4 ms·

Yes, but then the question is what it does with them once they're there--especially the entrepreneurs!

spencerfry 18y ago
No offense to you, but I'm a little tired of people belittling higher education. Colleges -- especially Harvard, Yale, MIT, etc. -- offer a wonderful education and opportunity to their students. The professors are the best in their field and you can learn a lot; and can grow both intellectually and as a human being. What you take out of college is what you put into it. College isn't for everyone, so don't attend if you’re not willing to put in the time and effort, but you can learn so much if you do the work, pay attention, and get involved. This meme that education is a waste of time needs to be put to rest.
- thinkcomp 18y ago
  No offense taken--I think getting a liberal arts education is crucial. As an alum, however, I think I'm entitled to be critical about specific qualities I found to be problematic at Harvard.
  - mwerty 18y ago
    > I think getting a liberal arts education is crucial. Why do you say that?
    - spencerfry 18y ago
      It’s 4 AM, but I can chime in on that quickly before I go to sleep. I think that without much hesitation people would agree that a liberal arts education by definition is well rounded. You take English classes, science classes, math classes, foreign language classes, history classes, etc. Through your liberal arts education you learn a large breadth of material that when taken together helps to make you a very well rounded person intellectually. There's something to be said for specialization, but you can specialize on your own time. I’d argue that being well rounded, social, and able to converse on many different subjects will serve you a million times over in your startup. There's far more to building a successful startup than a good idea, design, and code. That’s the easy part and it’ll certainly get you off the ground. But to truly run a successful startup, every aspect of your life and your personality will be tapped. Business by its very nature is a social thing between people and a liberal arts education, and the “college experience,” will serve you well in getting past that first stage and on your way to a legitimate business. If you want to be running things rather than working for someone, you need these qualities. Disclaimer: I graduated from Yale in 2006 with a Psychology degree after being Computer Science for the first two years. Programming just wasn’t for me. Psychology wasn’t exactly my major of choice (although, lots of it is very thought provoking), but it allowed me the most freedom to choose the courses I wanted.
    - thinkcomp 18y ago
      It depends on your metric. If your goal is to be a good technology entrepreneur, it's probably worth noting that of all of today's technology leaders with entrepreneurial backgrounds, either zero or very few of them actually studied entrepreneurship or business in school (as a major). If your goal is to be a well-rounded individual, then learning a bit about a plethora of different fields certainly doesn't hurt. If your goal is to make a lot of money, then a traditional liberal arts education can be your ticket (historically speaking, anyway) to a well-paying, and hopefully otherwise rewarding, career. If your goal is to learn as much as possible about everything, then you'll definitely feel at home in a liberal arts environment. It's a very flexible tool for life, and in a very quickly-moving economic climate such as this, flexibility is key, as any recently laid-off Class of 2005-2008 investment banker will tell you.
- jacoblyles 18y ago
  Most people don't go to a good college and most people don't take it seriously. More than half of college students drop out without attaining a degree. The excess demand created by these non-serious people going to college has a lot to do with cost inflation.
  - curiousgeorge 18y ago
    Price curves generally run the other way. More demand means lower price.
    - jacoblyles 18y ago
      In the short run, supply is inelastic; the supply curve is vertical.
unalone 18y ago
Does the Harvard business school emphasize entrepeneurship at all? I'm curious if there're any business students on HN who'd know this.
- jmtame 18y ago
  only seeing 1 guy at hndir.com from harvard. 24 here at illinois ;)
  - unalone 18y ago
    Wow! That's a lot. Is it because there's a strong hacker presence, or did the HNdir guy come from Illinois?
    - jmtame 18y ago
      the hndir guy is weird. i hear he's from illinois too. but illinois has--at least historically--been pretty supportive of startups.
- aneesh 18y ago
  http://www.hbs.edu/entrepreneurship/ http://www.hbs.edu/entrepreneurship/ Much of the MBA class is Consulting & Investment Banking types, but there are plenty of entrepreneurs & future entrepreneurs at Harvard Business School.
- thinkcomp 18y ago
  HBS has an Entrepreneurship Club which holds a yearly Entrepreneurship Conference, and it is definitely part of the curriculum, but in the past the real emphasis has been on assimilating MBA students into mainstream corporate culture, and not as much on starting new businesses. That may change now that the economy has shifted somewhat dramatically. Anyone interested in HBS should read Philip Delves Broughton's book "Ahead of the Curve" about his experience there.
- ardit33 18y ago
  HBS = Case Studies overload, the corporate type of cases.... 1. It is really how for driven and greedy, (please don't neg me), people to channel their energy into money making, as that is the emphasis. 2. The brand power. It will unlock you doors just b/c of the name, especially in the corporate world. Think of it, nobody will get fired b/c they hired a Harvard grad, just as as nobody will get fired b/c they use java, or xml. 3. Connections. Lot of smart people, and some of them will be bound to be somewhat important one day, so they can help you out. the proverbial old-boys-club kinda of thing. This was true, especially during the wall street's financial bubble madness. To get a inside look, check this out. It is a good read. http://www.amazon.com/Ahead-Curve-Harvard-Business-School/dp/1594201757 http://www.amazon.com/Ahead-Curve-Harvard-Business-School/dp... If you are looking into technology/mobile/internet companies, I am not sure I could recommend it. HBS doesn't quiet get tech. Since you are working with case studies, you by default are looking/studying the past, and not the future. For traditional businesses, yes. Fedex was started there (as a class project), so my favorite dessert place (Finales). Disclaimer: I haven't gone to HBS, but I know people that have, and have been to few of their classes as an observer, and took some classes at Harvard Extension. (part of fas, not hbs), but who were taught by HBS professors..
endtime 18y ago
Well, I can only speak for Stanford, but you can't throw a rock without hitting a startup CEO or CTO here. Every week there's a flyer in the CS building recruiting for a new startup. MIT may not have Sand Hill Road around the corner but I'd be surprised if they are any less entrepreneurial.
- albertni 18y ago
  Actually, I don't think MIT cultivates as much of an entrepreneurial culture as you might expect, especially considering how solid the computer science department is, and how there's the Sloan school. It's kind of hard to describe, and I didn't go to Stanford so obviously I can't truly compare the two. I loved MIT but I can say without a doubt (unless things have changed dramatically in the last 9 months) that you don't see flyers recruiting for startups, and startup CEOs/CTOs tend to be more than a stone's throw away. The caveat here is that a lot of (compsci) professors at MIT were indeed at one point involved in a startup of some sort, but it's not the kind of thing that everyone knows about (so they might be a stone's throw away, but in disguise, which is effectively the same thing). Almost nothing about being at MIT made me think "after school I want to be involved in a startup". Ironically, I now work for one.
  - endtime 18y ago
    Okay, well I'll admit it, I am surprised. There's a very big startup culture here - I've definitely heard more than one (qualified) person say that they aren't applying to companies like Amazon, Yahoo, and MSFT because they'd rather work at a startup. People throw the word impact around a lot. And during grad student orientation, they joked about the frequency with which PhD students leave the program to go start companies. I supposed I just assumed MIT was the same because the CS departments are comparable.
    - madmanslitany 18y ago
      This kind of goes back to pg's "Cities and Ambition." Even amongst top CS departments, I think the atmosphere of the surrounding area does influence what the students want to do with themselves. Entrepreneurial spirit isn't necessarily something that's ingrained into CS students by default; students need to be exposed to it, and more importantly they need to see how far they can go with it (which you would see constantly in CA) before they start taking it seriously.

