OwenBloggers: Isaac - MBA '08

The best blog idea that didn't make it...

It's hard for me to say what the best un-written blog entry has been for me... there have been a lot.  I tend to sit down and write entries as a cathartic exercise when I'm stressed out or upset about something; typically that occurs about 3 times a day. It's not that I'm a nutjob or drama queen, I'm just a passionate person.  I see something wrong, something unfair, something inconsistent, and i want to change it.  I wont be the guy who just says "that's how it is".  If it's something i care about, I'll do my damnedest to make it better; if i cant do that, at least I'll let others know how i feel.  I don't like to sit back quietly.

Here are two topics i recently started to write, only to decide against actually publishing them to the site. 

1.  The recent jump in rankings Owen experienced makes me nervous.  Whenever there is a huge movement in any kind of poll like that it makes me think one of two things: one, the ranking system is flawed, or two, there have been radical changes at Owen that garnered a better score from the powers that be.  If it's the latter, that's where i get most scared; what could it be that we've done so much better?  What is it that we are doing right today we weren't doing right last year?  Do we know what it is that we've done?  If we don't know what brought on the jump in the polls, how do we keep pushing those programs... or, do we even want to promote certain aspects of the school just to bump the rankings a few slots? The last thing i would want is for the school to suddenly start working the polls rather than focusing on producing more educated and capable MBA's. When i was choosing a school, it was obvious some schools spent 95%  of their energies positioning for the annual school rankings; Owen seemed to spend 95% of its energy on the STUDENTS.  That was a big selling point for me; i hope that doesn't change.

2. Grades or no grades?  There seems to be a debate on campus around the idea of moving from the current 4.0 grade scale to the common B-school grading system of pass/no pass.  I've been giving this a lot of thought and here's what i've come up with.  We should keep the 4.0 grade scale; how else do you know how well you learned the material?  If i get a "Pass" does that mean i know the material better than most?  If i'm an operations concentrator and i get a "Pass" in core ops, does that mean i'm pretty good at ops, or that i'm average, or below average?  If i work my butt off and get a "Pass" and someone else just skims through and gets a "Pass", what does that do for anyone?  What's the sense of accomplishment from a "Pass". 

Business is about quantifying things; at times, it's about quantifying the seemingly unquantifiable.   As MBA's, we're taught all kinds of ways to value money you don't have yet, how to generate cash from cash from cash, how to value a company that hasn't even started making its widgets yet... It seems sacrilegious to then turn around and tell students we're not going to quantify your performance. 

To be honest, the strongest supporters i've heard of for the "pass/no-pass" system are professors; i'm sure grading would be a lot easier... but hey, that's got nothing to do with it, right?

Psst... Check out the new kid...

OwenBloggers recently introduced a new writer, Serdar, to the Owenbloggers family.  Serdar is an admitted Owen applicant and he'll be joining the class of 2009 in the fall of this coming year. 

Check out Serdar's page, and leave him a comment welcoming him to the team!

Question of the week: Reader Supported

Our Editor-In-Chief, Sam, asked his readers to pose some questions about Owen, and he'd respond to them.  I'm also going to answer these questions from my point of view.  If anyone has other questions they'd like to ask, email them to Owenbloggers@gmail.com, or leave them in the COMMENTS section below each post and they'll be answered within 24 hours.

· Can an Owen student survive without a car?

Yes.  Absolutely.  Many students, something along the lines of 20%, don't have a car at Owen (or, don't need one).  Vanderbilt located basically downtown Nashville, a city of about 1.5 million people.  First, there are abundant housing options around campus, and all of them are tailored to student living.  Second, there are dozens of grocery stores and retailers within just a few miles; Green Hills Mall (very trendy) is just 5 minutes away.  Even if you don't have a car, a fellow student could take you there when you're in desperate need of a shoehorn or plunger or something.  Third, Nashville has a pretty descent public transportation system and taxis are everywhere... I personally bought a house about 15 minutes outside town, so I couldn't survive without a car, but I know many people who do.

· Is it realistic to find reasonably-priced housing within walking distance to Owen?

You bet.  I was an undergrad at Vanderbilt some years ago (making me officially a "double-dore"), and so I've got a pretty good idea of the off campus accommodations.  You can find anything from around $500/month on up to $3000/month; this is a metropolitan area, so prices aren't rock bottom, but you can find housing at about any price point.  Finding a walking-distance apartment is no problem at all.

· Have you ever seen a professor do a keg stand at the Thursday night shindigs?

No.  But I would definitely pay to see a professor perform said act. 

We are listening...

With admissions season in full swing, our traffic around the site has started to pick up considerably.   We know hundreds of people read this site each day, but we get very little direct communication from our valued readers. 

We have an email address set up just for readers of this site.  The box is monitored constantly by OwenBloggers staff, and we typically respond within just a few hours.  We're open to anything; questions about life, school, admissions, the economy, whatever... Just drop us a line.

 

Our email address is  Owenbloggers@gmail.com

 

Also, at the bottom of each blog entry is a "comment" section.  We welcome readers to comment on our entries or ask us questions.

The OwenBloggers team is dedicated to de-mystifying the B-school experience, so just email us!  We always respond to your questions or comments.

What's the point?

When I was looking into B-Schools-, I'd often end up on the "official" weblogs; many schools have them now. They're great; you get to read about all the interesting courses and how great XXXX school is and how "XXXX is preparing me so well for life with their rigorous academics and world-class faculty".

What a bunch of crap.

I'm embarrassed for the stuff they put up there.  I was looking at one the other day- great layout, had 4-5 "real" students, all writing these eloquent, uplifting little snippets about their school.  You'd find phrases like someone was there to "build up the toolset for business" and "nowhere can you find a better balance of real-world expertise and top-notch research".

If I didn't know any better, I could swear there was one admissions officer writing all these entries... Honestly. Come on.  Nobody writes like that, unless they've recruited a class entirely made up of Stepford wives.  Either that, or they're being forced at gunpoint...

There is no value to prospectives reading artificial brochure-style jargon... would a school want to recruit a student that couldn't read through the artificiality of these "blogs"?  Any halfway intelligent individual knows when they're being hand-fed a plate of company-line garbage; it's so transparent it's almost offensive.

It's my current feeling that about 80% of what you're going to get out of B-School will be intrinsically tied to the environment of the school; the other students, the workload, the overall atmosphere of the place. You can't get that from the marketing message or the glossy mailers, and you cant use the uber-trendy blogosphere to cover up just another prepackaged advertisement.  People see right through it.