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Title: Snapshots from Hell: The Making of an MBA by Peter Robinson ISBN: 1-85788-078-1 Publisher: Nicholas Brealey Publishing Pub. Date: July, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.73 (33 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: (For MBA aspirants) Use this only for light reading
Comment: This is at best a memoir - more of a daily-maintained diary than a guide for MBA aspirants. Robinson captures the spicy aspects of Stanford MBA pretty well. The "cold calledEanecdote is really funny. Good for light reading. Caution for MBA aspirants: Please use other sources to form your opinions about the merits and demerits of joining a b-school (Try "The Witch DoctorsEby John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge).
Rating: 3
Summary: Just okay
Comment: The title is the first point of confusion; although the author names the book "Snapshots From Hell," he later calls B-School rewarding and interesting. What I disliked about the book was all the complaining that Robinson did, as if he expected to cakewalk through one of the most prestigious B-Schools in the nation, especially with a liberal arts degree. Also, if you read the preface carefully, the author admits that the characters in the story are fictional, so that took a bit out of the story as well. All in all though, the story wasn't that bad, and was actually quite interesting at times. There are two ways to get a first-hand account of B-school life: you can either spend $80,000 at a business school, or pay for the book and have someone give you their (mostly) honest account.
Rating: 2
Summary: Don't waste your money--lesson about famous-name schools
Comment: Don't buy this book--it seems to be out of print and that's a good thing. It's a wonder that Stanford admitted this guy, considering the difficulties he describes with understanding supply-demand curves. I guess it must have something to do with his connections to the White House that he describes in the Prologue. Unfortunately that's what drives some college admissions.
He admits that he wanted to go to b-school for the money he would earn, so that gives you an idea of where this guy is based. Certainly, everyone likes to make good money but the author of this book is over the top. At one point in the book he actually wonders, about some items he wrote in his application, if "the admissions committee fell for any of that." At another point in the book he agrees with someone's description of him that he has a background of not really doing anything.
It has been said that one benefit of b-school is the connections to your classmates that you make. That's probably about the only thing that the author of this book got from the experience (other than the advance for this book) because he doesn't seem to be too bright and I'm not sure that he understood a lot of what he was taught. He knows how to bs people and he is friendly, skills valuable in the business world but skills that he possessed without going to Stanford.
I assume that he got the deal to write the book solely as a result of the "names" in his background-- combine the White House background with the fame of the Stanford name and the fact that the publisher didn't already have a book about b-school from the student's point of view and it was an easy decision for them to give him the deal. Reading the book is another story. Sure, it's an entertaining little story and if you have some time to kill while you're waiting to go into the OR to have your appendix removed, then you can read it. That doesn't mean you should spend any MONEY on it, though. If you see it discarded on the sidewalk, or if you find it for ten cents at a church used-book sale, then go ahead.
(Just so you know where I'm coming from, I have a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering and an MBA in Finance, and have attended Stanford University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, so I've been through the whole process.)
I had to check out this book because the idea of a book about b-school being a "snapshot from Hell" was just so ludicrous. One other reviewer mentions that law school is more difficult; that may be true and probably is. Certainly, b-school is not as challenging as engineering school.
I made many friends while earning my undergrad degree in engineering, some of whom went on to b-school, law school or medical school. Each of us who went to b-school learned a lot, but found it nowhere as near to "Hell" as the engineering education was.
Now here's my advice about getting an MBA, aimed toward those of you still in college or high school: When you get your college degree, get it in something real. DON'T major in business at the undergraduate level. Get a degree that teaches you something so that you are qualified to actually do something. If you can do it, get a technical degree, because that's what the economy values (computer science, engineering, chemistry, biology). That way, you can get some experience in a pharmaceutical company, a consumer-products company, or virtually anywhere else. If you're not so technically adept, get some other degree but don't waste your time learning "business" at the undergraduate level. After you have some years of work experience you can learn whatever "business" topics you need when you get your MBA.
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Title: Year One: An Intimate Look Inside Harvard Business School, Source of the Most Coveted Advanced Degree in the World by Robert Reid ISBN: 0688128173 Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: June, 1994 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street by Michael Lewis ISBN: 0140143459 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: October, 1990 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The MBA Jungle B-School Survival Guide by Jon Housman, MBA Jungle, Editors of MBA Jungle, The editors of MBA Jungle ISBN: 0738205117 Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: 07 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: Monkey Business by Peter John/Troob Rolfe ISBN: 0446676950 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Princeton Review: Business School Companion by H.S. Hamadeh ISBN: 0679764631 Publisher: Princeton Review Pub. Date: 26 December, 1995 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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