Meet Your New Topic Editors! I am constantly amazed by how fast our time at HBS goes by. This month marks my first anniversary with the Harbus and true to form, we are excited to welcome the new crop of Topic Editors who will add investigative, thought-provoking, and well-rounded stories to our pages in the…
James Williams (MBA ’21) introduces us to MasterGlass, a new platform to connect customers with wineries and tasting experts. Tell us more about your background and what inspired you to be an entrepreneur. I have always loved the idea of building a business from the ground up. Our first-year TEM course inspired me and gave…
Raseem Farook (MBA ’21) reports on the first (and hopefully only) edition of Virtual RC START. My favorite event from RC START last year was the Reciprocity Ring. As noted by Gabriel Ellsworth (MBA ‘20) in his article, “RCs Learn to Give and Take,” Harbus, September 2019, this guided collaboration exercise teaches its participants to…
A pocket-sized run-down of some of the best in Arts and Culture happening at HBS, at Harvard, and around town this month. 1) From the Student Association (SA): The SA teamed up with ArtRoom to host the Sheila Del Bosque Trio on March 2 for a night of jazz, refreshments, and conversation in…
Upoma Dutta (MBA ’21) talks with Brickson Diamond and Sarah Harden (MBAs ’99) about their efforts to advance the diversity and inclusion agenda in the U.S. media industry. For many RCs, one of the most remarkable experiences on campus last semester was listening first-hand to civil rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson in the newly created ISDL…
In January, 44 ECs led by Professor Willy Shih (TOM) and Professor Meg Rithmire (BGIE) traveled across Asia to study globalization and international relations on the ground. Gabriel Ellsworth and Ryo Takahashi (MBAs 2020) report. On January 5, 2020, an arduous undertaking was under way as 44 ECs, two professors, two program managers, and staff…
RC students embark on an excursion to New England’s 101-year-old furniture company. Jiyoon Han (MBA ’21) reports. Professor Michael Toffel and 20 Required Curriculum (RC) students embarked on a Technology and Operations Management (TOM) field trip to Jordan’s Furniture in Reading on October 3, 2019. Jordan’s Furniture is a furniture retailer founded 101 years ago…
An ancient civilization restores its “rightful” place in the world, but where does it belong? Ryo Takahashi (MBA ’20) talks with Professor Meg Rithmire. China’s transformation from a rural, agrarian society to an economy second only to that of the United States feels less like a successful growth story and more like a miracle. Underlying…
C’est le provisoire qui dure (“it’s the makeshift that lasts”). Nestled near the end of the case that RCs were assigned for Friday’s BGIE class, this adage was a thought-provoking highlight amidst a dense and challenging account of Bretton Woods and the liberal world order spanning 15½ pages (plus 14 exhibits—ECs, don’t you miss BGIE?)….
Recently two former CEOs of large multinational companies (one British and one American) were talking about the most serious mental health problems that exist in the large American and British universities they each chair. Surprisingly the challenge on both sides of the Atlantic and echoed at two university chair meetings they had just attended was…
Ever since Thomas Edison flipped the switch on the world’s first permanent power station in 1882, energy has flowed in a single direction: from large-scale, centralized generators out to homes and businesses. For a long time, this hub-spoke model made the most sense. Large cities consume a lot of power, and it’s far cheaper to…
This month, as Dear Harby is enjoying a well-deserved October break amid the dunes of Cabo with her counterparts from the Law (Dear Torty), Design (Dear Artsy), and Divinity (Dear God) schools, we wanted to pass along a bit of Harbus humor history. Eleven years ago, one enterprising HBS student set out to examine life…
For ECs returning back to campus after a long summer away from the HBS bubble, the first days have been filled with catching up on friends’ stories of travels, treks and internships. As usual, we have been awed and inspired by the range of our classmates’ professional interests and experiences over the past few months….
There’s something truly special about autumn at Harvard Business School: the electricity in the incoming class, the warm familiarity in section reunions, a campus community overflowing with energy and optimism. For the returning editors and staff writers at The Harbus, just over eight months from graduation, it’s a time of both excitement and undeniable nostalgia….
