Welcome to the game, first year MBA’s!

Of things you battle with this year WILL be class participation. So let’s introduce the players in this game of wits [or lack thereof]. First, there will be those willing to let any random concoction of words flow from their lips in order to receive participation points. Then there’s the moderate school of hand-raisers who only raise their hands when they feel they can make a value added comment. Finally, there’s going to be a third school that doesn’t raise their hand, ever. Sometimes, this third school won’t even speak upon being cold called. Don’t be these people.

The reason we can’t be the ones who remain quiet is simple, we’re YoungMBAs. Being a YoungMBA, you’ve been given an unspoken responsibility of presenting yourself in an educated, professional manner within the classrooms. You have to prove you deserve to be where you are, more or less. We’re here to help you do that, via classroom participation.

The one thing everybody can do in a class discussion is regurgitate and rehash and reiterate and find nine different ways to say the same thing about the same case study everybody else read. Remember, memorization isn’t intelligence, at least not the highest level of it–pun intended. The way you differentiate yourself as ahead of the curve is to bring in outside material (see below). You have to think outside the box to be better.

These books are all short enough reads you can read most of them in a day, aside from Black Swan. Thus, easily do-able before classes start this Fall. I would summarize these books, but I think other eretail outlets do this well already. Also, I think it’s better for one to draw their own conclusions as to how these books fit into an MBA lifestyle. Some of the lessons even carry outside the core function areas listed below. Crazy, I know.

Happy readings and good luck in your upcoming years. Feel free to leave additional suggested readings in the comments.

Strategy / OBHR: Good to Great by Jim Collins

Marketing: Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

Quant / Stats / Finance: The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Operations: The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt