In Defense of the MBA Student

What do we say about our pop-culture stereotype as heartless mercenaries, and also to the mirror?

While prowling through Spangler after hours late one evening a few weeks ago, I saw a poster for an SAS-organized talk that made me pause: “Building and Maintaining Relationships at HBS,” a panel by EC students sharing insights on how to make “authentic and meaningful friendships” at HBS. The dystopic idea that a group of late twenty-somethings needed to be taught how to make friends unsettled me. I went home that day to have a Hinge match accuse me of being busy networking when I mentioned it was a hectic week; an attempt at humor and a poor one at that, which I feel comfortable saying on my weak credential of writing humor but only under my granted moniker of Community Editor (hello, Michelle).

The stereotype of the business school student is one so universally acknowledged that in my first draft of this article, I didn’t even include the image I ultimately hope to subvert: the corporate-coded, wealthy and superfluous, traveling party animal. After a semester of attempting to write humor about business school students, every punchline felt trite and every joke a poor documentary of reality. This Halloween, in our PE Finance class, several people showed up to class wearing the “PE bro” costume: the formal shirt and Patagonia vest our professor had joked about on the day prior. When the time came to take a photo, a few hapless unawares were called on for the camera, whose daily wardrobe just happened to be a vest and formal shirt.

Can I construct a defense for this image? If not blatant contradiction, I think as a member of this infamous club, I owe it to myself to at least examine the nuances behind it. Clichés are boring, and I refuse to build my life around one.

Dissection of Capitalism in its First Temple

“Harvard Business School offers so many courses on capitalism,” a friend observed, with the faint note of surprise; similar to the quick disbelieving blink I get when I mention to non-HBSers that I have a Capitalism class —  an amusement at the thought that the heart of this machinery would be self-aware enough to study it. True, as a prospective student, I had not anticipated the sincerity of the attempt HBS would make to dissect the murky ethical underpinnings of business.

In the span of a week, we discussed Machiavelli in class twice. What would Machiavelli, pioneer of a cold cunning warranting its own adjective, think of being in an Aldrich classroom? The earnestness of the question, asked so gently of Professor Badaracco, didn’t leave us the space to laugh away the indictment. My immediate thought was that the man who comfortably advocated for indulging in what he clearly labeled as vices would be surprised by the grey zone language we use for right and wrong. Later that same week, Professor Reinert humorously called a comment Machiavellian as we discussed the role of slavery and “sacrifice zones” (areas permanently impaired by environmental damage or economic disinvestment) played in the evolution of modern-day capitalism.

Half a decade or less into our careers, we have rarely sat in a seat consequential enough to grapple with the morality of a decision. Our engagement with the image of the ruthless capitalist propagated in all media — be it a Christmas romance to Wall Street porn — is either strict othering, a line drawn separating us from “them” — the evil suits — or tacit acceptance, a party joke we don’t quite believe in.

In the soft winter sunlight in Hawes, students again, briefly free to be idealists again, we have the opportunity to engage with this debate more meaningfully. “I just want you to think about what it means,” Professor Reinert said, ending that class, like many others in business school, with a question we have to answer for ourselves.

Amidst all our RC classes where inserting “prioritizing shareholder returns” into a comment was always correct if not insightful, with no shortage of willing participants to do it, we also discuss workers’ rights, layoffs, discrimination, and other such topics. There is an unfortunate irony of discussing DEI in a school that no longer talks about it. There is a tension between an education about leadership, specifically to lead institutions so large that they are inherently tied with the political and socioeconomic climate, a lens of pragmatism the business school and its students both cannot escape. It is well reflected in the difference between The Harbus and The Crimson.

The Pillars Holding Up HBS Incorporated

Recently, when a close friend suggested we get a coffee, I found myself reflexively alarmed by the immediate insinuation that I had been downgraded to a “coffee-chat” friend. My meal hierarchy for HBS, based on how much you like the person from most to least, is dinner, breakfast, lunch, and then coffee. Coffee-chats as the butt of pop-culture jokes arise from its legacy in the corporate world, a staple of recruiting events on campus. Like the ruthless calendaring of business school students, who mark their dates, dentist visits, and divination as blocks, it is easy to laugh it off as a corporate hangover. However, I think it speaks to something deeper: a high-performance life of commitments, where every human experience needs to be time-boxed for success.

