Harbus

Issue date: 9/2/08 Section: Viewpoints & Humor

David Rawlinson, HBS 08'

This is an exquisite day.

A time that is truly momentous. For almost all of us, it marks receipt of the last degree we will ever earn. It marks the final transition of the mind from preparation to application. It marks a move away from learning about the possible and toward creating it. And so for us, it is a new sunrise. Not the sunrise of countless speeches, not the sunrise that comes every 24 hours, it is the sun rising on what is in many ways a final dawn. Up until now, our life has been defined by rapid and grand transitions. From childhood to independence, from high school to college, college to work, and back again. These transitions will now become much less dramatic and more rare. The march is now toward self-definition and legacy.

It is a profound moment and a defining one.

In my time today, I would also like to discuss my path here, three defining experiences that have transformed how I view this institution, and what they may tell us about the future.
My own journey started in the small town of Rock Hill, SC. Now, there are smaller cities than Rock Hill, but not many. Rock Hill was just large enough to have a part-time mayor and a 24-hour waffle house.

Growing up in Rock hill, I never met a Harvard MBA. Harvard did not seem like a real place. It was a fanciful land. A place talked about in novels. A place where the children of great families-Kennedys and Bushes-went to learn and play together. A place where greatness came to be cultivated. That was my view then.

I had never visited HBS before I came for class. I drove 25 hours straight from Dallas, Texas and arrived only one day before class started. I reached Boston exhausted the night before. I could not sleep until I had at least seen the campus. This product of SC state schools wanted to quench his sense of awe. He wanted to face east to see the coming sun. I drove to the circle, stopped between Baker and Spangler, looked around, and felt like a giddy teenager. That is my first memory of the Harvard Business School. The place that made a 30-year old skeptic feel like a kid again.
And so I came in part because it was the unattainable. We all came for different reasons. Some came looking for a credential, some for a 2-year vacation, some to think more deeply about the world's challenges and some because this was the only school to realize that turkeys are people too. With all these motivations and inner struggles, we came together and made memories.

Continued...

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