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'We're Not Learning Anything': Stanford GSB Students Sound The Alarm Over Academics (yahoo.com) 90

Posted by msmash from the diminishing-returns dept.
Stanford Graduate School of Business students have publicly criticized their academic experience, telling Poets&Quants that outdated course content and disengaged faculty leave them unprepared for post-MBA careers. The complaints target one of the world's most selective business programs, which admitted just 6.8% of applicants last fall.

Students described required courses that "feel like they were designed in the 2010s" despite operating in an AI age. They cited a curriculum structure offering only 15 Distribution requirement electives, some overlapping while omitting foundational business strategy. A lottery system means students paying $250,000 tuition cannot guarantee enrollment in desired classes. Stanford's winter student survey showed satisfaction with class engagement dropped to 2.9 on a five-point scale, the lowest level in two to three years.

Students contrasted Stanford's "Room Temp" system, where professors pre-select five to seven students for questioning, with Harvard Business School's "cold calling" method requiring all students to prepare for potential questioning.
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'We're Not Learning Anything': Stanford GSB Students Sound The Alarm Over Academics

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  • Advanced CB Operation 1077 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pseudonymous Powers ( 4097097 ) on Friday July 25, 2025 @11:27AM (#65544936)

    'Students described required courses that "feel like they were designed in the 2010s" despite operating in an AI age.'

    Well, these courses may be good and they may be bad. But if you believe that a school curriculum should change dramatically every five or six years, you aren't getting an education, you're participating in a fad.

    • Re:Advanced CB Operation 1077 (Score:5, Funny)

      by drafalski ( 232178 ) on Friday July 25, 2025 @11:58AM (#65545022)

      you aren't getting an education, you're participating in a fad

      Was there a time MBAs weren't chasing the latest trend?

      • Re: Advanced CB Operation 1077 (Score:5, Insightful)

        by reanjr ( 588767 ) on Friday July 25, 2025 @12:04PM (#65545040) Homepage

        The basics of business programs have always essentially been: make a spreadsheet of costs and revenue streams; reduce costs, increase revenues; rinse, repeat.

        • Re: Advanced CB Operation 1077 (Score:5, Insightful)

          by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Friday July 25, 2025 @12:10PM (#65545056)

          Look MBA's learn one thing and that thing is "cutting labor gets you a bigger salary" and AI is going to enable them to do that faster than ever!

          • The best part of the Bond film The Living Daylights is when the MBA is yelling about the expense of the blown up truck and the drug lord decides the cut overhead.

          • This is entirely untrue. MBAs also have to learn how to drink and golf at the same time.

            • This is entirely untrue. MBAs also have to learn how to drink and golf at the same time.

              Which is why Trump doesn't have an MBA, he only golfs. :-)

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

              The drinking is harder than you think. An MBA once showed me that it's very important to hold your drink in your left hand so your right is warm and dry to shake hands. It takes real practice.

        • Top business school MBA programs used to be a quick fast-track to executive management of large corporations. Apparently, that's less likely to happen.

          https://timesofindia.indiatime... [indiatimes.com]
          Job offers for MBA grads from top US schools drop sharply in 2024.

          A few maybe ideas:
          - This may also be related to the large drop in huge multi-year federal contracting projects by Deloitte and other consulting firms.
          - The decline in MBA graduates willing to put in 100 hour weeks at investment banking jobs
          - The changing of the

        • I did not take an MBA but did an additional year in economics at university. It was funny sometimes how they dress up things an average farmer does spontaneously. Learned in my social science courses that this is a typical example of institutionalism. Certain patterns become so common that nobody questions it anymore and it becomes a ritual. Don't you dare to deviate from the ritual! SWOT analysis was hot in those days. Extra credit if you included that in your reports! So I ritually included this in every

      • Was there a time MBAs weren't chasing the latest trend?

        This should be +5 Insightful.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by shanen ( 462549 )

        Better of the two jokes on the story, but it was such a rich target.

        I once worked for a startup with a Harvard MBA in the CFO slot. Went bankrupt. But I'm not blaming the CFO. He was actually a nice guy. I think the main source of failure was the CTO, an Apple fanboi. Or should that be fanbois or fanboy? I don't speak the lingo.

      • In addition if they wanted to learn something why did they enroll in an MBA? Not seeing what the issue is here.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Monoman ( 8745 )

      Training vs education.

    • That's a little kinder than my initial response of, "oh you poor child!"
    • Unfortunately many people do not know the difference between education and training. Both are important but have different purposes. Colleges and university are not training.

      That said, much of what is wrong with corporations is due to idiots with MBAs.

  • Ask for your money back (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Monoman ( 8745 ) on Friday July 25, 2025 @11:31AM (#65544944) Homepage

    Stanford is a private university (aka a business). If you don't think you are getting your $250K's worth then ask for a refund. Good luck.