One rhetoric I can’t recall ever hearing about with HBS is that of making the experience “yours,” or the idea of charting uniquely different paths in an environment catering to different individuals and dreams. While that is the ultimate outcome, there is the underlying sense that the school is prescribing you something. What is it?

If nothing else, it is high-performance multi-tasking, the first semester packed full of frenetic activity; a hectic course load with parties, section retreat, and social engagements front loaded, propelled into a social network before you find comfort. Later, as we try to find balance between the two, recruitment is introduced. While this stressful cocktail is a feature of all MBAs, HBS sets the tone in the expected rigor and its adherence to the strict attendance in classes; in acknowledging that one cannot “do it all,” the advice given is not that this schedule is opt-in, but that one has to prioritize, which suggests that the list of to-dos is to remain just as long with no paring down.

Perhaps the most insidious way in which HBS leaves us with the idea of a relentlessly productive life is its Portrait Project, where students answer the question posed at the end of a Mary Oliver poem — “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” — with personal epithets that fundamentally speak of ambition and making a change in the world. Ironic, to repurpose a poem meant to question the idea of what a fulfilling life is — suggesting that enjoyment of a moment is the highest purpose of a life — and make it about achievement, the very idea it is interrogating.

This is inherently a set-up for a lack of time, which brings us full circle to what we started with: the adoption of corporate efficiency measures for what could conceivably be called a personal endeavor. This is a narrative the school leans into. Recently, a professor referred to another student in the class as a colleague, turning on its head the idea that colleagues become friends, becoming closer and taking down walls, and creating distance between me and the seatmate who, five minutes ago, was unflatteringly caricaturing my ID card. “I feel like wearing a Patagonia vest is the more acceptable fashion choice,” a friend commented under the broader ambit of questioning whether people largely try to conform to a standard with clothing. Here again, it begs the question: can this dressing sense be considered an expression of self in a way that draws judgement or humor? Or is it simply the consequence of feeling the need to be presentable in this semi-corporate environment, defaulting to the standard you know will be accepted in a manner that requires little time?

Perhaps, then, we don’t notice when the other elements of an office life creep in. If my whole life is a high-octane ballad, and the calendar blocks don’t end at 7 p.m., when do I stop counting the seconds I spend? While consoling a friend through a breakup, talking to my mom after a long day, or even just sitting with a friend at the end of the day, with no agenda. We rush through a work day to get to an idea of a “home,” the personal fulfilment we wish to maximize. When the lines of personal and professional are blurred, even this fulfillment is bookended and rushed through, undermining an essential characteristic of the activity — the respect for it to ascribe it as much time as possible. Business school friendships lack that one aspect — bundled between a variety of activities, you cannot afford to judge affection by where you rank in someone’s stack of commitments. “She’d see me spending time with other people, and question why I hadn’t met her recently,” a classmate said of one of her close friends, who was questioning the depth of their bond, judged to be unreasonable.

What elements of a connection might be lost in this model? We’ve all been both the victim and perpetrator of a conversation half-finished, an apology unuttered or a plea for help ignored — all while looking over the shoulder of your peer, towards the next target, an endless ticking in your ear. A life where no one asks you for assurances of your presence, and no one assures you.

Is it Funny in the Rich Man’s World?

I would like to start this section with the caveat that this model of socializing is not, of course, limited to business school. Being a socialite and having a “full calendar” are age-old ideas. I come from a smaller life; the closest thing to a dinner party growing up was my mom accommodating as many of my friends as she could around our small dining table for a home-cooked meal, after which my friends would famously end up taking a nap all over the house, replete with good food. Hosting at my own house involved having said friends come home, regale the lone onion in the fridge with disappointment, and order a pizza. Much like the famed etiquette sessions in consulting, where they teach you how to handle cutlery, chopsticks, and wine glasses, HBS has felt, in some ways, like an unofficial finishing school.

Not to say that the idea of community exists only in certain strata of society, but the values upholding it differ significantly. Further, community is not inherently a monied proposition but is often defined by the constraint of a price tag. In HBS, where network is practically a prescribed part of the curriculum, social dynamics cut deeper, come under greater scrutiny, and are more exaggerated, leading to rumor and diatribe, with the well-off “Section X” being practically a dictionary term and enough push to define a “Section Y,” an adjacent category of wealthy, in conversation.

