HBS Learning Teams: Then and Now

It's 7:25am when I walk on campus; a thousand determined students wearing backpacks and carrying a coffee mug are darting back and forth seamlessly crossing each others' path. They are all heading to their learning teams to review the day's cases. There is only an hour before the first class of the day.

I arrive precisely at 7:30am to meet with my learning team. We've secured a coveted room in Spangler Hall thanks to our assigned team member who arrived at 6:50am to squat and stake learning team 122's morning place of study. I see the dejected look on the faces of other teams who only sent a squatting representative to arrive at 7:15 or 7:20am, and could not secure a study room. Those poor teams will be relegated to hold their study session in the noisy cafeteria, or the first random set of steps they find. Real estate at 7:30am at HBS has a lot more demand than supply.

That was the scene in September, the first month of the school year. It is in stark contrast to April.

Now I still arrive precisely at 7:30am, but as I walk on campus I sometimes wonder if there is a holiday I was not aware of. I'll see an occasional squirrel dart across the grass, or a maintenance worker pull up to the parking lot. Occasionally I'll even see another student from the across the field. We look at each other with an immediate feeling of understanding, as though we are the last human survivors in an apocalyptic movie scene.

I walk into Spangler Hall and up the stairs to the study rooms. I pass one cold dark room after another, heading to the beacon of light emerging from our study room's semi-translucent door; finally a sign of life. I'm usually not the first member of the team there, nor am I ever the last, and I'm generally always on time. We chat for a few minutes about our previous evening, and then crack open our notes and engage in a great discussion about the day's cases. Our discussions can become quite passionate and we usually extend past 60 minutes, leading us to rush to our individual classes at 8:35am for our 8:40am class start. We bid each other goodbye "...have a great day. I'll see you tomorrow!"

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Confused by what I'm talking about? Let me briefly fill you in. HBS assigns semi-randomly chosen 6 students from across different sections to form a "learning team." Every first year student is assigned to a learning team in the same fashion. The idea of the learning team is to build a support structure, a safety net, and to enhance the learning process. Learning teams meet for an hour before class starts to review the cases of the day. HBS provides opportunities to discuss how to best go about spending this hour, but ultimately every team decides for themselves how to run their meetings. Furthermore, these teams are not mandatory, so students only attend for as long as they desire. They are also free to leave one team for another.

At the beginning of the year students are a little stressed out about their cases and classes, and feel like they will be disadvantaged by not meeting with their team. Practically everyone starts with a serious intent to maximize their experience. Within a few weeks though, it's no longer necessary to arrive at Spangler early to secure a study room. Learning teams still meet, but real estate supply meets demand. By the end of the first semester, and for a variety of reasons, many learning teams disband. This process continues throughout the second semester, especially during the internship recruiting period, to the present point in which the number of learning teams meeting probably represents single digit percentages of the student population.

Why does this happen? I think for any number of different reasons:

• It's easier to sleep in another hour when you're out partying until 1-2am
• You've become comfortable enough reading cases that you feel adequately prepared to handle the class without the benefit of peer discussion
• Inter-personal problem among team members
• People in your learning team are not at your level of commitment, and you don't want to feed "freeloaders"

One of the silliest reasons I've heard someone justify learning team break-ups is "I simply don't have time for it anymore. I'm too busy!" I think this is awkward because I would say the reverse "I can't afford not to come to my learning team. It saves me so much time!" Indeed, if a 60 minute learning team which starts at 7:30am doesn't save you over 60 minutes of preparation time the night before, I too wouldn't come to my learning team. I didn't continue to attend my learning team out of some transcendental or spiritual obligation, but because we acted as an effective unit, each benefiting from the other more than we put into the process. I was able to study much more efficiently the day prior, knowing that I would have an hour to discuss the cases the following morning.

In general, teams with voluntary participation can only hold together if each person receives more out of the team than he or she puts in. It's a simple balance of interests in life. A well functioning team will output more for its participants than the sum of the inputs, but this often takes a deliberate and coordinated effort. I'm therefore very grateful my team was able to achieve this early on. I believe it certainly enhanced my overall first year experience at HBS.