“Wake me up when September ends.” - Billie Joe Armstrong
While Green Day perennially embraces the wonder of JOMO each September, this year’s crop of RCs would have rather been put to bed on October 1st.
Wide-eyed and eager to make good on the memento mori of our time at HBS (“N-1 days to go till graduation,” thanks Jana!), while not shirking academics (see “Here We Prepare” signs), the class of 2026 danced into September with a whole lot of Earth, Wind & Fire energy. With LatAm’s highly-anticipated Tuesday-evening Gatsby gala kicking things off ahead of our first three-case day, the marathon of eight major weeknight parties was underway. So were the student org events, career events, three-case days, retreats, distinguished speakers, and oh so many small group dinners. Were the haters who wrote off b-school as nothing more than an expensive party right? Double and triple bookings abounded. Days became measured in quick chats on the path, coffee chats, Spangler chats, Shad chats, chats in that awkward 20-minute period between classes, and sometimes shouting-at-the-top-of-my-lungs-over-high-decibel-music-to-ask-that-one-person-I-briefly-chatted-with-that-one-time-at-Yacht Week-how-their-section-is-going-chats. Paradoxically, time seemed to contract and expand all at once. Weeks began to go by quicker and quicker, yet looking back on the prior week, it seemed as if it were a month ago.
So, where does that leave us now?
As we entered October, I began to notice that many chats turned into trauma bonding over the collective feeling of sheer exhaustion and futility in the face of overwhelming weekly schedules. We’re all ambitious. We had to take on a lot to get here. Most of us came from exciting, responsibility-laden, fast-paced jobs in the busy haunts of the world. Shouldn’t this just be more of the same?
I believe our experience here is a bit different than in the “real world,” and I set out to find out more…
It’s The Program
Before diving in, a quick note on perspective: I understand there may be bias here given I am not a partner and don’t have a partner or family, and these experiences didn’t happen to be reflected in my sources. There may be challenges unique to these groups arising from similar sources to those discussed here. Given space limitations, perhaps this could be a great topic for another article to address their experiences more than I was able to below.
Now, diving in… In classic HBS fashion, I sent out a quantitative and qualitative survey to get an overall temp check on the social “vibes,” as the kids say these days. I also spoke with a few classmates in person to add more color. The n wasn’t huge (21), but big enough for concepts of a vibe check. All in all, I don’t think said vibes could be described as immaculate.
Summarizing the Stats:
Overall Energy Levels (1-5 (Highest)): Avg. 2.476, with 66% 1-2
Events Per Week: Avg. 3.43, 70%+ went to 3+ events (whoever said 7+, I respect the hustle)
Drinks Per Event: Avg. 2.62, 45% consuming 3+ per event. Most fell into 1-2 range, but 90% in the 1-5 range
We’re averaging one event every two days for weeks on end. We’re consuming a moderate-yet-steady stream of alcohol throughout, with a probable uptick on the weekends, in most cases paying very material $$ for it too. No wonder ⅔ of respondents rate themselves below 40% energy levels.
I also ran the qualitative responses through word cloud generators, and it was no surprise to see “social, time, overwhelming, hectic, events, balance” appear frequently.
One respondent summed it up perfectly, commenting on their October state of mind: “Overwhelming – between tickets to events, section trips and long weekend travel, alcohol, Uber rides back and forth, lots of dinners, I'm exhausted emotionally and financially LOL.”
Respondents lamented the eight mid-week parties, their timing and spacing: “Absolutely stacked. Crazy parties are mid-week," and, "Too crazy – need to be spaced out more.” So is it just about these parties? That’s what I had in mind when I set out to write this.
May Lim (MBA ’26) mentioned one driver of the pressure to stay out late on a school night: “Great opportunity to meet people across sections and outside of class, which you don’t get to do as much during the day.”
Riva Kapoor (MBA ’26) spoke to the added pressure we might feel about being perceived as social early on: “I’ve sensed self-imposed pressure at the beginning of any new social group to prove who you are. You want to make sure there are no assumptions, you try to subvert them to make a positive impression. And there is a bit more work upfront to do that.”
So there seem to be two factors at play. Many of us (especially the self-identifying extroverts) want to plant our flag in the ground as social animals and stay in the “scene”. As someone who felt so inclined to attend all eight of the sponsored parties, my “why,” so to speak, was the feeling that we only have one start of RC. One chance to branch out and make new, possibly unexpected, friendships. Sleep, academics, and balance be damned. Socializing should be the priority. Carpe diem right?
But maybe it’s not so simple. Maybe by carpe-ing one diem, you limit yourself on future diems. A comment made by Jakob Klahsen (MBA ’26) illuminated this nuance: “...the start is hectic for all of us and has been a balance between academics, social life, and other personal commitments. It has exhausted me to the point where I occasionally show up as an inferior version of my true self.”
