually accomplish things and waste less time in meetings, some silly girl
tattle taled on me saying: "Jason doesn't want us to meet enough".

------
frederickcook
Having context to put lessons in is very important for effective academic
learning (or almost any learning).

For an engineer, learning electrical theory from a text book makes a lot more
sense if you have toyed around with an Arduino before.

For an undergraduate business major who may never have seen a P&L statement,
let alone put one together, I can see that it would be tough to find the
subject useful or engaging. This is why most MBA programs won't consider
applicants until they have some industry experience. Academic learning works
much better when you have a foundation to build on, and for an undergraduate
studying business, it seems it would be easy to become disenfranchised without
this foundation.

------
coffeemug
First, being _consistently ranked beside MIT’s, UPenn’s, and Stanford’s_ is
not the same thing as being at MIT, UPenn, or Stanford. Second, this kind of
thing is much more valuable once you're older and have some perspective (hence
the MBA). Business degrees are generally about operational aspects of running
a business, not the startup aspects, so if you expect them to teach you how to
build a run-away success you're in for a disappointment. That doesn't mean a
business degree isn't valuable (in and of itself it doesn't mean it's valuable
either, but at least you should know what you're getting into).

------
AFerenci
I just recently graduated from a top undergraduate b-school program. As an
entrepreneur, I don't see anything that enticing about going back to get an
MBA. Even if I was accepted into a top tier program. Why you ask?

Well, I am going to provide a very subjective opinion here, but would love to
get some responses...

Most top ranked MBA programs cater to those who want to do one of 4 things
after they graduate:

1\. Become an Associate/VP in Private Equity 2\. Become an Associate/VP in a
Hedge Fund/Trading 3\. Become an Associate in Management Consulting 4\. Become
a corporate executive

Now an MBA has some real benefit for those entering these fields and there is
nothing wrong there. If you're an entrepreneur, I don't really see the added
benefit of getting an MBA. Most of the knowledge obtained in the coursework
can be learned through experience or just by picking up some literature (see
"The 10-day MBA" by Steven Silbiger). From many seasoned entrepreneurs I've
spoken with, an MBA limits the time you could be spending starting your
business (unless you can start while in your program like Jerry Yang or
Sergey/Larry)

There is an advantage through networking with other like-minded entrepreneurs
in your program and using the school's resources, but it pretty much stops
there.

The one exception I would make for an MBA program really benefiting the
entrepreneur is hands down...Stanford.

Stanford has the proximity to the Valley and also the roster of success
stories (yahoo, google, HP, Cisco, Sun) but it's real value is that it serves
as an ad-hoc incubator for start-up innovation. Just take a minute and
subscribe to the free podcasts from the STVP (Stanford Technology Ventures
Program) on itunes and you'll get an idea of why Stanford seems to be the only
program that values entrepreneurship.

If anyone can think of other MBA programs that help entrepreneurs, I would
like to hear about them.

------
silverlake
On the MBA, a few friends w/ science backgrounds said they cruised through top
10 b-schools without much effort. They did it only to transition from science
to business careers quickly. Their advice was to skim an intro finance &
marketing book. The rest was crap.

------
grandalf
A school like Michigan draws from kids whose high school experience may be
quite varied; as a result most intro classes are extremely slow, memorization
intensive, and focus on very crude sorts of assignments and testing.

When these sorts of classes are used as admissions criteria for special
programs (such as the BBA) you end up with a huge amount of competitiveness
even though the material is easy.

The inevitable consequence of this is a lot of busy work, etc., so that some
students eventually stand out as having done a better job at learning easy
material and can be awarded the prize (admission to the BBA program, etc.).

I was shocked by the phenomenon of students ganging up on the professors to
make tests "open note", and other approaches that allow less able students who
are willing to use brute force approaches to thrive.

Note: In life, intelligence isn't really all that important, so the students
have the right idea and so the rewards they reap for that behavior probably
predict future economic rewards.

------
Vladik
An undergraduate degree in this country teaches you how to become a worker
bee. If you like being a worker bee, getting a decent(?) salary, taking 2
weeks and then later in life maybe 6 weeks vacation, by all means study
business, marketing, etc. Otherwise, get educated.

"Self education is, I firmly believe, the only kid of education there is."
-Isaac Asimov

If only we could have a few more people every year become free thinkers and
creators.

~~~
julius_geezer
Didn't Asimov do an advanced degree in chemistry?

