Snapshots from Hell: The Making of an MBA [Hardcover]

Peter Robinson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1994

A funny and honest day-to-day journal from a former presidential speechwriter chronicles his progress through Stanford University in pursuit of an MBA degree, offering a clear picture of the experience of attending business school.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

After six years as a White House speechwriter for Reagan and Bush, Robinson enrolled at Stanford Business School, wrestled for two years in perpetual exhaustion with often incomprehensible mathematical, organization and marketing concepts and, upon earning his MBA "union card for yuppies," interviewed in the communications world of Robert Maxwell, Steve Jobs and Rupert Murdoch (who hired him for a brief stint). In the tradition of Scott Turow's One L for potential students who are curious about Harvard Law School, the author sets out with humor and perception to answer the question that no business school catalogue does: What is business school like? Then Robinson dismisses the value of an MBA degree in the economic downturn after the fat '80s; for him the degree did not pay off as a "straight and easy road to riches." Robinson explains: "Today I'm back to being what I was before I went to business school, a writer." BOMC and Fortune Book Club alternates.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

A funny and frenetic account of Robinson's crucial first year in Stanford's MBA program, offering an education in itself as well as a cautionary tale. Stanford's atypical MBA program combines Harvard's case-study approach and Chicago's business theory but has a much more diverse, laid-back student body. With graduate work at Oxford and a career as a White House speech writer behind him, Robinson was a ``poet''- -in Stanford lingo, accepted to add variety to the management consultants and number crunchers. Like most of his peers in 1988, his motive for getting an MBA (which one professor called a ``yuppie union card'') was to secure an insurance policy for a lucrative career as an investment banker, financial consultant, or the like. Robinson found himself struggling to understand not only supply-and-demand curves, but also decision trees and influence diagrams. He also discovered his classmates' appalling ignorance of economic philosophy, whether Adam Smith or Karl Marx, and the persistence of gender issues in the B-school's race-blind meritocracy. His book is an album of late-night studying, random ``cold calls'' by professors in class, impossible exams, competition, and camaraderie. Robinson got a job with media mogul Rupert Murdoch, from which he was fired less than a year later in the recession. His peers likewise graduated to diminished expectations, but all got the credentials and contacts to improve their careers or change their lives. Todays business schools, with enrollments declining, have begun to expand their programs' ties to real business experience and to balance professors' teaching responsibilities with their research, but these problems are beyond the scope of Robinson's own vivid experience. Not the ultimate B-school survival guide, but a genial description of everything about getting an MBA that you wanted to know but were afraid to find out. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 286 pages
• Publisher: Warner Books (January 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446517860
• ISBN-13: 978-0446517867
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,113,403 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars True enough, May 9, 2000

By 

Gene Bromberg - See all my reviews

This review is from: Snapshots from Hell: The Making of an MBA (Paperback)

I read this book just as I started B-school and it scared me well and good. Like Robinson I was a "poet", meaning I was a liberal arts major among financial and engineering types. I can certainly empathize with Robinson's struggles to grasp the more quantitative disciplines of business, since I went through my own miserable times. But I think the review right before me makes a good point, that getting IN to business school is the hard part, especially for an elite program like Stanford. The school certainly doesn't want students to flunk out or struggle too much, since all that does is hurt the school's precious statistics. While business school ain't a picnic, it isn't the trial of tears that Robinson makes it out to be.

But the book is entertaining enough, and even though Robinson was a speechwriter for President Reagan and writers for Republican presidents tend to be an especially odious sort, he seems a decent guy. One problem that Robinson identified and I heartily agree with is the lack of, well, overall intelligence and awareness in business school students. I'll readily admit that I can't crunch numbers as well as many of my former classmates, but I was amazed at how ignorant many of the folks in school were. They had no idea who Larry Ellison was. Discussions about government policy rarely went above a 10th-grade level. My ethics class was a revelation. I don't think anyone else in my class ever studied philosophy and it seemed like they looked at ethics as an obstacle to be hurdled rather than as a code to define proper behavior. Depressing stuff.

But Robinson made it through B-school, and so did I (in my case, barely. Going part-time and working full-time while planning a wedding was a pain the rear. Can't imagine folks who go to school when they have little kids. Insane). The only problem with this book now is how dated it is. Robinson went to B-school in the heart of Silicon Valley, yet the words "e-commerce" and "dot.com" are nowhere to be found in the book. Robinson and his fellow students interviewed with the usual investment banks, which today almost seems quaint. What, no one dropped out to found a company that had a multibillion dollar IPO six months later?

All in all a good read, but if you're thinking about getting your MBA I don't think this is a totally accurate picture of what you're going to endure. Still, it's well worth a read.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SO SO TRUE!, November 16, 1999

By 

i-read "i-read" (Chevy Chase, MD United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Snapshots from Hell: The Making of an MBA (Paperback)

Being a first year full-time MBA student is tough, demanding, and rigorous. This little gem summarizes the fact you'll have little left of your life when you start the program.

Words of advice to MBA wannabes:

1. READ THIS! It's funny and too true. You'll see that he (like me) was unprepared for what was unleashed upon him.

2. Take an accounting and statistics class before you go! You'll save yourself some major headaches!

3. It's as tough as he describes but we're supposed to get through it...I hope!

Go Maryland!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Might spark you for an MBA from top B-School, May 4, 2004

By 

Deepesh K. Srivastava "Deepesh Srivastava" (QUINCY, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Snapshots from Hell: The Making of an MBA (Paperback)

The book gives you an impression that even though the first year of your MBA from a top B-School (in this case Stanford) might seem like a hell - though this might only be the case for so called poets - one has a high probability of doing well after an MBA form one of the top b-schools. Though, author has done a lot of complaining, he later concludes that is MBA was fun, interesting and rewarding.
This book is more like a diary, which also provides some (I said some!) insight into a b-school. Overall, this book is fun and worth a read.
On the lighter side, if you are a so called poet, planing to go for an MBA, take up some Maths and Statistics courses before you actually start your MBA :-)