Business School, Disrupted • Hacker News Board

Re: Business School, Disrupted

#21

Post by ilaksh » Sun, Jun 01, 2014, 2:51 PM UTC

fozzieBoston wrote: post #2

Harvard Business School student here. I find this article fascinating, specifically because it highlights the challenge of transferring the case based method to the virtual world. Unlike regular lectures where you can sit and absorb, the case based method requires you to actively participate and defend your argument in front of 90 peers. You have to prepare, think on your feet and be ready to challenge and build upon…

College dropout here. Anyway, my vastly-less-expensive aborted "education" really isn't the point.

> I'm not sure what the UX will be for replicating this discussion setting, and invoking individuals to share from their experience. How do you validate the quality of the comments?

"Then a box pops up on the screen with the words “Cold Call.” The student has 30 seconds to a few minutes to type a response to a question and is then prodded to assess comments made by other students. Eventually there is a multiple-choice quiz to gauge mastery of the concept."

"He unveiled the existence of a studio, built in collaboration with Boston’s public television station, that allows a professor to stand in a pit before a horseshoe of 60 digital “tiles,” or high-definition screens with the live images and voices of geographically dispersed participants."

> These are all though issues to solve, and I'm glad HBS is actively tackling it. I'm looking forward to seeing if they succeed.

Did you read the whole article, or stop in the middle?

Case based method sounds like a much better idea than wasting time listening to a lecture. I think what they mention in the article is a good start.

The type of disruption faced by Harvard and other universities applies not only to that industry but to many other, perhaps most, industries.

Maybe instead of worrying so much about saving their own asses, some of these overpaid Harvard geniuses could come up with an idea or two about how to adjust our underlying "economic" structures to align with new technological realities.

By the way, did you ask those "former PE guys" how they actually valuated WhatsApp? Did you ask the bankers who worked in Europe what they did to fix the "economic" structure so that the global "economic" crisis would not threaten the physical health and well-being of so many people?

Re: Business School, Disrupted

#22

Post by fozzieBoston » Sun, Jun 01, 2014, 4:13 PM UTC

devanti wrote: post #20

fozzieBoston wrote: post #2

Harvard Business School student here. I find this article fascinating, specifically because it highlights the challenge of transferring the case based method to the virtual world. Unlike regular lectures where you can sit and absorb, the case based method requires you to actively participate and defend your argument in front of 90 peers. You have to prepare, think on your feet and be ready to challenge and build upon…

This is exactly my problem with HBS. Their cases are heavily geared towards financial and exit situations, where PE/bankers will excel at. This also reflects on the fact that a lot of their students come from those backgrounds. They don't really focus on actual technology problems as much, and it would be harder for an engineer to bring their experience to the table.

Actually their cases aren't geared towards financial and exit situations. I gave those examples because I don't come from that background, and so found those illustrative of what I personally learned.

I'm a computer scientist by training, and found that my experience helps me excel in the classroom, rather than serve as a burden. Classmates do appreciate the technological perspective, and former Microsoft, Google, Apple and startup employees do a great job of giving that perspective in Entrepreneurship, operations and technology classes. Engineers are highly regarded at the school...

Re: Business School, Disrupted

#23

Post by fozzieBoston » Sun, Jun 01, 2014, 4:16 PM UTC

damoncali wrote: post #8

fozzieBoston wrote: post #2

Harvard Business School student here. I find this article fascinating, specifically because it highlights the challenge of transferring the case based method to the virtual world. Unlike regular lectures where you can sit and absorb, the case based method requires you to actively participate and defend your argument in front of 90 peers. You have to prepare, think on your feet and be ready to challenge and build upon…

I'll go ahead and say what you tiptoed around. You cannot recreate the experience of a top-tier MBA program online. You cannot drink online. You cannot travel the world online. You cannot play rugby online. There are hundreds of things that make B school what it is that you just cannot do online.

I agree that HBS provides many of the experiences you described, but that argument can be made for college level education as well, no? one of the downsides of online education is that it lacks the social element that is at times just as important as the educational one.

I don't argue that HBS provides all of what you mentioned, but I do argue that many colleges provide the same.

Re: Business School, Disrupted

#24

Post by sanderjd » Sun, Jun 01, 2014, 4:22 PM UTC

fozzieBoston wrote: post #2

Harvard Business School student here. I find this article fascinating, specifically because it highlights the challenge of transferring the case based method to the virtual world. Unlike regular lectures where you can sit and absorb, the case based method requires you to actively participate and defend your argument in front of 90 peers. You have to prepare, think on your feet and be ready to challenge and build upon…

I think the future of education will look very different from both "lectures and interaction in classrooms" and "lectures and interaction online". The more lecture-based material is, the more successful it is to present it online, while the more interaction-based material is, the more it makes sense to be in an actual room with other students.

I'm not sure whether bricks-and-mortar universities or pure-online companies like Coursera are better positioned to transition to this hybrid approach. Universities already have it, but at a price point and class size more similar to a full on-campus program than a fully online program. They already have classrooms and TAs, but they have a lot of overhead. Online companies may actually be in a better position to figure out how to scale courses with an offline component across the country while keeping costs reasonable.

Re: Business School, Disrupted

#25

Post by orbifold » Sun, Jun 01, 2014, 6:47 PM UTC

barry-cotter wrote: post #14

vinceguidry wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> HBS has zero incentive to do anything but raise the price, in time and money. Harvard University's endowment is the largest out of any university in the world. They have literally no incentive to squeeze matriculants, and have been increasing their financial aid pool whenever they can. You really don't know what you're talking about. Harvard is trying as hard as it can to not be an elitist club. They regularly revi…

Harvard is trying as hard as it can to not be an elitist club. They really are trying to be the best university in the world. Which is it?

I think he means they are trying not to restrict access based on money, but on skill, which at least in fringe subjects such as mathematics and physics is true.