~~~
Vladik
Yes he did. Medicine, law, engineering, mathematics, etc., most people will
need to go to college and graduate programs. Tough to self-educate in those
areas.

------
dlevine
There's an interesting book called "Managers Not MBAs", written by a professor
of business, which talks about why the MBA system is pretty broken.

IMO, studying business as an undergrad is pretty useless. Study something real
(science or engineering), and if you want to learn about business later, go to
business school (or start a company if you really want to learn about
business).

~~~
coryl
LOL @ studying something "real" like science or engineering.

My friend, you wouldn't last a day in the Amazonian jungle with a native
tribe. (Anthropology, but thats not real.)

Study what you love first and foremost, even if thats business. Everything
else will fall into place.

~~~
argv_empty
_Anthropology, but thats not real._

At the undergrad level, maybe not. At higher levels, most things become a lot
more real. Of course, you aren't likely to be doing that sort of field work as
an undergrad anyway (or so I hear from high school friends who went on to
study anthropology in college).

~~~
coryl
I have a friend who went to South America the summer after 2nd year. Also a
roommate who went to Peru after 3rd year, but she had to apply and interview
to go with the prof.

------
jeffvincent
I thought I would chime in, since I think my experience is slightly unique.

I enrolled in undergrad at Boston University as a Computer Systems and Physics
major. After two horrible years of all-nighters and poor grades, I came to the
realization that I didn't even like the jobs I would be lined up for (this was
shortly after the dot com bubble burst) or the people I was going to be
working with.

So I left the major and completed my degree from tiny Ithaca College as an
Integrated Marketing Communications major.

Now, after a few years in the professional world as an ad exec, I'm pursuing
my MBA from Boston College.

So coming from a mix engineer/marketing background, I can say that business
school as a whole plays it far too safe. They dumb down the math requirements,
and they don't push the "soft skills" enough either. Our "soft skills" class
was treated pretty universally as a joke, and yet I didn't leave my corporate
finance class feeling any more knowledgeable in that area either.

After a recent trip to Palo Alto, I have been dreaming about the opportunities
that would be in front of me if I had pursued my MBA at Stanford, instead of
taking the easy way out to Boston College. But in reality, I find the true
value in b-school to be from your fellow classmates, network of alumni, and
time you spend actually thinking about business.

Let me elaborate a little on that last point. This is the first time in my
(short) career I've been able to read articles, discuss them with professors,
and spend time critiquing existing business models. While this time spent
won't show up on any transcripts, I think it will be invaluable to my future
prospects.

I'll cut this comment short - but I encourage all to evaluate both the student
body and the network of alumni before choosing a b-school. These are easily
the two strongest aspects of the education you will take away afterwards.

all the best, jeff vincent

------
jason_tko
Background : I started a business and managed to build it out with no formal
education at all.

I often wonder whether formal education in business would have helped me, or
hindered me.

I'm certain the structured information contained in a structured business
course would have been useful.

At the same time, when I was starting out, I did a lot of things that no
reasonable educational institution would advocate just to get through the
month and make payday. During all of this, I was reading and learning as fast
as I could about all of the numerous knowledge gaps I began to realise I had,
as I came up against various walls.

After years of experience in running a business, when I read books about
business/sales/marketing/economics, it's far easier to process and understand
the theory.

I think any kind of education about business is valuable, but I also think
it's 10 times more valuable if you have some kind of real-life experience to
which you can map the theory.

------
gkoberger
I have always thought business school would be a lot better off if people were
forced to read people like Seth Godin or even Chris Anderson.

My problem with business people is that they learn buzz words and jargon, and
often treat the "makers" as tools. I would have a lot more respect for
b-school if business majors were forced to pick a "concentration"-
engineering, CS, etc. They wouldn't be expected to be great at their
concentration; they just would need to know enough about what the people
they're managing do.

I love this line: "For one, it’s harder to teach engineering to a marketer
than it is to teach marketing to an engineer."

It's my belief that most engineers or programmers could be great marketers or
business people, if they didn't have to spend all their time creating things.
Business people have time on their side- they don't really have to make
anything, so they can spend more time getting ahead.

~~~
jraines
I don't think anyone is going to be cured of buzzworditis by being forced to
read Godin and Anderson.