Machine learning is already a big part of modern life. Machine learning algorithms work in Google’s search results, Spotify’s music recommendations, and Uber’s ride-sharing matches. The use of the technology will accelerate as companies find new applications in finance, health, energy, manufacturing and other sectors. Machine learning brings great opportunities for new businesses, but poses…
Creating a global company with social impact at its heart doesn’t happen overnight. But, as Prodigy Finance demonstrates, it can definitely happen within a matter of years. Cameron Stevens, like any recently-accepted INSEAD candidate, was looking forward to his MBA experience in France. And, like most other grad students, began looking for the financing needed…
Morgan Hall – After the successful launch of Short Intensive Programs (SIPs) this past January, and recognizing the potential that premium dating app subscriptions hold, this week the Accounting Unit announced its latest 2019 SIP offering, “Maximizing Value Through Swiping Right.” “In the true spirit of capitalism, we want to help students build the strongest…
THE VOTES ARE IN: HBS’S MOST ELIGIBLE RC BACHELORS AND BACHELORETTES!
This weekend, the 45th annual HBS Show, Harvard Business School’s long-running satirical look at life on campus, opened to raucous applause, adoring crowds, and maybe even some kudos for taking up the mantle of the #MeToo movement. This year’s show, entitled “The Need-Based Fellowship of the Ring” and (very) loosely based on The Lord of…
Chao Hall – The HBS administration apologized this week for what it termed a “severe lapse in judgment” after a screening of the Academy Award-winning documentary Icarus stimulated honest conversation and genuine interest in geopolitical issues among the student body. “We never intended for this to happen,” remarked administration spokeswoman Phyllis Dean in a…
Boston, MA – In response to student demand for more media offerings that reflect life at HBS, today the Harvard Business School Student Association (SA) announced the launch of Flake, a magazine aimed squarely at the central theme of HBS life. “We noticed that if there’s one defining characteristic of students at HBS, it’s that…
Many of us, dorm residents, don’t realize how privileged we are to be able to sleep, learn and dine without stepping outside at all. If it were not for FGI, it would theoretically be possible to go through the entire RC year without seeing the open-air (!) After all, we are already supposed to go…
On Thursday February 1st, while many RCs were raring to devote a job search day either to skiing in Colorado or to an equally exhilarating interview for that elusive summer internship, hundreds of Class of 2020 Round 1 admits descended upon the HBS campus for Admitted Students’ Weekend (ASW). The visitors encompassed 316 admits, 82…
On March 1, 2018, Microsoft released the latest large-scale dataset for machine reading comprehension and question answering. You can access the public dataset, named MS MARCO, at //www.msmarco.org/. As human beings, we are so habituated to the daily routines of reading, writing, and conversing that we may deem it intuitive to transfer our language understanding…
The HBS LatAm Club seeks to provide a strong and engaging community for people who share a passion for Latin America and identify with the region’s core values. The club aims to represent the Latin American region on campus, promote its business and culture, and identify career opportunities for MBA students as it develops a…
Why Competition in the Politics Industry is Failing America If our political system were an industry – the Political Industrial Complex – it would be valued at more than $16 billon. Furthermore, if you include the $3.6 trillion budget allocated by this apparatus at the federal and state level, it’s the biggest industry out there….
Strategic thinking has been long been part of political analysis. From Thucydides to contemporary military and social science, people have deployed frameworks to understand and build models of prediction since time immemorial. Take the following: “If the dawn of democracy in a given country finds the decision makers divided into two parties, they may wish…
With each fall comes a new class of RC’s, and with them comes the time for the EC’s to feel a little…well, old. But even as I’ve been waxing nostalgic for the days of Benihana and Snapple, maybe some things are better left to other generations—Shad Challenge, anyone? Les Sablons is Harvard Square’s latest addition…
President Trump defended his decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program as an effort to promote “safe communities, a robust middle class, and economic fairness for all Americans.” In his statement, the President painted his stance as simultaneously shrewd and compassionate. He pointed a finger at roughly 800,000 undocumented immigrants brought…
Manning Invite Widened the Civilian-Military Divide at Harvard In honoring former US Army Specialist Chelsea Manning by naming her a Visiting Fellow, the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School opened wide a wound that leaders at Harvard have diligently worked to close in recent years: the civilian-military divide. There are few Rorschach Tests more…