← Previous Post: | Next Post:

 

‘”When I first met people at HBS and they had worked in a bank, I would pick up on them feeling like they were almost ashamed,” Gandhi said.’

Ashamed? Ashamed? ASHAMED???

 

(Say it out loud like Bracknell saying A HANDBAG???)

What is happening to this country? People at Harvard Business School are ashamed to admit they were like this with great Americans like Lloyd Blankfein, Squido di Tutti Squidi? This country is about to elect as President a proud graduate of Wharton, the BIZnessest biz school in the world, and current students at HBS are ashamed of having worked in an investment bank? What the hell is that? Can it be that the, uh, symbolic value of people Blankfein, Jamie Dimon, and pretty boy Dick Fuld and his merry men is declining?

It’s partly the fault of those goddamn case studies.

“There are several case studies dealing with investment banks wherein students discuss the brutal work environment and incredibly out-of-whack work-life balance,” [said one observer]. “The banks’ efforts — their success or lack thereof — to bring about change have not been discussed, but what is consistently highlighted is the dark side of investment banks.”

What to do?

Big banks are fighting back, promising recruits more hours to sleep, the occasional day off and reasonable deadlines. The effort, prompted by the death of a Bank of America Corp. intern in 2013, is driven in part by fear that the brightest students no longer see investment banking as a sustainable career. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. invited celebrity author Deepak Chopra to talk to its staff a few months ago about wellness, relaxation and the value of vacation.

Deepak! Deepak baby! Teach them how not to die!

Margaret Soltan, August 13, 2015 10:15AM
Posted in: beware the b-school boys

Trackback URL for this post:
https://www.margaretsoltan.com/wp-trackback.php?p=49406

2 Responses to “‘”When I first met people at HBS and they had worked in a bank, I would pick up on them feeling like they were almost ashamed,” Gandhi said.’”

  1. dmf Says:

    master class in snake-oil salesmanship?

  2. adam Says:

    It’s the commodification of talent – after all, who in the trenches is not expendable?

Comment on this Entry

UD REVIEWED

Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times

George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
The Electron Pencil

It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo

There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
AcademicPub

You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann

Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog

University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog

[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
The Wall Street Journal

Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education

[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University

Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University

The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog

Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages

Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
Outside the Beltway

From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law

University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association

The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
Medical Humanities Blog

I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
Ducks and Drakes

As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
The Bitch Girls

Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
Tenured Radical

University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
Mary Beard, A Don's Life

[University Diaries offers] a broad sense of what's going on in education today, framed by a passionate and knowledgeable reporter.
More magazine, Canada

If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte

Archives

Categories