Can I interest you in my biz, which is a freemium play on a purple cow
concept? We just need enough money to get through The Dip.

~~~
dtegart
That is true. Also any specialized profession is going to have jargon just
because it makes it easier to discuss things.

------
endtime
I dated a finance major (in the undergrad business school) for two years when
I was at Georgetown. My impression of her classes was the same - that they
were training, not education, and intellectually void.

That said, she's now a successful analyst at Merrill, so she must have gotten
something out of it.

~~~
jmm
Depends what you mean by "something," I suppose. Pedigree and pathway, sure.
Knowledge and real training? That's the issue being discussed here.

~~~
endtime
Pedigree and pathway would get her hired, but not make her successful. She got
5/5 ratings in her recent reviews.

~~~
jmm
This is a silly back and forth until you can point at the "something" she got
from b-school aside from pathway and pedigree. Again, that's what's being
discussed. It's certainly possible that the degree got her the job, yet her
own natural intelligence, undergrad experience, or professional experience led
to her success. And /not/ the b-school curriculum.

~~~
endtime
Yeah, I suppose that's reasonable - in fact, it's probably true.

------
coryl
I would largely agree that a business education doesn't prepare you for
entrepreneurship. But it isn't exactly valueless. Here's some of the courses
and concepts I liked about MY business education:

\- Case studies: in accounting/biz analysis class, we learned by studying
fictional and real case studies, from jewelery startups started by 2 former
students to mid-sized soda manufacturing companies. You get a background about
the founders, some key market factors, relevant prices and financial figures,
etc. You then come up with your own conclusions and rationalize why, and
present your findings under a Socratic teaching environment.

Strategy course + game simulation: The strategy game was a lot of fun, you get
together with your group and try to take over the shoe business by building
factories in 4 continents, setting prices, budgets, R&D, etc. It also based
its currencies against real world currencies. Every week, you got your results
and tried to out-compete other groups.

Operations: My ops prof worked in consulting and bragged to clients that if he
couldn't find a way to save you money in 20 mins, he'd consult for free. He
dives straight into the books and starts crossing out inventory. Why?
Inventory takes storage space, heat, security, insurance. Ops is largely
inapplicable to web startups because it deals with tangibles. But I still
liked learning about it.

I would say business schools aren't really for the hacker/entrepreneur
mindset. They are generally for people who want careers in management.

~~~
iamwil
I hope he thinks about the implications to each business he consults before he
starts crossing inventory out willy-nilly. Most of the time, it might make
sense, and certainly, it's good to question whether you need it.

But just doing so to optimize solely on cost might be a local maxima. You
might impact other less tangible aspects/dimensions/parameters of the business
in a negative way, and usually other people have to suffer at the hands of
MBA's decisions.

~~~
coryl
I'm sure he considers the impact of the decisions along with the clients he
works for.

You are right that other less tangible aspects can be impacted in unforeseen
ways. But that has nothing to do with the decisions of business people or
MBA's. It has to do with leadership and corporate culture.

------
greenlblue
Ha! He makes some good points but he is way wrong about math and econ classes
being better than business classes. It is the same bullshit. Professors are
never right for the job they are doing especially in introductory courses
designed to lay the foundation. We spend 50 minutes covering definitions and
examples that can be covered in less than 20 and we spend 50 minutes because
professors are lazy and the curriculum is divided into 50 minutes for no
apparent reason whatsoever.

------
sili
While I was reading this three separate things sprang in my mind and I think
there is some degree of connection between them. Over the last decade busness
degrees have become more and more popular, leaving engineering and science for
nerds. Also I have seen more high school kids with an Idea that collage is
waste of time and money, they better of trying to make it on their own. It
seems that all these business schools which crunch out PHBs have given bad
reputation to a collage degree.

------
bpang
Currently a MBA student at Stanford Graduate School of Business, I'm also
bootstrapping a startup with two CS graduate students and a seasoned designer.
As an entrepreneur, I can definitely speak for the benefits that Stanford GSB
provides: (1) The Stanford and Stanford GSB networks are both phenomenal.
Alumni are very accessible and connected with the school. Classmates are
highly collaborative and bring contacts from almost every industry you can
think of and want to learn about. To start a business, access to relevant
networks is critical and GSB provides that. (2) Entrepreneurship classes
taught by experienced industry veterans. Some of my favorite classes are
taught by serial entrepreneurs, famous venture capitalists, or legendary
executives including Eric Schmidt, Andy Grove, Mark Leslie, Andy Rachleff,
Audrey MacLean, Mike Lyons, Joe Peterson, and Harold Irving Grousbeck, among
many others. (3) The roster of speakers that come to speak both at GSB and
other parts of Stanford is extremely useful for entrepreneurs. Classes and
clubs invite speakers including Ron Conway, Peter Thiel, Jack Dorsey (founder
of Twitter), Shawn Fanning (founder of Napster), Chad Hurley (founder of
Youtube), Aaron Patzer (founder of Mint.com), Mark Pincus (founder of Zynga),
and many others. STVP (stvp.stanford.edu) and ETL (etl.stanford.edu) are two
other great resources. As a student, you can even take the initiative as a
club leader to approach some of the most successful people in the valley to
come speak. (4) Stanford GSB has a Center for Entrepreneurial Studies which
organizes seasoned entrepreneurs, angels and venture investors to hold 1:1
free advisory sessions with entrepreneurial students to discuss their startup
ideas and help students build the network. I've personally found them very
valuable. (5) Many successful alumni who are entrepreneurs, active angels, or
venture investors often hold intimate networking events, such as as small
group dinners, to meet with entrepreneurial students. It's another way to
network and receive feedback on your startup idea! (6) The school also offers
classes in which students across business school, engineering school and other
schools can work in a team on a startup idea together. Some of these class
projects continued as startups after the class.

Overall, the best value is the access to investor, entrepreneur and industry
networks, the ability to meet other entrepreneurial students, and to receive
advice from some of the best entrepreneurs in the industry.

