Who wouldn’t want to be a card carrying member of the “global business elite?” To talk the trendy talk and walk the swaggering walk of a Master of the Universe? To exit a two-year trade school with a six-figure salary at a Fortune 500 company all but guaranteed – despite the fact you may have never actually been in business for yourself?
Pretty tempting, no?
It certainly was for former London Daily Telegraph reporter Philip Delves Broughton, author of “Ahead of the Curve: Two Years at Harvard Business School.”
The idea of attending HBS came to Broughton during an interview with Venezuelan billionaire, Gustavo Cisneros, in his plush apartment, according to a recent review. “As they sipped coffee and discussed globalization, Broughton thought, ‘If this was business, I could get used to it’.”
The reality at Harvard turned out to be not quite so genteel. He found his classmates of two varieties, “deadly serious and frat boy” with no in between — except for maybe himself. Both shared a sense of entitlement, a feeling that they had already made it, a sense that just by being accepted to HBS they deserved, high-paying, glamorous careers, if not cover appearances on Forbes and Fortune.
Broughton expresses doubts about his chosen path, afraid he’ll become one of the ice-luge gargling “thieving, treacherous, lying” frat boys or dry-as-dead-leaves bean counters he despises. “Why on earth had I put myself through Harvard Business School, of all places, an institution whose purpose was teaching people how to amass and deploy vast resources?” the New York Observer quotes Broughton as asking himself.
Obviously, business school isn’t for everyone, and HBS even less so (only 12 percent of the 8,661 people who applied for the class of 2010 were admitted). Clearly, it wasn’t really for Broughton – except maybe as fodder for a tell-all book. Evidently no one told him the Five Hard Truths about the MBA before he applied, or that the MFA is actually the new MBA. Then again, maybe Broughton would have faired better going after a green-focused MBA.
For more on “Ahead of the Curve,” see Joanna Higgins’ take in Sterling Performance.
