HBS found me an apartment within walking distance of campus. It wasn’t a nice part of Cambridge and there were cockroaches. I moved in, cleaned it poorly, but eliminated the cockroaches. Later, when I saw them entering under the door, I added a poison strip just inside to keep them out. I planned to find another apartment after a year, so this was ok.
The evening of the day I started at HBS I met my friend Joe while standing in line. He suggested that we go to dinner in a Harvard Square restaurant, and I agreed. We walked around a bit and he suggested a Japanese restaurant for sushi – I had spent a month in Japan when I was thirteen, but had never tried sushi. I enjoyed it a lot, particularly the wasabi. Later he introduced me to Indian food; overall, he started me on a lifelong interest in different cuisines.
First Year
As HBS’ experimental DBA group mostly didn’t have MBA’s they ran a special program to cover the needed broadening material. This was my first introduction to case teaching – where you are given the case with a few questions and are expected to have analyzed the case when you come to class. For the first semester this went well, I enjoyed the material, and didn’t feel so much that I was learning but that I was getting smarter. As there were fewer than thirty people in my group, I knew everyone, talked with them, and led a sheltered life.
The second semester I took a second year MBA class; I clearly remember the first time I spoke in this very-competitive, sixty-person class: I put my hand up, the instructor called on me, the room darkened except for a tunnel of light from me to him, I said something, he figuratively patted me on the shoulder, and I don’t remember the rest of the class. After that it was easier.
As doctoral students we had more opportunity than MBA students to talk with faculty: while working for them as research or teaching assistants, in the faculty club, and at social functions. After talking with dozens, I realized that I’d never met a group of people more willing to say “I don’t know.” (This wasn’t the same in the colleges where I later taught, where many of the faculty felt they were experts in everything.)
My first year at HBS was successful except for marketing. Our marketing instructor called me to his office and said: “You’re in finance, aren’t you?” I agreed. He said: “I can see that you’ve been working hard at it, but you don’t really understand marketing, do you?” I agreed. He said: “If you promise never to offer an opinion on a marketing question I’ll give you a low pass. Do you agree?” (A low pass was the lowest passing grade.) Of course I agreed. (I’d been to dinner at his house and admired some of his collected art, but I doubt this affected his judgment.)
Someone I’d gotten to know and like left at the end of the first year. His grades were in the bottom half of the class – but he passed everything. His problem was that he’d been the smartest person and valedictorian of every school he’d ever attended. He just couldn’t accept that there was a group where he couldn’t do that, so he left. It was apparent to the rest of us that the only area where we could possibly be best was in our best area – and maybe not there.
The experimental DBA group ranged from 4-24 years of working experience. MBA students generally had 2-6 years of work experience. HBS’ faculty was mixed: about half had DBA’s from HBS and had previously been MBA students there with some work experience. But the remainder of the faculty were from programs that didn’t require work experience and usually had none. The senior faculty enjoyed the opportunity to learn of our experiences, but some of the junior faculty found us intimidating. We didn’t value their education and degrees as much as they thought we should – and they didn’t like hearing “It’s not like that” from us.
Second Year
After the first year I began to take more courses in finance (at HBS) and economics (at Harvard College and MIT). We were lucky; we could take courses wherever we wanted. At that time, the HBS finance doctoral students believed economics courses were better taught at MIT and econometrics courses were better taught at Harvard College. My experience in two courses at MIT was particularly notable.
Introductory macroeconomics at MIT was taught by Paul Samuelson. The first American to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, he was known for writing “the definitive paper” in economic sub-fields – pulling together in one place all of the important thought and research in a sub-field. I certainly wasn’t going to miss such an opportunity, and signed up for his course. Each day he passed out his notes for the day’s lecture. At the start of the class they appeared to be a perfect example of schizophrenic writing, by the end of the class (and afterwards) they made perfect sense.
Microeconomics was different; I went to class and listened carefully, all the words made sense but I couldn’t follow the logic. I was completely lost and talked about this with my friend Jonathan. He suggested I talk to his faculty advisor. I told him of my problem, he asked about my background and then told me I was using the wrong book. He said they assume you know microeconomics and are teaching you linear algebra; but you know linear algebra and need to learn microeconomics. “Try this book.” he said, handing it to me, “Bring it back after you buy your own.” That worked. The new book made sense and I did well in the course.
Running
In my second year I took up running. This turned out to be a major help to me. First, because it helped me handle the stress that I felt. Second, because I usually ran with my friend Jim – which gave me a chance to talk over what I was experiencing and hear what Jim was experiencing. I doubt that I would have made it through the program without those runs.
