Mercedes Politi, MBA ’11

MIT Sloan, the MBA, and Power

I'd love to share with you a great and insightful post from Nabil Laoudji, a classmate from the Class of 2011, on the fantastic speakers we had access to during orientation week. He's posted this as a note on Facebook and has agreed to have it reproduced here. Thanks Nabil! 

MIT Sloan, the MBA, and Power

Nabil Laoudji

Monday, September 7, 2009

Facebook Note

I spent Labor Day weekend in Pennsylvania with my family, where one question rose above the rest: now that you’ve sat through orientation, what are your thoughts on MIT Sloan? My response: I’m excited. And not for the reasons that I expected.

Sloan, like many business schools, gives students a lot to be excited about: dynamic professors, great facilities, and so forth. But what really turned me on to Sloan this week is less commonly emphasized in the business school pitch: it has to do with power.

Sloan demonstrated this most poignantly through two keynotes.

First came Simon Johnson (baselinescenario.com — you’re welcome Simon), former chief economist at the IMF, current professor of entrepreneurship, and celebrity pundit on today’s financial crisis. Simon laid out, in no uncertain terms, that the reason America’s economy is increasingly vulnerable to collapse is that it is regulated, by proxy, by those who stand to profit most from its vulnerability, aka the financial services sector. Today, in the wake of the worst economic crisis in a century, the major players in the financial services industry have more power than ever, thanks to a wholesale transfer of capital from the bottom up.

Second came John Sterman, Sloan operations professor. Professor Sterman walked us through a simulator, where teams of eight were asked to run a vertically integrated beer manufacturer (and let the breweries brew!), and make iterative decisions on managing the beer’s supply chain. By the end of the exercise, many teams who only hours earlier glowed with mutual admiration, found themselves mired in accusations of incompetence, while their supply chains failed in front of them. The purpose of this exercise was to demonstrate that the reason organizations fail has less to do with the competence of their employees, and more to do with the design of the systems in which they operate. His poignant illustration thereof? Photos of soldiers in the Abu Gharib prison giving the camera a thumbs-up while Iraqi prisoners lie bound, gagged, and naked on the floor beside them. Professor Sterman: “It wasn’t just a few bad apples. It was the failure of a system.”

Unlike medicine or law, one doesn’t need a masters in business to practice in the field. More than any other degree, conventional thinking is that the value of an MBA is that it is an insertion point into the prevalent power structure. And yet during my orientation Sloan demonstrated a willingness to not only examine this power structure dispassionately, but in some cases call for its wholesale destruction. And that’s why I’m excited.

Some pics!

Just wanted to share some pictures to help you visualize what's been going on over here! (Yep, you guessed it, the first weeks of core are pretty intense! Will catch up with my blogging this weekend hopefully!)

- Rafting trip

- MIT Argentine Club meeting

- Welcome barbecue for Class of 2011

- Discovering the campus with new friends

 

- MIT sailing class (thanks Jeff for organizing and Tom for teaching!)

- Orientation week (B-A-L-T-I-C-S! Baltics rise above the rest!)

- Teambuilding activities - My core team, the Cranes and our amazing Pilot Chris Mitchell (in the red T-shirt)!! GO CRANES GO!!

- Welcome back Sea Function! (Yeah, it was a dinner party on a boat!)

- Communication for Managers sneak preview!

- Concerts in Boston! (Babasonicos, The Killers and soon… U2!)

Cheers!

Mercedes 

First two weeks at MIT Sloan!

So much has already happened since I arrived in Boston from Argentina that I can’t believe the MBA hasn’t even started yet! Although registration day and the official start of the Fall Term is tomorrow, September 8th, there have been many activities going on over the last two weeks such as the E-Treks, Pre-term, and Orientation week. It’s been very hectic already but, personally, it’s been really great to get involved early on to have some time to let it all soak in. I’ve already met many of my classmates and I’m really excited since the Class of 2011 seems to be awesome!