No offense to you, but I'm a little tired of people belittling higher education. Colleges -- especially Harvard, Yale, MIT, etc. -- offer a wonderful education and opportunity to their students. The professors are the best in their field and you can learn a lot; and can grow both intellectually and as a human being. What you take out of college is what you put into it. College isn't for everyone, so don't attend if you’re not willing to put in the time and effort, but you can learn so much if you do the work, pay attention, and get involved. This meme that education is a waste of time needs to be put to rest.

thinkcomp 18y ago
No offense taken--I think getting a liberal arts education is crucial. As an alum, however, I think I'm entitled to be critical about specific qualities I found to be problematic at Harvard.
- mwerty 18y ago
  > I think getting a liberal arts education is crucial. Why do you say that?
  - spencerfry 18y ago
    It’s 4 AM, but I can chime in on that quickly before I go to sleep. I think that without much hesitation people would agree that a liberal arts education by definition is well rounded. You take English classes, science classes, math classes, foreign language classes, history classes, etc. Through your liberal arts education you learn a large breadth of material that when taken together helps to make you a very well rounded person intellectually. There's something to be said for specialization, but you can specialize on your own time. I’d argue that being well rounded, social, and able to converse on many different subjects will serve you a million times over in your startup. There's far more to building a successful startup than a good idea, design, and code. That’s the easy part and it’ll certainly get you off the ground. But to truly run a successful startup, every aspect of your life and your personality will be tapped. Business by its very nature is a social thing between people and a liberal arts education, and the “college experience,” will serve you well in getting past that first stage and on your way to a legitimate business. If you want to be running things rather than working for someone, you need these qualities. Disclaimer: I graduated from Yale in 2006 with a Psychology degree after being Computer Science for the first two years. Programming just wasn’t for me. Psychology wasn’t exactly my major of choice (although, lots of it is very thought provoking), but it allowed me the most freedom to choose the courses I wanted.
  - thinkcomp 18y ago
    It depends on your metric. If your goal is to be a good technology entrepreneur, it's probably worth noting that of all of today's technology leaders with entrepreneurial backgrounds, either zero or very few of them actually studied entrepreneurship or business in school (as a major). If your goal is to be a well-rounded individual, then learning a bit about a plethora of different fields certainly doesn't hurt. If your goal is to make a lot of money, then a traditional liberal arts education can be your ticket (historically speaking, anyway) to a well-paying, and hopefully otherwise rewarding, career. If your goal is to learn as much as possible about everything, then you'll definitely feel at home in a liberal arts environment. It's a very flexible tool for life, and in a very quickly-moving economic climate such as this, flexibility is key, as any recently laid-off Class of 2005-2008 investment banker will tell you.
jacoblyles 18y ago
Most people don't go to a good college and most people don't take it seriously. More than half of college students drop out without attaining a degree. The excess demand created by these non-serious people going to college has a lot to do with cost inflation.
- curiousgeorge 18y ago
  Price curves generally run the other way. More demand means lower price.
  - jacoblyles 18y ago
    In the short run, supply is inelastic; the supply curve is vertical.