We ran virtually every day and worked up to an hour. This was three times around Fresh Pond, where we usually ran. We ran slowly – my only running pace – Jim could run much faster. One evening when we were at the far side of the pond, a runner passed us at about twice our speed, looking half asleep and so light on his feet that it appeared that they gently tapped the ground each stride. After looking at some Runners Magazine pictures we decide that it was Bill Rodgers, who won the Boston Marathon four times around this period.
Tests Before Thesis
Before you could start on your thesis you had to pass three tests. The first test was a complex case analysis. You were given the case on a Friday afternoon and turned in your write-up Monday morning. Sometime during the week you defended your written analysis against three faculty members. Sixty percent failed the test the first time. I was thrilled: I received two satisfactory’s and one low pass – I passed. My friend Pierre received three outstanding’s – the first time in the history of HBS! Wow!
The second test was just for finance majors and was on economics. My microeconomics and econometrics were strong, but my macroeconomics was weak as I’d just had the one course. A friend from Nigeria tutored me, which made learning it well enough to pass possible. But my real difficulty was psychological: I’d never worked as hard as I could at anything! I felt that if I did my best and failed it would be worse than not trying my best and failing, because I wouldn’t have the “I could have done it if…” excuse. Happily, I was finally mature enough to recognize the problem and actually did my best – studied all waking hours – and passed.
The third test was a discussion of your planned thesis area – also defended against three faculty members. The official rule was that you could wait until you were ready. But it had been instant dislike between my assigned faculty advisor and me. He told me “You’re not ready, so you have to take it as soon as possible.” I did, but I was lucky: I had chosen an area so narrow that I could virtually memorize all of the articles in the area, which I had done. The faculty members didn’t have enough time to do the same. They had broader knowledge and could better assess the implications – but I’d though longer about it. I happily remember the door opening and the committee chairman holding out his hand and saying “Congratulations!” while seeing my advisor looking unhappy behind him.
Good Luck In Your New Endeavors
At the end of our first thesis year, HBS sent us a survey, asking what else we had been doing while working on our thesis. I told the truth: I’d been teaching and consulting while working on it, a third of my time for each part. They responded with a letter that ended: “Good luck in your new endeavors.” It arrived on a Saturday. I talked about it with my friend Jeanne, who said: “You told the truth? Why? Didn’t you see what they were doing?” No, I didn’t see it. (She saw everything! She was the most politically astute person I’ve ever met.)
On Sunday, I visited my uncle for advice (the same uncle who was on the faculty at Case, now retired and living near Boston, please see my Undergraduate College post). He said: “They’re trying to get your attention. They want you to come in and say that you’ll work to get back in.” So that’s what I did. My particular hurdle was completing the theoretical part of my thesis. (HBS was accused by other finance schools of not being theoretical enough; we were a means to refute this.) The theoretical part was a mathematical model of how I thought the financial management of municipalities affected their borrowing cost.
My problem with the math was that my head wouldn’t let me sleep more than two hours before waking me with dreams of equations and what I should be doing with them. It took me four months of sleep-for-two-hours-work-until-too-sleepy to finish. The last six weeks were a back-and-forth with my committee as they tried to have me make the model more complex without actually requiring it. I kept answering their questions with new uses of the simpler model. Eventually they accepted my thesis proposal and HBS readmitted me. Either I’d answered enough questions or they just decided that I’d done enough work.
What To Do Next?
I continued consulting and teaching, but gave priority to my thesis. When the end of the thesis was in sight I began considering what to do next. I had more choices than most. As my mentor was HBS’ specialist on investment banking, his recommendation was a guarantee of a good job in those firms – and I was the first person he’d been willing to mentor. But I didn’t like New York City; it was too big and for some reason I didn’t care about making a lot of money. So I never really considered it. Ditto for full time consulting; 80-100 hour weeks forever didn’t attract me.
So I started looking for teaching jobs. HBS was a possibility – but not in finance, in “control”, HBS’ superset of accounting. This was an interesting and exciting possibility, but it meant eighty-hour weeks – not because it was required (it wasn’t) but because it would be necessary for me to meet the standard: first rate teaching and first rate research. So I looked at colleges considered “Harvard satellites” – while not officially associated, they had many HBS graduates on the faculty and emphasized case teaching.
While I was exploring where to go I received a phone call from George Low, the president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). Low’s previous job had been to put men on the moon – I was thrilled to speak with him. He told me that he considered HBS’ experiment to be an opportunity to upgrade RPI’s management school. He wanted to staff much of the school with people who had worked, not just studied about working, and particularly wanted people with science and engineering backgrounds. This sounded exciting to me, so I visited. During my conversations with people there it was clear that the students were great – engineering undergraduates like I knew at Case – and that RPI was committed to improving teaching. So I and three of my friends, Jim, Jeanne, and Pierre (yes, that Pierre) decided to go to RPI.
July 20, 2020