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Bulldoze the business school

theguardian.com

21–30 of 162 posts

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#21
My finance professor at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley preached that maximizing profit was our ultimate service to the world---so much so--that he taught that if we were running a company and had an option to maximize profits by producing a product that would seriously harm the health of people (eg. give them a medical condition), we should undoubtedly DO IT. Because we would have maximized profit for shareholders, made something great for our customers, and (if we needed) we could take the extra profits and make medical payments to the people harmed to make it whole.

He made this argument in front of 150+ person lecture class. I was so dumbfounded and shell-shocked at the argument that I couldn't believe what I just heard. I looked around at the undergrad business finance students around me, and it looked as if they were absorbing it in.

That was the day I knew I chose the wrong major.

I really did think about raising my hand in that class to respond to the hellish ethics he just espoused. But this professor frequently shouted down students or used ridicule to make people regret raising their hands, and I didn't have the worldview I now have to be able to tell him precisely and irrefutably why what he was teaching us was so so wrong.

The real trouble, however, is that this professor was just a preacher for the doctrine of modern day American capitalism. I just expected to hear the doctrine in a much more sugar-coated and digestible form. He literally read the doctrine to us right out of the book.

UC Berkeley allows undergrads to study at their Haas School of Business and earn a BS (bachelor of SCIENCE) in Business Administration. This is what I was studying. Luckily I had enough time left in undergrad after this lecture to switch to studying computer science at the College of Engineering--where I then felt like I was learning real skills.

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#22
Gary Hamel has been very effective in calling out the emperor's lack of clothes in business 'education' for years - I was at an event in 2009 when he went on an epic rant after the banking 'crisis'.

https://www.london.edu/faculty-and-research/faculty/profiles...

Ironically both Mr Parker and Mr Hamel are being paid well for teaching at the institutions they despise.

I see an analogy with the vast 'San Francisco Academy of Art University', now the largest property owner in San Francisco. It's a highly successful business teaching all sorts of art courses, but a common criticism is that it's a mill, taking young people's money to 'learn art' in an expensive, beautiful city. The fact it is there is demand and it's hugely profitable, just like BSchool. Doesn't mean you are a good businessman or artist at the end of it - I believe like Drucker you have to learn as a trade in context not as a theory - but highly successful businesses cater to demand...

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#23

I graduated from business school last spring. It’s not that they need to be bulldozed, but rather, treated as a trade school. Our highest rated classes were taught by practitioners - those in the Arena, leading men and women, making the difficult ethical choices, then posing them to us to wrestle through. These were the classes we all wanted to take, but were deeply oversubscribed and only a fraction of us got to tak…

This is largely the duality between a school of engineering, and a school of technology as well. Purdue University has both. Engineering is this 150 year tradition that literally made Indiana the crossroads of America. Top 5 in most of it's disciplines year after year.

But that consistency has brought the hordes. Thus, freshman engineering is this gauntlet to run. Profressors are busy with reasearch, TAs are just reciting teleprompters. If you make it through, it's because you were self sufficient, and didn't rely on the university for much of anything.

The school of technology, on the other hand, requires professors have 15 years experience in industry. No research is performed. Every single core class has a lab section. It is literally disrupting the school of engineering by taking the students who aren't yet polyglots at 18, and actually teaching them to be engineers.

It is effectively a bypass to the same destination of becoming an Engineer. But there's more lanes, better signage,its well lit, more efficient maintenance, and I arrive at my destination refreshed, instead of frazzled because of all that big city gridlock.

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#25

My finance professor at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley preached that maximizing profit was our ultimate service to the world---so much so--that he taught that if we were running a company and had an option to maximize profits by producing a product that would seriously harm the health of people (eg. give them a medical condition), we should undoubtedly DO IT. Because we would have maximized profit for sha…

I had several instances of the opposite while across the Bay: put ethics above profit always. It sounds like you just had a bad professor (which you already know).

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#26
1. He makes a good point 2. Its not the point he thinks he makes 3. Full disclosure one of my degrees is a B.S in finance but I work as an engineer.