When ideating this point around the disparity money brings with a fellow writer, he brought up the valid point that this is just a microcosm for the world at large. So why does it lead to more discussion here? Proximity, a selection bias of people from high-earning jobs against the backdrop of the impossible promise that HBS seems to make of you when you enter: of 90 new best friends and 900 equal peers. A promise; and an expectation, which it is on you to fulfill. No wonder this discourse, whatever its outward tone, contains the undercurrent of the aspirational nature of money. In the last year, my idea of what looks like a good life financially has also shifted, almost without me realizing it.

At this point, I apologize, reader, because I have insufficiently researched the role the school plays to alleviate it. What I will mention is the lack of community events on the weekend, with HKS and GSD, among the other graduate schools, hosting a version of “Friday beers,” conspicuously absent in a school so focused on connection. Professor Mugford, an HBS graduate herself, commented on the shift in community life on the weekends from her time to now, as graduates become older and come to business school with more personal wealth: “People travel most weekends now. In my time, we used to spend much more time on campus on the weekend.” HBS’s lack of student association sponsored events on weekends, with even the Weekend Sprints becoming a lecture series versus a social event, feels like a tacit acceptance of this “travel culture,” inherently linked to finances by offering no alternative.

Is This How We Choose to Talk About Ourselves?

In interrogating people about dating for my last article, more than once I heard the sentiment, “I don’t think there is a partner for me here.” Surprising, to expect to not find someone like one in a community one chose to be selected into, with great difficulty.

Structurally, HBS reflects the business world it seeks to send its students out to. As students, we find ourselves caught in the same trap I opened my article with: of navigating a system that doesn’t seem to accommodate for personal values, seemingly by design. 

And yet, what HBS promises is much more, and is fundamentally simple: the idea of making change as leaders in the world.

Back to discussing Machiavellians in the Moral Leader, we interrogated the roles of pragmatism and idealism in making big change in the world: Lincoln and the abolition of slavery, Obama and legalizing gay marriage — simplistically, the important role of an idealist in moving the Overton window, and of pragmatism in working existing systems to make change. 

The smaller bubble of HBS, with its myriad pressures and seemingly rigid structures, offers us a trial run of what it will be like to navigate the complex corporate ecosystem, while simultaneously, and sometimes oxymoronically, insisting on idealism, allowing you to envision what this balance will be in the roles you play both in your personal and professional lives.

The institution of MyTakes, the satire and parody of the HBS Show and Cabaret, the sincerity and frankness of courses like Crafting Your Life, and the Moral Leader offer an honest opportunity to interrogate what you believe in, the life you lead, and share it with your peers and friends. There is an undeniable thread of sincerity in how we want to be seen and known.

“I hope being vulnerable has not gone out of fashion,” a friend quipped at the beginning of her MyTake in EC year. I would argue the opposite. Over time, we embrace our identities as students first, the dichotomy between the two sides of the coin becoming more clear, enhancing our ability to comment on it and, most importantly, laugh about it.

There is a gap in our personal reflection and our cross-examination of the community, where we ascribe characteristics to the group we do not believe we see in ourselves. 

So, what do I offer in defense of the MBA student? That we defend ourselves as a community first, not at the cost of our self-awareness but in understanding its pressures and the roots of good at the heart of it. Disengaging from the narrative enables you to be blind to the ways in which you fall prey to it and denies the opportunity to challenge the community around you to rise to the occasion to do good.

8:30 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, I sit through a dry, highly technical class on managing investments. As the protagonist gets up to speak, I keep my pen poised to take away his five lessons on how to invest. Instead, he speaks about his time at HBS, how his sectionmates supported him through hardships, and how much he valued his community. There is a part of us, I suspect, that believes that earnestness of belief is antithetical to our role in the world as financiers and CEOs. I believe we should extend this earnestness to as many of our peers as possible.

What will be our defense, as MBA students? I just want us to think about it.

Ramya Vijayram (MBA ‘26) is originally from Chennai, India. She graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, with a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Biotechnology. Prior to the Harvard MBA, Ramya worked at Warburg Pincus in Mumbai, India, and McKinsey and Co. in India.