Monday, September 06, 2004
55 hours???
On Friday we had a presentation about the first term. One of the things they covered was time management. I was surprised to hear that they expected us to spend about 55 hours a week just in study groups, classes, and preparing cases. 55 hours! That's a lot of time each week. It's based on 13 classes a week, 1 case per class, 1 hour of study group a day, 2 hours per case, and 80 minutes per class. When I was here for admit weekend it didn't seem like HBS was very hard core about studying, but maybe I was mistaken. In addition to all that, there are also myriad clubs, sporting events, speakers, and career sessions to attend as well.
On the plus side, I prepared 3 cases today and it only took me about 4 hours, which is considerably less than 6 hours. It was a little odd preparing a marketing case, given that I've never taken a marketing class in my life, but it's cool.
This weekend was pretty relaxed. We went for a hike near Gloucester (bonus points if you can pronounce it correctly) which was supposed to be around 6 miles, but we got lost so we wound up hiking around 8.5 miles total. It was pretty, though, and two of the guys we were with had a good sense of direction, so it worked out.
One nice thing about doing things with HBS people is that there are enough take charge types so I can sit back and relax. I'm more of a consensus builder than a decision maker, so it's nice to be able to chill out while other people decide what's going on.
On the plus side, I prepared 3 cases today and it only took me about 4 hours, which is considerably less than 6 hours. It was a little odd preparing a marketing case, given that I've never taken a marketing class in my life, but it's cool.
This weekend was pretty relaxed. We went for a hike near Gloucester (bonus points if you can pronounce it correctly) which was supposed to be around 6 miles, but we got lost so we wound up hiking around 8.5 miles total. It was pretty, though, and two of the guys we were with had a good sense of direction, so it worked out.
One nice thing about doing things with HBS people is that there are enough take charge types so I can sit back and relax. I'm more of a consensus builder than a decision maker, so it's nice to be able to chill out while other people decide what's going on.