~~~
hyperbovine
Seriously? Did you even read TFA? The guy is saying that undergrad business
majors are asinine. Probably true even at Stanford. What this has do with with
a nameroll of 300 rich people you're paying $100k a year to rub shoulders
with, I haven't a clue.

~~~
bpang
We all have to admit it. Network is important for one to succeed in business,
in addition to raw talent and a great product. I'm not saying you can bypass
the second two factors with just a network, but with a strong network, it only
helps. Someone can help you introduce the product to the world and someone
very smart can give you great advice, if you don't fool yourself into thinking
you don't need mentoring from some of the best in the industry. I've learned a
great deal by seeking advice from these leaders. I wasn't completely sold on a
MBA before coming to GSB and that's why it took me longer to come than average
classmates. I almost didn't come, with the same perspective you may have.
However, having spent 1.5 years here, I think it's really worthwhile even
though it used up all my savings prior to business school (yes, it's
expensive). I did actually learn valuable lessons from many industry veterans
who are sharing their many years of learning with us about sales, marketing,
management, finance, entrepreneurship, VC, etc. Believe me, I'm a stronger
believer in learning from doing it, as I'm currently building a business while
in school. However, the learning and mentoring I receive is phenomenal to
complement this and the network is extremely valuable.

------
yosho
The stuff you learn in business is more supplemental material for the stuff
you learn in the more hard sciences like engineering. You may have built the
best product, but without marketing, accounting, and operations, the product
still might not succeed in the market.

With that said, I think business school courses should be taken on the side to
the primary engineering courses as that provides the most well rounded
education.

~~~
arpan888
I agree that it is somewhat useful to have these ancillary classes such as
marketing, finance which would complement well with a degree in engineering
i.e. computer science, materials science, biomedical etc.

------
JohnnyBrown
Do programmers/engineers have an inferiority complex vs. Management/MBA types?
I don't see many articles on HN bashing sales professions advising youngsters
not to go to trade school . . .

~~~
iamwil
Probably not. There have just been lots of bad MBAs in the last couple years
that make clueless business decisions, and we've probably suffered under the
hands of one at one time or another. Like asking to measure productivity in
the number of lines of code. Sure, it might seem like it makes sense, but
it'll soon be apparent it doesn't if you've tried to code at all, even just a
little bit.

Having a business sense is great. But when you get MBAs that think that's all
there is, it makes for bad business decisions that engineers have suffered
under. Having some grasp of the actual nature of the business that you're in
will go a long way.

~~~
billswift
I voted you up, but you made one mistake; it should have "MBAs in the last
couple of _decades_ that made clueless business decisions". I have been
reading almost identical complaints about the lack of real value in the MBA
since the early 1990s.

~~~
iamwil
Thanks, but I haven't lived long enough to see MBAs in the 90's. I've only
started working in the 2000's.

I've heard that was the case, but I never looked into what happened in the
90's. Thanks for the heads up.

------
pw0ncakes
Polymorphic business/management = bad idea that has aged even worse.