Let me tell you a little bit more on what’s been going on around here:

1. E-Treks: They’re short trips organized before the start of the MBA that allow the incoming class to get to know each other. This year they took place the weekend before pre-term (August 21-23). Usually second year students organize them, although this year there was a trip organized by first year students as well (again, isn’t my class awesome?). There are usually several options, this year we had to pick among: Rafting in Maine, Hiking in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, and Camping in Vermont. I was on the Rafting trip and had an amazing time! I had never been rafting before and was excited to try it out. Also, it was great to meet my classmates for the first time in a stress-free environment and to share an adventure together. Many thanks to all of the organizers of the treks, especially to Jonathan Alspaugh who organized the Rafting trip! To find out more about the E-treks: http://mitetreks.wordpress.com
2. Pre-term: It was a weeklong series of four courses: Accounting, Statistics, Economics, and Finance, to help you get ready for the Core semester. It wasn’t mandatory and had to be paid for on top of tuition, so approximately half of the class took it, while other students created study groups and reviewed the materials together. I found some of the classes to be very useful and others to be somewhat basic, but overall I think it was worth it and it was good to get back in the rhythm of being a student all over again.
3. Orientation: After sharing over a week of activities with the Class of 2011, the time came to split up into our cohorts or “Oceans” as they call them here at MIT Sloan. There are six oceans with approximately 60 students in each one: Altantic, Baltic, Caribbean, Indian, Mediterranean, and Pacific. Each ocean is then split into ten “core teams” of six or seven students, with whom we will be sharing most of our assignments during the first Core Fall Semester. The core teams have the names of birds (half of which I had never heard of in my life): puffins, egrets, cranes, etc. I’m in the Baltic Ocean and my core team is the Cranes! (The best ocean and the best core team ever, of course!) The Class of 2010 gave us a very warm welcome and introduced us to life at the MBA. Each core team was assigned a second year Pilot (like a mentor) that will accompany us throughout first semester and is the go-to person in search of advice. Our Pilot is amazing, I’m sure he’s going to be a great source of support throughout our first year. To give you a brief overview of orientation week, we participated in our first class with the case study method (and then heard a speech from the CEO of the company!), we attended information sessions about the MBA and MIT Sloan, and we spent a day outdoors doing teambuilding exercises with our ocean and our core team. I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical in the beginning about the teambuilding games, but at the end of the day I felt that they had been very effective at helping us get to know each other and figure out how we work as team. It also got us started off with a positive attitude to begin the school year.

I think it’s also important to tell you about my first impressions after being here for only 2 weeks:

1. The Class of 2011, especially the Baltic Ocean, and especially the Cranes are awesome! (Did I already say that?)
2.  Diverse student backgrounds. Seriously now, coming into business school from a mostly non-business background I really didn’t know what to expect. But I can assure you that people have amazing backgrounds, there is true diversity of professional and life experiences and conversations are very stimulating just because of the crowd that gathers here. I feel humbled and very proud to be here! I am sure that I will learn a lot from my classmates, even from informal or spontaneous conversations.
3. Collaborative environment. You hear over and over how collaborative your school will be, but at a certain level, you just don’t buy it – until you see it for yourself! MIT Sloan is so collaborative that it’s even rubbed off first year students before we even started. For example, a classmate with sailing experience organized a day of sailing at the MIT Sailing Pavilion to encourage all of us to get our MIT Sailing Card that allows you to sail for free while you’re a student. In addition, a couple of Sloanies that studied undergrad at MIT organized informal MIT campus tours, giving us tips on where to study and how to take advantage of life on campus. Also, some of my classmates are already organizing the Iceland Trek for mid-October, and have been doing so since Admit weekend with the guidance of second-year students. Thanks to all of those who already took on initiatives!
4. Mentorship from second year students. The Class of 2010 has been extremely present in our first weeks here at MIT Sloan and has made us all feel very welcome. They have organized the E-Treks so that we could meet each other, they’ve welcomed us to our Oceans and accompanied us throughout the activities during Orientation week, and they will remain our Pilots for our core teams throughout the first semester. Moreover, they have demonstrated their openness to dispense personal and professional advice to all of us first-years. Kudos to the Class of 2010 for a very successful leadership role!
5. Energy is just flowing. MIT Sloan and MIT in general are really flowing with energy. You feel it the minute you step on campus. Many things are going on at the same time and you want to be involved in everything. You walk around campus and you have the feeling that things are being invented all around you as you walk past. Seriously, it’s a really contagious sensation. (In case you can’t tell, I’m really excited to be here!)

Well, that’s all for now folks! We’ll start our first week of classes this week so I’ll let you know how it goes! Hope you like the blog, please drop me a line if you have any comments or suggestions!

Cheers,

Mercedes