The Devil<92>s Advocate Responds to an MBA Student<92>s Claim that Research Harms Learning

J. Scott Armstrong ()

General Economics and Teaching from EconWPA

Abstract: Snapshots from Hell describes a first-year student<92>s experience in the Stanford Master of Business Administration (MBA) program in 1989. Peter Robinson, formerly a speech writer for President Reagan, tells about his experiences in applying to business schools, living with other MBA students, taking courses, interacting with faculty, and interviewing for summer jobs. The experience was a hellish one for Robinson for a number of reasons. He found the transition from the White House to business school wrenching. He was, at first, quite lonely. And he was a poet (weak mathematically) which made him feel vulnerable in the quantitative courses. But Robinson also lays a degree of the blame for the uglier aspects of his business school experience on Stanford Business School and, in particular, on the faculty. Much of the teaching was mediocre, Robinson says, and some of it was appalling. The reason? Robinson suggests that the faculty was paying too much attention to research.

Keywords: learning; universities; MBA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-02-04
Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 10
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwpgt:0502008

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