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Business schools redefine hacking to “stuff that a 7-year-old could do” (2005)

blogs.law.harvard.edu

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Re: Business schools redefine hacking to “stuff that a 7-year-old could do” (2005)

#31

Post by jraines »

sbt wrote: post #30
edw519 wrote: post #7

"Instead of students studying Literature, Art, History, and Science they would be going through the motions of a scholar while occupying their minds with things that formerly had been learned at a desk as an apprentice in a dreary Victorian counting house." Wow, that may be the best description of the concerns of the MBA I've ever read. I have my MBA and, to this day, I still don't know how I feel about it. Sure, it…

Sure. I think it's accepted that you go to business school to network with students with rich parents. A friend of mine applying said that if she didn't get into any of the top 5 programs, it wasn't worth going.

Friend of mine went to one that's around #25. His offer coming out was $35K more than the job he left to attend the program full time. And he moved fields from one he didn't like (healthcare) to one he did (marketing). No rich parents involved. Sample size of 1 FTW!

Re: Business schools redefine hacking to “stuff that a 7-year-old could do” (2005)

#32

Post by whatusername »

pguerin wrote: post #22

hahaha this reminds me of a discussion I just had today with a student at the business school of my university. He was pissed off at the "IT people" because they know nothing about management and never finishes on time their projects. The way he talked to me was as if it was all our fault and that we were simply lazy. He was agressive to me even if he never worked with me and told me to check the "new york" methodolo…

ITIL is pretty standard for managing IT Infrastructure. So standard in fact that http://www.google.com.au/search?q=itil maybe returns 1 result that isn't about ITIL in the top 50.

If you can't google for something as basic as that - then maybe the bus. guy was right about you being lazy.

Re: Business schools redefine hacking to “stuff that a 7-year-old could do” (2005)

#33

Post by antiismist »

jraines wrote: post #31
sbt wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. I think it's accepted that you go to business school to network with students with rich parents. A friend of mine applying said that if she didn't get into any of the top 5 programs, it wasn't worth going.

Friend of mine went to one that's around #25. His offer coming out was $35K more than the job he left to attend the program full time. And he moved fields from one he didn't like (healthcare) to one he did (marketing). No rich parents involved. Sample size of 1 FTW!

Is that really a win though? Your friend is out two years worth of income + considerable debt to make an extra 35K after two years.

Re: Business schools redefine hacking to “stuff that a 7-year-old could do” (2005)

#34

Post by zackattack »

antiismist wrote: post #33
jraines wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Friend of mine went to one that's around #25. His offer coming out was $35K more than the job he left to attend the program full time. And he moved fields from one he didn't like (healthcare) to one he did (marketing). No rich parents involved. Sample size of 1 FTW!

Is that really a win though? Your friend is out two years worth of income + considerable debt to make an extra 35K after two years.

35k a year adds up pretty quickly. Salary acceleration is also likely to be increased.

Re: Business schools redefine hacking to “stuff that a 7-year-old could do” (2005)

#35

Post by timwiseman »

quizbiz wrote: post #23
edw519 wrote: post #7

"Instead of students studying Literature, Art, History, and Science they would be going through the motions of a scholar while occupying their minds with things that formerly had been learned at a desk as an apprentice in a dreary Victorian counting house." Wow, that may be the best description of the concerns of the MBA I've ever read. I have my MBA and, to this day, I still don't know how I feel about it. Sure, it…

It seems business is very applicable in the real world, making relationships, making the most of them. Why do more academic courses like Economics or Political Science have such a better reputation?

This is a good question. Personally, it seems to me that degrees in business are of a different kind than more academic courses, but not lesser.

This difference in kind may explain some of the attitudes that are out there though. MBA's are relatively new in terms of degrees and they are much more applied than most degrees. This is simply different from what other students are working on and people tend to be disdainful of what is different, especially if it is also new. This is just an off the cuff thought, but it seems to fit.

