Break through

Today's Leadership and Organizational Behavior case was one of the most powerful discussions we've had yet as a section. For the first time, our conversation reached the point where, in the wake of an especially personal comment, someone had to break out the Kleenexes and pass them among the rows. After a standing ovation we fell completely silent. Some of us were dabbing at eyes and all of us were pretty hesitant to follow that contribution with any of our own. Our cases in the past few LEAD classes have turned markedly introspective, which is important but rare in the daily bustling about that is an MBA student's life. For a moment we glimpsed an entirely different level of what this learning experience and section can be. Considering where we're starting from, that's a very high level indeed.

Section advance

One of the annual rituals for incoming HBS classes is the fall section retreat. This generally involves an excursion to a semi-rural part of New England in the company of almost all of your 90 section mates, plus a few spouses (very few are unable to make it, and those that do usually have quite reasonable excuses, such as week-old twins). It's less than 48 hours in total, but in that time many people consume copious amounts of alcohol and generally take actions that place the security deposit at continual risk. I'm not a drinker, and even if I was I wouldn't enjoy drunkenness, so to the extent that our social activities revolve around rapid ingestion of alcohol I'm not a central figure. Nonetheless there's something about being out of your normal surroundings that leads to a refreshing openness to connecting with each other. In random corners of the different houses we rented, at various hours of the day or night, you could find people you don't normally get to speak with and strike up an insightful conversation on some topic or another, if that's what you were looking for.

The best medicine

We laugh a lot in our section. I'd never considered this feature of HBS life before coming here, but it's a plus. It's not unusual for us to break out in laughter two or three times per class. This happens more often in some courses than in others, and surprisingly enough accounting is consistently at the top of the hilarity rankings. Sometimes the laughter occurs because of a comment that someone makes, intentionally or not, that momentarily stops the conversation. Other sections have instituted a "Mr. Obvious" award for the person who, in an attempt to respond to the professor's query ends up merely restating exactly what was asked. Such comments almost always lead to an unexpected, stunned pause where everyone, including the professor, is at a loss for words. One of our professors like to regale us with tales of accounting chicanery that are invariably amusing and more instructive than you might think. It's a good sign that we can laugh together, and generally with instead of at each other (and that people can laugh at themselves). The learning process can be quite serious without being humorless, which makes for a more enjoyable MBA experience, and a better section rapport to boot.

In the bubble

One of the phenomena that comes with having a complete, self-contained campus is the HBS "bubble." It's very real, particularly for those who live on campus; our entire worlds can be found within a 2-minute walk of where we sleep. Almost all of the buildings are also connected by subterranean tunnels, which means that come winter it's possible to go days without ever setting foot outside a campus building. Even the main Harvard campus, separated from the business school by the Charles River, can seem distant. This past week recruiting for summer internships began in earnest, with numerous employers giving presentations each day for the next few weeks, ratcheting the intensity and activity level up yet another notch. It's amazing how quickly the world inside HBS becomes the only place you think of , and how everything outside of it is temporarily set aside. The fact remains that one day in the not-too-distant future, the HBS bubble will go away, and the real world, for better or worse, will once again be all that we have.