unalone 18y ago

Does the Harvard business school emphasize entrepeneurship at all? I'm curious if there're any business students on HN who'd know this.

jmtame 18y ago
only seeing 1 guy at hndir.com from harvard. 24 here at illinois ;)
- unalone 18y ago
  Wow! That's a lot. Is it because there's a strong hacker presence, or did the HNdir guy come from Illinois?
  - jmtame 18y ago
    the hndir guy is weird. i hear he's from illinois too. but illinois has--at least historically--been pretty supportive of startups.
aneesh 18y ago
http://www.hbs.edu/entrepreneurship/ http://www.hbs.edu/entrepreneurship/ Much of the MBA class is Consulting & Investment Banking types, but there are plenty of entrepreneurs & future entrepreneurs at Harvard Business School.
thinkcomp 18y ago
HBS has an Entrepreneurship Club which holds a yearly Entrepreneurship Conference, and it is definitely part of the curriculum, but in the past the real emphasis has been on assimilating MBA students into mainstream corporate culture, and not as much on starting new businesses. That may change now that the economy has shifted somewhat dramatically. Anyone interested in HBS should read Philip Delves Broughton's book "Ahead of the Curve" about his experience there.
ardit33 18y ago
HBS = Case Studies overload, the corporate type of cases.... 1. It is really how for driven and greedy, (please don't neg me), people to channel their energy into money making, as that is the emphasis. 2. The brand power. It will unlock you doors just b/c of the name, especially in the corporate world. Think of it, nobody will get fired b/c they hired a Harvard grad, just as as nobody will get fired b/c they use java, or xml. 3. Connections. Lot of smart people, and some of them will be bound to be somewhat important one day, so they can help you out. the proverbial old-boys-club kinda of thing. This was true, especially during the wall street's financial bubble madness. To get a inside look, check this out. It is a good read. http://www.amazon.com/Ahead-Curve-Harvard-Business-School/dp/1594201757 http://www.amazon.com/Ahead-Curve-Harvard-Business-School/dp... If you are looking into technology/mobile/internet companies, I am not sure I could recommend it. HBS doesn't quiet get tech. Since you are working with case studies, you by default are looking/studying the past, and not the future. For traditional businesses, yes. Fedex was started there (as a class project), so my favorite dessert place (Finales). Disclaimer: I haven't gone to HBS, but I know people that have, and have been to few of their classes as an observer, and took some classes at Harvard Extension. (part of fas, not hbs), but who were taught by HBS professors..

endtime 18y ago

Well, I can only speak for Stanford, but you can't throw a rock without hitting a startup CEO or CTO here. Every week there's a flyer in the CS building recruiting for a new startup. MIT may not have Sand Hill Road around the corner but I'd be surprised if they are any less entrepreneurial.

albertni 18y ago
Actually, I don't think MIT cultivates as much of an entrepreneurial culture as you might expect, especially considering how solid the computer science department is, and how there's the Sloan school. It's kind of hard to describe, and I didn't go to Stanford so obviously I can't truly compare the two. I loved MIT but I can say without a doubt (unless things have changed dramatically in the last 9 months) that you don't see flyers recruiting for startups, and startup CEOs/CTOs tend to be more than a stone's throw away. The caveat here is that a lot of (compsci) professors at MIT were indeed at one point involved in a startup of some sort, but it's not the kind of thing that everyone knows about (so they might be a stone's throw away, but in disguise, which is effectively the same thing). Almost nothing about being at MIT made me think "after school I want to be involved in a startup". Ironically, I now work for one.
- endtime 18y ago
  Okay, well I'll admit it, I am surprised. There's a very big startup culture here - I've definitely heard more than one (qualified) person say that they aren't applying to companies like Amazon, Yahoo, and MSFT because they'd rather work at a startup. People throw the word impact around a lot. And during grad student orientation, they joked about the frequency with which PhD students leave the program to go start companies. I supposed I just assumed MIT was the same because the CS departments are comparable.
  - madmanslitany 18y ago
    This kind of goes back to pg's "Cities and Ambition." Even amongst top CS departments, I think the atmosphere of the surrounding area does influence what the students want to do with themselves. Entrepreneurial spirit isn't necessarily something that's ingrained into CS students by default; students need to be exposed to it, and more importantly they need to see how far they can go with it (which you would see constantly in CA) before they start taking it seriously.