  • Oh grasshopper⦠(Score:5, Insightful)

    by superposed ( 308216 ) on Friday July 25, 2025 @11:32AM (#65544946)

    Little do you know that you'll be going out into a world designed in the 2010s or - gasp! - even earlier, when you are done.

    You also haven't learned yet that nothing your professor says in school will matter. You'll learn a bit from the books and assignments on your own, but what really matters will be the connections you make and the stamp on your resume that says "certified achiever". Actual job skills - you'll learn on the job.

    • Re:Oh grasshopper⦠(Score:5, Insightful)

      by Rinnon ( 1474161 ) on Friday July 25, 2025 @11:56AM (#65545010)

      You also haven't learned yet that nothing your professor says in school will matter.

      I don't disagree agree with your conclusion that you'll primarily need to learn your job skills on the job, but it's an unfortunate state of affairs when you think you'll gain literally nothing from time spent in class. All I can say is that this was not the case for myself.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by narcc ( 412956 )

        That's just what silly autodidacts tell themselves to feel important. He couldn't be more transparent:

        nothing your professor says in school will matter. You'll learn a bit from the books and assignments on your own, but what really matters will be the connections you make and the stamp on your resume

        "School is useless! You can learn everything on your own. The only reason I'm not more successful is because I don't have the 'stamp on my resume' or the professional connections you were able to make."

        • I'm very happy with where Iâ(TM)ve reached in my career, but I've mainly used stuff that I learned on my own for BA and PhD theses, or learned on the job. I loved college and grad school and made some great friends, who are now also doing well and great to work with when I get a chance.

          Iâ(TM)m not saying you shouldnâ(TM)t pay attention in class. Working hard got me into a good grad school and a good post-doc, and those have opened doors for me. Thatâ(TM)s what I meant by the stamp of a h

    • American companies view extroverted personality traits as "management material." They're sociable, talkative, outgoing, confident, positive, friendly, and open. Managers are extroverted. Extroversion tends to increase as you look at managers higher in an organization. Your C-level executives all tend to be the most extroverted people in the company.

      Education matters when looking for a managerial position. But, hiring managers downplay education all the time. What matters most of all are things like "com

  • The protesters on campus need louder megaphones then? /s

  • School that's the center of AI research... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ebunga ( 95613 ) on Friday July 25, 2025 @11:48AM (#65544976)

    School that's the center of AI research doesn't believe AI is important to business. That should tell you something. The experts know that the use of AI as it is promoted in the world today is a bad idea.

    • "Good for thee, not for me" has always been difficult for some people to grasp. Just look at the MAGAts. When you're indoctrinated so deeply into a false worldview, most people can't stop from drinking the Kool-Aid. They believe their own bullshit (or more accurately, the bullshit of their betters).

    • I don't really understand this line of criticism. Of course AI is important to business. Lots of things are important to business. It doesn't mean that every one of those things should be taught in a business educaiton course.

      The course is (as far as I understand it at least) to teach the fundamental ideas, concepts and approaches involved in running a business, in a general sense, such as can be applied to a wide range of types of business when the graduate moves on to employement. It isn't (or at least, s

  • Sound the alarm (Score:3, Funny)

    by TwistedGreen ( 80055 ) on Friday July 25, 2025 @11:53AM (#65544996)

    Students criticizing their programs? Dissatisfied with faculty? Say it ain't so! This has never happened before in the history of academic study.

    • OH, I don't know about that. There's a famous case from the late 17th century where a student had learned enough Latin to translate a bit of verse into an indirect insult [wikipedia.org] to his professor.

  • then quit (Score:3)

    by JeffSh ( 71237 ) <<jeffslashdot> <at> <m0m0.org>> on Friday July 25, 2025 @11:57AM (#65545018)

    newly minted MBA's complaining about their education not being focused on a fad should make them unhirable, since they're not valuing the the unchanging principles, accounting practices and laws of how to run a business they're there to learn. if they think they should just show up and AI everything and fake people out about company valuations so they can IPO, they should just be kicked out of the program.

  • It's balancing act between cutting edge and proven (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Murdoch5 ( 1563847 ) on Friday July 25, 2025 @12:30PM (#65545116) Homepage
    I graduated in 2012 with a degree in Embedded System Engineering, before that, I took Computer Engineering, so I have two engineering degrees which spanned 7 years of post-secondary education. Across both programs, the constants, were, out of date resources, lessons, curriculum, standards, and operation.

    Some of the cases were ridiculous, for instance my C professor got mad I used a modern GNU libraries. He also got mad that I refused to use Visual Studio, and not the modern version, and old version. The school provided us a Linux server, that was grossly outdated. You had to use compatibility libraries for your projects, and to access that thing you had to turn off security settings. There was the VHDL / Verilog class, which ran, again, grossly outdated software, and could only interface to old, crusty, FPGA boards. In theory classes, if it was modern, forget about it. When you're in Math class, calculus didn't change enough to worry about. When you're in a class where standards evolve, it does matter.

