From the Editor’s Desk

I was recently at a dinner with an HBS alum who found it fascinating that I, unlike most of my peers, studied film as an undergrad at Columbia.

“Did you get to make any films during your time there?” he asked.

“Actually, Columbia’s film program is much more theory-based, so I spent most of my time learning about the history and cultural significance of film,” I replied. “Like an English major, but instead of books, you’re analyzing movies.”

I could see the wheels turning in his head before he followed up with, “looking back, do you ever wish you pursued a more practical area of study?”

“At the time, maybe. But in hindsight, I’m grateful that I had the chance to engage with questions that underlie art, knowledge, and purpose. You can always learn the so-called ‘hard’ skills on the job, but you’ll never again have the opportunity to stretch your mind in an environment where dissent and inquiry are encouraged.”

That conversation has lingered with me, perhaps because it echoed another one from that same evening. Across the table, a prospective student asked if HBS had helped me when I was recruiting for investment banking last fall, especially as someone who had never so much as opened Excel before arriving on campus.

I hesitated before answering. “Honestly, not directly,” I answered. “I had to learn the technicals on my own through YouTube videos and the like. But there’s no part of me that regrets coming here. Any business school can teach you to build a DCF or read a balance sheet, but few can foster a community where you learn both with and from people who have perspectives unlike your own. That, to me, is the purpose of education. To teach us how to think, not what to think.”

Over the years, I’ve heard the same critique repeated in different forms: that liberal arts degrees are useless, that they fail to teach tangible skills, that they belong to another era. I’ve always found that view short-sighted. The value of a liberal arts education lies not in its immediacy but in its endurance. It trains you to navigate uncertainty, question assumptions, and connect ideas that don’t appear connected at all. These habits of thought may not appear on a resumé, but they do shape how you see the world and adapt when it changes.

This summer, Poets & Quants published a widely-discussed story about discontent brewing at GSB, with several students claiming the program isn’t living up to its reputation. They describe courses that feel outdated, professors who seem disengaged, and a curriculum slow to adapt to the realities of modern business. One student laments that the brand is strong but that the education feels hollow. Others complain that the classes are stuck “in the 2010s” and ill-equipped for an age defined by artificial intelligence and rapid technological change. Their frustration, it appears, isn’t about rigor but about relevance and the feeling that their $175,000 degree isn’t preparing them for the world they will soon re-enter.

It’s a provocative critique but not a new one. HBS, too, has historically faced skepticism about its unorthodox pedagogy and lack of lectures, textbooks, and definitive answers. Naysayers question whether the case method, built on peer discussion instead of traditional instruction, can truly teach anything concrete.

While it’s natural to conflate knowledge with utility and to want education to feel efficient, I believe this sentiment overlooks what HBS is truly meant to cultivate. The case method doesn’t deliver information so much as it demands engagement. It rewards curiosity over conviction and judgment over memorization. It’s an education designed not for a static world, but for one in constant motion.

As part of Columbia’s Core Curriculum, I was required to take courses like philosophy, music theory, art history, and science alongside classmates whose interests spanned nearly every corner of the university. It wasn’t comfortable, but discomfort was the point, as it helped me develop an intellectual humility that’s hard to come by in the workplace. The same principle applies to HBS, where you often walk into class with one opinion and leave persuaded by three others. You learn to defend your views under pressure, disagree without contempt, and change your mind without losing credibility. The process can be maddening, but so is leadership.

That’s why when people say an MBA “doesn’t teach anything,” I think of the subtler ways it transforms us. The value of this education isn’t in the frameworks we study. Rather, it’s in the friction that refines how we think, collaborate, and lead.

This month’s issue of The Harbus explores these very questions around what learning means and for whom it serves. One essay describes his HBS experience as an international student, in which the fantasy of finding one’s purpose in life is often drowned out by the sobering need to find a home. Another examines the school’s brand equity and warns that the shift toward online expansion could dilute what makes the MBA distinct. A third offers a way to subvert HBS’s social norms by emphasizing conversational quality over quantity and reframing gaps in her calendar as sources of sanity rather than shame.

Elsewhere, writers examine the changing nature of work, the absence of political discourse on campus, and the likelihood of living out the MBA romance dream at a school populated by students who seemingly treasure optionality and loathe the shackles of commitment. Profiles of an HBS alum-turned-mayor and a founder re-entering entrepreneurship in healthcare remind us that education does not end with a diploma. Taken together, these pieces extend an invitation to see education not as accumulation, but as evolution.

If HBS has taught me anything, it’s that growth often happens in the spaces between clarity and confusion. The most durable lessons are rarely printed in case notes or summarized in module wrap-ups. Rather, they emerge through dialogue, disagreement, and discovery, demanding patience, modesty, and the willingness to be changed by what and whom you encounter.

Education, at its best, is not preparation for a single career or even a single world. It’s preparation for change: for the disorienting speed of technology, the unpredictability of people, and the shifting boundaries governing what is ethical and what is possible. Its highest purpose is not to anchor us but to teach us how to move and find meaning in the movement itself.

Michelle Yu (MBA '26) is originally from Cresskill, New Jersey. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Film and Media Studies and worked for CNBC, NBC News, and CNN prior to HBS, along with projects for HBO, Showtime, Oxygen, and Spectrum. Outside of work, she is a 2x marathon runner, American Songwriting Awards winner, and filmmaker whose work has screened at the Tribeca Film Festival and AMC's Empire Theaters in Times Square.