Others mentioned the age-old HBS dichotomy, saying it’s “challenging to find the balance between FOMO and JOMO for my own health and social battery.” Maybe we just haven’t cracked the equation to find equilibrium in business school. The opportunity cost of missing hallmark events just feels too great; the pernicious FOMO-leveling devil on our shoulder tells us we simply must go, at the expense of our next day’s self. We feel urgency to do the most, and when that is combined with 17 weekly hours in class, case prep, extra assignments, events, career, personal life, and random social interactions in between, it adds up to less sleep and overall exhaustion.
It’s the Connections
So there are structural challenges with a hyper-demanding program, and these negatively interact with background noise from administrators, professors, and experienced elders (ECs, MBA grads). But within those structures, what about the nature of our social interactions might be adding to this feeling of collective exhaustion?
Riva Kapoor (MBA ’26) mentioned that the early weeks can be full of high social quantity (large number of superficial interactions), with sometimes limited depth. Even for “extroverts,” there is something draining about socializing over and over again without going deeper (yet):
“I always felt extroverted and thought that I would recharge my battery by being out socially. Coming to HBS I’ve had a few realizations that I didn’t expect. I would be at a packed party, trying to catch up with someone I’ve seen once – ‘Hey Aaron! How’s your section?’ ‘I’m loving Section F, how’s Section B?’ And then you have a three second conversation that you wish were longer. It’s so much more fulfilling sitting down with you now for more than three seconds.”
So we feel pressure to go to all these events (which can be fun, don’t get me wrong), but when we’re there we experience cognitive dissonance. We feel like we’re creating social connections but in many cases not really getting to know people, like we’re playing Pokemon.
Arshita Malhotra (MBA ’26) touched on just this phenomenon: “Everyone gets so wrapped up in a hypersocial game that we can’t stay present in conversations, always looking for the next lilipad to jump to. I've been in conversations where people are constantly scanning the room, thinking, “What's happening? Where are the new power pockets that I should be in?” Malhotra observed: “It's challenging for me to have such conversations that don't seem authentic. As a result, I feel like my social battery drains very quickly. I could check out of a conversation because I realize, ‘I don't think this is me and I don't think I'm enjoying this.”
People joke that this is one big social experiment – and often it feels like it. In few other environments do we find ourselves with a cohort of 900 (or even 90) who we expect to become people who we might be friends with for life, found unicorns with, include in our wedding parties, make godparents to our children, or maybe even marry. The structure of the program and social events, combined with the unique nature of our social interactions, leads us to fall prey to becoming what Malhotra called “insecure overachievers – feeling a need to constantly do things that other people are doing.” “It's a spiral that just keeps on amplifying and amplifying, never reaching an ending point.” We have a valid desire to make lots of connections and feel fulfilled in doing so, yet we feel we lack the space to do so with intentionality while balancing everything else.
It’s the Alcohol
What role do our relationships with substances play on top of our program structure and social interactions? Some respondents partake in cannabis in some of these social circumstances, and encouragingly enough, a sizable portion mentioned not drinking at all. Many found there is much more inclusion and less pressure to drink than expected when starting at HBS. That said, a majority of respondents still consume alcohol on a consistent basis. It’s woven into our culture. Take it from a Budweiser alum (your author) – as deleterious as its effects are, alcohol has been so deeply ingrained in the fabric of our society that we continually, willingly poison ourselves to the detriment of our bodies and mental state, and we call it “fun.”
In larger quantities, alcohol can certainly shape our social interactions in ways we may not intend. One person I spoke with mentioned, “I feel like because there’s always alcohol at my section events we never actually bond.” Perhaps, though, the solution may not be removing alcohol from the picture entirely. Due to ingrained drinking culture at MBA programs and in society more broadly, many of us have memories of intoxicated nights from college, birthdays, or bachelorette/bachelor parties to bond over with friends, yet many times these balance more sober, profound moments of connection as well.
Physiologically, the consistency of intake, most of which happens at night, doesn’t do us many favors.
Hackensack Meridian Health finds, “Alcohol acts as a sedative that interacts with several neurotransmitter systems important in the regulation of sleep. Acute administration of large amounts of alcohol prior to sleep leads to decreased sleep onset latency and changes in sleep architecture early in the night, when blood alcohol levels are high, with subsequent disrupted, poor quality sleep later in the night.” It indeed, “helps you fall asleep. However, during the night, as the amount of alcohol in your blood drops, you are likely to wake up.” Per the National Library of Medicine, “Drinking alcohol reduces the amount of time in the restorative rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which is crucial for healing, retaining memory and feeling rested.”
Consuming alcohol in our exhaustion-inducing environment can compound in a vicious cycle given the chronic lack of sleep we’re already experiencing: we have reduced and poorer quality sleep, and reduced time in REM for memory formation and healing. We wake up not feeling well-rested, we continue to feel even more tired during the day, engagement diminishes in class and in social situations, and thus we need more caffeine (day and night) – which leads to yet worse sleep, and the cycle deepens. If we insecure overachievers want to succeed in the “game” of business school, perhaps alcohol may not be our best friend. Those of who pay attention to their Whoop recovery scores may already be well aware of this ; )
It’s Going to Be OK
So, how to process?
