Debrief

Semester one is officially over. This is the most intense of the four terms, both in the number of classes and in the flurry of extra-curricular activity. Most of this has settled down, and the second term will probably be a bit more relaxed, but not by much - overscheduling is a perennial trait of MBA students.

All quiet

The student center is nearly deserted, with the only sound that of the fireplaces burning softly in the background, on yet another icy Boston evening. For first-year students four out of five final exams are behind us, and the one that remains is the most qualitative of the lot, meaning that most people are taking it easy tonight. Tomorrow will be marked by packing and flights and cabs as we scatter, literally, to the four corners of the earth. At lunch a classmate mentioned how remarkable it is that at HBS we're pulled together from incredibly varied places for an intense period of time, dispersed in an instant, and then pulled back just as quickly, come January, for another term. The new seating charts were released today, and unlike the first time around we have the context gained from a full semester to interpret them. I'm down in front, seated in the evocatively-titled worm deck described in a previous post. My view of the class will be different, but change in perspective is a good thing. As an elementary school student, I played the role of Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, one of whose lines comes to mind: "They have made worms' meat of me..."

Home stretch

All first-year students had their last case discussions today. During the next two days we have wrap-up classes for each of the five courses, and then we go into finals, one per day, roughly four hours each, for five days. And like that, the first semester, half of our first-year experience, draws to a close.

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.