As you were

I'm now back in the working world, sort of, having just begun the customary internship between the two business school years. Suddenly life is a lot like it was for the four years before I moved to Boston, and a lot like it will be for a long time after graduation. Most of my classmates had a few extra days to travel and are now traipsing through Iceland and Japan and other locales exotic to those who aren't from them. I started work early and so will wrap up a few weeks before school starts in September, getting my vacation at the tail end of the summer. Not surprisingly, there are a significant number of HBS people in Manhattan, where I'm working, and some have already been meeting up with each other. Seeking familiarity, I suppose. Switching cities and environments so drastically in the course of a week makes the contrasts with the student world much more apparent. There is something to be said for a discrete 80-minute class two or three times a day, interspersed with the kinds of social and recreational activities that "normal" life just doesn't afford you - tennis (at 2 PM) anyone? Being out of the section environment after such an intense immersion in it for nine months is also quite a change. If you're thinking about business school, seriously consider what the section (or cohort, cluster or other synonymous title) experience is like. There's something to be said for Harvard's approach, which is stricter than most if not all MBA programs: no electives in your first year, no testing out of the required courses, every class taken in the same classroom with the same 89 other people. Sections form their own identities and norms, which can be quite distinct and are probably completely unpredictable at the outset. One section adopted an enormous stuffed lion as a mascot early in the year, sometimes placing it in a seat in their classroom, replete with the requisite name card. Another section would have one of its members wear the giant head of a panda costume to school-wide events, where it could be seen bobbing gleefully above the crowd. There are chants, and cheers, t-shirts and "minners" (more on these forthcoming), drumming/knocking/dancing on desks and so on in a profusion of creativity that's fascinating to watch. These culminate at the end of the year, where the last few days are marked by attempts to jam in one final tradition. Faculty are always applauded at the end of each class, but after the final case discussion they are traditionally presented with gifts. On our final day we wrapped up our entrepreneurship class with one of our most memorable section experiences, which captures much of the essence of what was unique about the first year. For a peek inside, check out this clip of the presentation. It's rife with inside jokes that people outside the section won't get at all, though I assure you they were hilarious, and there's a lot of noise, but it will give you a sense of the classroom vibe. Most of us were not aware it was coming, so our reactions are spontaneous.