Spring Break
Class Day Essay Finalists - Richard Pole
Issue date: 5/5/08 Section: Viewpoints & Humor
Whakarongo mai, whakarongo mai.
Te mihi tuatahi ki ti atua.
Te mihi tuarua ki a matou kaiwhakahaere.
Te mihi tuatoru ki a tatou.
Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou e hoa ma.
My greeting hails, as I do, from deep in the South Pacific - a small, and some would say insignificant nation called New Zealand. A place that I am proud to call my home. Like many of you I came a great distance to take my seat at Harvard Business School, and believe me there have been many hours when I have lain awake at night trying to explain to myself what on earth I was doing here.
I have heard senior faculty refer to HBS as the Westpoint of Capitalism - which I agree is a cute way of thinking about it. The same faculty though would I am sure deny that HBS is any sort of 'boot camp' - and here I would have to push back. The first year of the program was for me, and I'm sure for many of you too, 'hard yacker' (as we would say in New Zealand). Endless cases, new material, relentless pressure to say something intelligent in class, and the ruthless recruiting machine. The low point for me was Thanksgiving Weekend. I finally succumbed to the unspoken recruitment pressure and in a fit of madness grabbed a pair of clippers and shaved off my dreadlocks. I emerged back onto HBS campus like a newly shorn sheep, blinking in the dull November light. My redundant hair I ceremoniously packaged up and sent to my mother in New Zealand. This was also the first and only time that I have forged Dean Light's signature. Included with the hair was a note that read: "Dear Mrs Pole, we have finally subdued your son for long enough to give him a decent haircut. Now we will endeavour to find him a job. We will be finished with him in June 08, when his transformation will be complete - signed Dean Light, Harvard Business School."
It was not until I was spat out the other end of an incredibly unfruitful 'dedicated interview week' that I had the glimmerings of a personal epiphany. My epiphany came to me as I was walking back to campus through the John F Kennedy memorial park. For that reason, please allow me to express my epiphany by way of a misquote from that great American President: Ich bin nicht ein Frankfurter. I am not a sausage. And HBS is not a sausage factory.
Te mihi tuatahi ki ti atua.
Te mihi tuarua ki a matou kaiwhakahaere.
Te mihi tuatoru ki a tatou.
Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou e hoa ma.
My greeting hails, as I do, from deep in the South Pacific - a small, and some would say insignificant nation called New Zealand. A place that I am proud to call my home. Like many of you I came a great distance to take my seat at Harvard Business School, and believe me there have been many hours when I have lain awake at night trying to explain to myself what on earth I was doing here.
I have heard senior faculty refer to HBS as the Westpoint of Capitalism - which I agree is a cute way of thinking about it. The same faculty though would I am sure deny that HBS is any sort of 'boot camp' - and here I would have to push back. The first year of the program was for me, and I'm sure for many of you too, 'hard yacker' (as we would say in New Zealand). Endless cases, new material, relentless pressure to say something intelligent in class, and the ruthless recruiting machine. The low point for me was Thanksgiving Weekend. I finally succumbed to the unspoken recruitment pressure and in a fit of madness grabbed a pair of clippers and shaved off my dreadlocks. I emerged back onto HBS campus like a newly shorn sheep, blinking in the dull November light. My redundant hair I ceremoniously packaged up and sent to my mother in New Zealand. This was also the first and only time that I have forged Dean Light's signature. Included with the hair was a note that read: "Dear Mrs Pole, we have finally subdued your son for long enough to give him a decent haircut. Now we will endeavour to find him a job. We will be finished with him in June 08, when his transformation will be complete - signed Dean Light, Harvard Business School."
It was not until I was spat out the other end of an incredibly unfruitful 'dedicated interview week' that I had the glimmerings of a personal epiphany. My epiphany came to me as I was walking back to campus through the John F Kennedy memorial park. For that reason, please allow me to express my epiphany by way of a misquote from that great American President: Ich bin nicht ein Frankfurter. I am not a sausage. And HBS is not a sausage factory.
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