He makes a point that "At the end of it all, most business-school graduates won’t become high-level managers anyway, just precarious cubicle drones in anonymous office blocks." But isn't that true of most degrees? I would argue even most STEM grads end up in the cubicle farm. I saw plenty there working for a defense contractor. I also think him saying this is objectively bad is a little elitist. Depending on background and family socio-economic status the cubicle farm might be a step up and even a point of pride.

All of his criticism is from the point of view that people in business schools take advantage of others, how about people go to business school to not be taken advantage of? To know how to negotiate a salary, to know the rough rules of the game. If you don't come from a family of means I would argue a decent business school and STEM are about equivalent in terms of increasing your income and providing a long term career. Some don't have the aptitude or inclination to do STEM. Just like many STEM grads couldn't sell someone a $100 bill for $95.

Another claim is that: "Another suggested that the likelihood of committing some form of corporate crime increased if the individual concerned had experience of graduate business education, or military service. (Both careers presumably involve absolving responsibility to an organisation.)" How about people who know a field and are in the field are more likely to commit a crime in it? I am sure the number of blue collar embezzlement is dominated by plumbers/electricians etc. Not even going into criminal medical issues such as corrupt doctors being opioid prescription factories.

I am not saying all business schools are useful, or that they do the job perfectly but his opinion seems shockingly naive. Also business school might not be a good place to be if you don't have some degree of faith in capitalism (the single greatest eradicator of poverty over the past 50 years), it would be like being a flat-earther in an astrophysics department.

Finally, I would much rather be managed or HR-ed by someone with at least some formal training on how to treat people with dignity in difficult complex situations. I have seen conflict/layoffs/firings etc. handled absolutely atrociously by (albeit young) STEM grads. Admittedly having a degree in Management/HR doesn't mean you are automatically good at this, but education helps.

Personal anecdote: My first year in finance taught me a lot about debt, I changed my whole college strategy to graduate debt free. My finance degree also taught me most of the wealth management industry is exploitative of the average investor and have no demonstrable gains over just buying low fee indices. These 2 bits will save me hundreds of thousands of dollars if not over a million dollars throughout my career. Sure they may be obvious but millions of students every year make egregious financial mistakes to get other degrees that may land them in the same cube farm.

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#27

I graduated from business school last spring. It’s not that they need to be bulldozed, but rather, treated as a trade school. Our highest rated classes were taught by practitioners - those in the Arena, leading men and women, making the difficult ethical choices, then posing them to us to wrestle through. These were the classes we all wanted to take, but were deeply oversubscribed and only a fraction of us got to tak…

This is largely the duality between a school of engineering, and a school of technology as well. Purdue University has both. Engineering is this 150 year tradition that literally made Indiana the crossroads of America. Top 5 in most of it's disciplines year after year. But that consistency has brought the hordes. Thus, freshman engineering is this gauntlet to run. Profressors are busy with reasearch, TAs are just rec…

Is there someplace I can learn more about this? Any writeups or articles you know of?

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#28
post #15

So, an article in "The Guardian" laments the immorality of teaching capitalism to future would-be capitalists. Color me shocked! What should we teach them instead? The importance of social responsibility, sustainability, diversity and warm feelings and how capitalism is really evil and how they should feel bad about employing its principles? In other words, shall we turn them into sheep to be let loose among the wolv…

> So, an article in "The Guardian" laments the immorality of teaching capitalism to future would-be capitalists. Hmm. From TFA, the author laments that: Within the business school, capitalism is assumed to be the end of history, an economic model that has trumped all the others, and is now taught as science, rather than ideology. And then: The business school assumes capitalism, corporations and managers as the defau…

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Re: Bulldoze the business school

#29
post #25

My finance professor at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley preached that maximizing profit was our ultimate service to the world---so much so--that he taught that if we were running a company and had an option to maximize profits by producing a product that would seriously harm the health of people (eg. give them a medical condition), we should undoubtedly DO IT. Because we would have maximized profit for sha…

I had several instances of the opposite while across the Bay: put ethics above profit always. It sounds like you just had a bad professor (which you already know).

"But this professor frequently shouted down students or used ridicule to make people regret raising their hands"

Pretty much the definition of a bad professor, IMO.

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