A top ten list

THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT WEEKLY FOR THE HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL SINCE 1937 TUESDAY • SEPTEMBER 8, 2009 HARBUS BY PATRICK CHUN (OB) & SCOTT DAUBIN (OE) SA Co-Presidents THE China Trek Page 5 The Dating Write-Up Page 8 Rugby Preview Page 10 WWW.HARBUS.ORG Vol. L X XIX • No. 15 Welcome back, Class of 2010, and special welcome to the new Class of 2011 RCs! For the new students on campus, we are the copresidents of the Student Association (or SA for short), the student government representing the MBA student body. The SA has been hard at work this summer to make for the best year ever. We’ve been talking to administrators, professors, and students, and while life outside our business school bubble is not without its own challenges, we believe there are a lot of things to celebrate here on campus. So we decided to put together our own Top-10 list of reasons why this year is shaping to be a great one. A top ten list 5. ROCKING VENUES FOR SA EVENTS - The Westin for Holidazzle, the Museum of Fine Arts for the new EC black tie event, and the amazing Newport Mansion for the RC Spring event. Premier venues for our marquee events. 4. CUSTOM TAILORING - The SA will be offering custom tailored suits and shirts beginning this Fall. We think this will be an affordable, stylish choice for many of you looking to maximize your chances of landing the sweet job for next year or summer. 10. J-TERM - While you can debate the merits of the unified calendar, nobody can debate the possibility of skipping out on some of the most brutal days of Boston winter. Thank you Harvard University! 9. NEW ON-CAMPUS PRINTERS - Printers on campus have been upgraded to minimize jams and improve cycle times. While you still need to have a printer at home for everyday use, we think this can turn into a big time-saver for those times when RCs need to print out learning team notes, or ECs need to print… last-minute plane tickets to Octoberfest. BEST Year Ever 7. LARGER CLASS SIZE - Sure, the expansion of class size (from 900 to 942 for the Class of 2011) might mean slightly less room in your Aldrich classroom, but we see it as a 40/900 higher chance to make good friends. 3. LANGUAGE CLASSES - Many of you ECs have asked for it, so the SA is working hard to deliver! Details are not yet fi nalized, but look to hear from us about heavily discounted, on-campus language classes offered later this Fall. 2. CUPCAKES IN THE SQUARE - Sweet, the new cupcake store, opened in May. The SA had nothing to do with this, but we really like cupcakes. 1. FIRST-EVER EC CLASS SKI TRIP - Together with the Outdoors Club, the SA is organizing a group ski trip to Steamboat Springs, CO in mid February. A competitive, fi xed price will buy you airfare, lodging, lift tickets, and entertainment, all seamlessly planned by the SA Social Committee. Hopefully this fi rst-time effort will become an annual tradition. Call us optimistic, but we are really excited to back here, and to be leading the Class of 2010 and 2011 as your SA Co-Presidents for the year. Again, we urge you to reach out to us with thoughts, suggestions, or comments- we need to hear from you to make sure we’re focused on what will drive the best year for you. Looking forward to catching up with the ECs, and meeting the new RC class! ■ 8. HBS GOT TALENT - Last year was the fi rst annual SA-hosted HBS talent show, so some people had fair concerns about how many students would be willing to showing their talent. Needless to say, the show was an amazing success- singing, dancing, spoken word, and crude humor, we had it all. Can’t wait for the secondever SA talent show later this Spring. 6. THE IPHONE - Productivity tool of life- both of us are converts. Having wifi, the weather channel app, and Exchange support are key to HBS, and are especially a godsend in Aldrich basements where cellular signals are spotty. AN INTERVIEW WITH Case Protagonist & HBS Entrepreneur-In-Residence, Jim Sharpe (MBA ‘76) BY KAY FUKUNAGA (OJ) Editor-inChief ■ This article is the first in a series of interviews with this year’s Harvard Business School Entrepreneurs-inResidence. Sponsored by the HBS Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship, the Entrepreneur-in-Residence program invites accomplished entrepreneurs to commit to either a semester or full academic year working with faculty and students on campus. Second-year (EC) students will likely best remember Jim Sharpe as the intriguing, entrepreneurial TEM case protagonist who was handpicked by Jack Welch to “tryout” for General Electric upon graduating from Har vard Business School in 1976. During his years at HBS, Sharpe’s campus contemporaries included SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, Intuit founder Scott Cook, and former U.S. President George W. Bush. A decade after graduating from HBS and having obtained significant operational experience running businesses in turnaround situations, Sharpe made the leap to business owner through the purchase of Extrusion Technology, an aluminum extrusion fabricator. With Sharpe at the helm, the company Jim Sharpe Residence program, which was launched six years ago, invites accomplished entrepreneurs to campus to collaborate with and participate in an ongoing exchange of ideas with faculty and students. “My goal is to be available to students – both first- and second-year students – with the experiences I have had. I am happy to talk to people or answer any questions they have,” said Sharpe, who will be avail- able for office hours during the latter half of the week (on the Y-schedule). “The objective was to bring in people who can spend time with students and can offer them valuable perspectives based on their own experiences, to have the EIRs work with faculty members on projects of mutual interest and to have them engaged in the intellectual work of the school,” said Mike See SHARPE, Page 2 experienced dramatic growth – revenues quickly grew eightfold from $4 million to $32 million through savvy strategic activities such as the development of niche products. Sharpe recently returned to HBS to serve as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR). The Entrepreneur-in- Class of 2011 Profile Admissions Total MBA Enrollment ...................................................................... 942 Applications ..............................................................................................................9,093 % Admitted ................................................................................................................ 12% Yield ............................................................................................................................. 89% INDEX Campus Affairs .................PAGE 3 China Trek ........................PAGE 5 Class Composition Female .......................................................................................................................... 37% U.S. Ethnic Minorities .............................................................................................23% International ..............................................................................................................36% Countries represented .................................................................. 70 Admits Within 3 Years of College Graduation ....................441 Undergraduate institutions represented..............................270 Green Living ........................... PAGE 9 GMAT Score Range ............................................................ 490-800 Sports ..................................PAGE 10 Middle 50% GMAT Score Range .....................700-760 Average GPA ....................................................................3.67