One approach could be just leaning in, stoically “embracing the suck” as our friends in the military say, accepting that this is the way it’s supposed to be. We grow most from times of discomfort, and we’re all adults (though we may not entirely feel like it sometimes). Perhaps we should take ownership of our own balance (or lack thereof). This experience is supposed to prepare us for real world challenges, right? May Lim (MBA ’26) optimistically hit on this point straight out of High [B] School Musical: the experience has been, “crazy but fun – we’re [all] in [this] together. [HBS] challenges your confidence in your time management skills fundamentally, but you do get better.”
Jakob Klahsen (MBA ’26) echoed this positive sentiment: “I'm hopeful that the coming months will feel more settled and offer a feeling of rhythm that will allow me to be more intentional and less reactive with my time.” Can this be an opportunity to kaizen ourselves here knowing we may still be early on in the HBS learning curve?
But before we take matters fully into our own hands, should anything about HBS change to help us take better advantage of this high-value multidimensional experience? Is our reality our destiny? The shift to six full credit courses in RC Fall only happened this year, with the elimination of the half semester DSM course. Do we spend too much time in class and in prep? Should we foster even more dialogue with the administration to better align the priorities/expectations/structures of HBS with the realities of student life and our priorities? Do we spend too much time “learning” from each other in the rigid environs of Aldrich, at the expense of reduced learning from meaningful out-of-class personal connections? Does the rigorous academic work start too soon after everyone gets to campus?
As Malhotra pointed out, perhaps we can look to the structures used by peer institutions: “Some part of being so surface level, initially in our social interactions, is because we have so much on our plate. You want to go to a party to be able to meet 20 people because ‘Where else will you, right?’‘ Where do you really [socialize meaningfully]?’ When I think about my friends at Stanford or Wharton…they have fundamentally available time in the program to address that issue. It makes me question sometimes if the fundamental power of this network might actually be degrading over time, because you're not building the foundation as strongly as you used to before.”
I haven’t seen similar studies on students at these institutions, and I can’t claim they feel any better than we do, but there may be value in considering an augmented institutional emphasis on building genuine community by facilitating bonding in smaller groups while also having fun together. Kapoor summed this up perfectly: “The parties are definitely valuable. What I’ve found is that friendships need both. They need trust and being able to rely on someone. But you also need to have fun with friends. I’ve sat with friends for hours helping them through tough times and they’ve done that for me – I’m so grateful for that. But you can’t have a friendship that hasn’t got any basis in shared experiences… Friendships shouldn’t be catch-ups on separate lives, they should be lives experienced together.”
Can we also reflect on our insecure over-achieverness with the social, academic, and professional cards we’ve been dealt? How might that contribute to a sense of exhaustion, compounded by our relationship with alcohol and other substances that may reduce feelings of flourishing?
Can we find space to give ourselves more grace? Maybe we can take a moment, breathe, and shift our gnawing sense of urgency away from doing it all now – lest we wake up in a cap and gown on Baker Beach in May 2026 regretting not doing XYZ and the other thing. As Malhotra put it, “people feel that this is the only period we have to get to know everyone. For me, just knowing that I actually have two years to find just 10 people who could be my ride or dies through life… I would consider that success. I have two years to make that happen. And that makes things a lot more peaceful.”
Two years can go by quickly, but a lot can happen in two years. Starting by making a good plan, a loose roadmap might help put things in perspective.
Coming off of a hectic Midterm season and staring down the funnel of the next few months, we might ask ourselves, “Is there indeed light at the end of the tunnel?” Well, my fellow RCs and allies, EC sage David Burke (MBA ’25) has some encouraging insights: “I think it will get better. Take it class by class, like FRC: the first two units are just technical jargon and for a lot of people it's really hard. But the second half is basically LEAD…TOM also kind of becomes LEAD. So, those two classes relax a lot, and in general people just lean into it a bit more. In our year after the TOM midterm, everyone was like, ‘OK, that was a lot. We can now breathe a little bit.’ I remember feeling a similar sense of burnout, but the time between now and the rest of the year is going to go by super quickly. Then you have finals and then you have a five-week winter break. Do something fun with that.”
As the sun starts to set earlier and earlier, the New England cold sets in, and we collectively channel our inner Ed Stark, it’s important to continue to remind ourselves of that feeling we had when we first opened that acceptance letter. That remarkable feeling of gratitude and awe conveyed in our LinkedIn announcements (we know who you are). It is truly a privilege and a blessing to be here, and let’s face it, way more fun than being back at our full time jobs right now. So, to paraphrase Green Day, let’s become who we are: stay true to ourselves, be excellent to each other, stay curious and intentional, and ask for help, operating with an understanding that, in business as in friendships, perhaps the best things just take time.
Aaron Finder (MBA ’26) is originally from New York City. He graduated from Williams College with a degree in Economics and History, and studied Portuguese and Brazilian history at PUC Rio. Prior to HBS, Aaron worked in business development and marketing at beverage companies Anhesuer-Busch InBev and The Vita Coco Company.
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