My Inspirers at the GSB - A reflection on my 1st year

When thinking where to start in my reflection on my first year at the GSB, professors come first to my mind. This is because they can have this long lasting inspirational effect that transcends what you can learn in text books.

I had for 17 different professors (associate professors) this year. Out of these three names had this kind of effect; Charles O'Reilly, William Barnett, and Christian Wheeler.

Prof. Charles O'Reilly taught us how leaders can play significant roles in sky rocketing organizations and how they can take them into a downward spiral. His experience coupled with the depth of his teaching made his class one of the best.

Prof. Barnett made us think as CEOs. He taught us how to evaluate strategies at a birds view level, how to manage change, and how to think about corporate leverage. Besides his obvious exposure to different business he was so much fun - very theatric - in class.

Christian Wheeler made us understand what the mindset of a marketer should be. It is not enough to describe your customers needs, u need to live their thoughts. The rest is detail. Besides being very talented, he's very witty, dedicated, and raises the bar of student's participation, and about all he loves his job.

The rest of the professors left different impressions. Professor J. Patel seems to be of the top league but the subject matter of his class (modeling) put me off. I enjoyed the teaching of Ian Gutman (accounting), Peter Henry (Macroeconomics), and Peter Oyer (HR).

The teachings of most of the other professors (8) were normal, not bad but not inspirational either. Out of the 17, two were very disappointing.