Re: Business schools redefine hacking to “stuff that a 7-year-old could do” (2005)

#36

Post by jraines »

zackattack wrote: post #34
antiismist wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that really a win though? Your friend is out two years worth of income + considerable debt to make an extra 35K after two years.

35k a year adds up pretty quickly. Salary acceleration is also likely to be increased.

I agree, especially with the first point. Also, though the program was a lot of work, two years of being back in a college environment is pretty cool for most people (from the people I've met in this program, it's not like the typical ennui- and angst-ridden experience you usually see other types of graduate school portrayed as -- although I guess it would be if you're going into it because you've got no other ideas, i.e. grad school as "the snooze button on the alarm clock of life")

Re: Business schools redefine hacking to “stuff that a 7-year-old could do” (2005)

#37

Post by qohen »

scott_s wrote: post #12
omnipresent1 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Article definitely did not live up to its title. Author definitely got some eyeballs though....and eyeballs == money?

The title was misleading, but what he talked about was interesting anyway. In this case, eyeballs don't equal money. This is a Harvard professor's blog with no ads.

Just for the record, Philip Greenspun is many things, but Harvard professor is not among them (he's simply using a blog service run by the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School, which you can find out about by, as per the article, "hacking" his blog's URL: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/ ).

Anyway, while not a Harvard professor, "philg" is a very interesting guy who has done a bunch of worthwhile things (e.g. "Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing", htttp://photo.net, Ars Digita, etc.) that should be of interest to Hacker News readers. He writes well--in books, essays and blog posts--and he writes provocatively, with a mix of snark and self-deprecating humor that many enjoy.

In short, he's worth knowing about in my view (and I'm happy to know him). For links to his past and present projects: http://philip.greenspun.com For background info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Greenspun

P.S. As many readers here already know, he's also the author of "Greenspun's tenth rule of programming" (which led to the term "Greenspunning"): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspunning

Re: Business schools redefine hacking to “stuff that a 7-year-old could do” (2005)

#38

Post by qohen »

whatusername wrote: post #32
pguerin wrote: post #22

hahaha this reminds me of a discussion I just had today with a student at the business school of my university. He was pissed off at the "IT people" because they know nothing about management and never finishes on time their projects. The way he talked to me was as if it was all our fault and that we were simply lazy. He was agressive to me even if he never worked with me and told me to check the "new york" methodolo…

ITIL is pretty standard for managing IT Infrastructure. So standard in fact that http://www.google.com.au/search?q=itil maybe returns 1 result that isn't about ITIL in the top 50. If you can't google for something as basic as that - then maybe the bus. guy was right about you being lazy.

FWIW, Google.com has the Wikipedia link up top: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Technology_Infrastr...

Though it is interesting to see that ITIL originated in the UK, which might explain why not everyone has heard of it.

BTW, here's an article from '05 describing ITIL use in the US (and ITIL's history): http://www.govtech.com/gt/articles/95672

Re: Business schools redefine hacking to “stuff that a 7-year-old could do” (2005)

#39

Post by buugs »

I thought the fandango thing was pretty much fair game as that is one of the first thing people learn, or should learn, about web scripting is what can be controlled by the browser versus controlled by the server.

And in a perfect world the programmer would have made up the price lost not the theatre nor fandango.

Re: Business schools redefine hacking to “stuff that a 7-year-old could do” (2005)

#40

Post by carbon8 »

sbt wrote: post #30
edw519 wrote: post #7

"Instead of students studying Literature, Art, History, and Science they would be going through the motions of a scholar while occupying their minds with things that formerly had been learned at a desk as an apprentice in a dreary Victorian counting house." Wow, that may be the best description of the concerns of the MBA I've ever read. I have my MBA and, to this day, I still don't know how I feel about it. Sure, it…

Sure. I think it's accepted that you go to business school to network with students with rich parents. A friend of mine applying said that if she didn't get into any of the top 5 programs, it wasn't worth going.

That's only harvard, but harvard is still the center of a lot of business research. Of course, the vast majority of people getting MBAs from top-tier schools got in through hard work throughout their lives.
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