    The liberal study class "electives", which we couldn't pick, again, outdated nonsense. There was a computer fundamentals class where the teacher running it was unqualified to the point it was funny, then sad, then maddening, then funny, which ended with a review panel by the university. I failed the exams, but answered every question correctly, except, he wanted a textbook answer, where the textbook was old, outdated, and wrong (given the age). I had to fight those marks to pass. How about the other liberal classes where the teachers demanded we use software that was 10+ years old, and, and didn't have compatible Linux variants? There were a few classes with the same lady, where I showed her the updated versions of the software, and the open compatible version someone made that supported Linux. She waved it away, demanded I use the old junk, why? There was NOTHING the old junk could do that was important, which the newer version couldn't. I had to appeal failed marks by her because she wouldn't use the modern software, and never gave me a reason why. The issue with that, the newer version wasn't backward compatible, but, I couldn't run the old version. Hell, back then, if you didn't use Office, as in MS Office, teachers would refuse to open your assignment, and in some cases couldn't. Open Office existed, and supported MS Office formats, but did the school care? Again more nonsense.

    What's my point? Sometimes you need to know the basics, and usually that doesn't matter if it's an example from the 90s, 20s, 2010s, because it's about the concept. However, when you're learning about IT, Networking, Linux, C, Security, you need to stay updated. Learning about SSL in 2010, when it's been completely replaced by TLS, in a Network Security class, is unacceptable. Working on 10-year-old Linux, when you're trying to introduce it to people who have never used it, is unacceptable, I found it awesome, but I like Linux, and was comfortable, I was the ONLY comfortable person. Learning about secure programming, but not the advancements in memory, CPU architecture, OS design (fun class), and working 20+ years behind established standards, is unacceptable. Having teachers demand you run old software that is / was grossly incompatible, unacceptable.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by wed128 ( 722152 )
      I graduated with a Computer Engineering degree in 2007, and my experience was that there was almost no software used in the entire curriculum, just offline pen-and-paper work, and I suspect I'm better off for it. There were a few professors who required papers be turned in in a Microsoft office format; for me, that meant writing the paper in Emacs, saving to a text file, converting to dos line endings, going to a lab, opening the file as a word document, and saving. A bit of a pain in the butt, but workable

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by Murdoch5 ( 1563847 )
        "Turn-it-in" was the worst requirement of submitting work. Probably around the same timeframe, 2007, it was assumed everyone had their own notebook, and we only got "lab computers" in limited circumstances. I ran Linux, and use Open Office, saving in DOCX (or DOC) and "Turning-it-in", always caused an error. I had professors refuse to accept work because I couldn't "Turn-it-in".

        In my second degree, there was one software, I don't remember the name of. It was a lab book software, that we had to use be

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by skam240 ( 789197 )

        Sometimes you have to play the game a bit.

        Just like the students will need to do sometimes when they're in the workplace.

    • You sound like a pain in the ass.

      • Why? Imagine sitting down at a computer and having to fight with Windows 8 because if you didn't, none of the software worked. That's what it was like, and for what reason? If software X is in version 10, and you're using 4, but the reason is between 4 and 5 a major breaking change happened, and 4 is an approved bifurcation point, by the company, that is still supported, that's fine, but no reason like that ever existed.

        Or making a student use 5-year-old, outdated, closed course junk, for no reason. Wh
        • There is a certain sort of person who emotionally needs more attention than they regularly get, and they learn to get their fix by doing irritating things like this.

          Whining that you don't have the latest shiny, or you don't want to do things that way, or otherwise asking for special accommodations constantly is a common expression of this.

          Some people are also just pricks with the obsessive need to always be right, even in situations where they're hiring someone to educate them. At superficial exposure, i

          • Are you honestly questioning if people should use broken, outdated, irrelevant platforms, knowledge and nonsense? This has nothing to do with the latest shinny thing, a real example, a client was using Ubuntu 16.04.6 on a server. That dropped in 2019, it's 2025, they were missing 6+ years of security updates, and the only reason they wanted someone to look at the server, was because someone wanted to run a Python application on it, but needed Python 3. If the server had 22.04 on it, okay, that's fine.

            To

            • Sorry, but you do come across as a whiner and a PITA. Your original story about your classes is not convincing that your interpretation is correct.

              Imagine you were on the other side, a TA trying to grade the exercises. Instead of doing what was asked and showing that they've mastered the particular method that was taught, a student decides that they can't be bothered to follow the instructions, and don't solve the problem using the particular method (thereby proving knowledge transference) but instead "sol

              • I think you missed the entire point, I wasn't complaining about the knowledge transfer, I was complaining about the pointless out of date, broken, crap, and intentionally out-of-date knowledge. When you're teaching a Network Security class or IT class, why are you talking about SSL, when it's been replaced by TLS? The number of lessons / labs /assignments that broke because people tried to use SSL instead of TLS, was infuriating. I still remember one of the professors giving us a link to an older browser

        • Dealing with shit is life. In engineering, you don't get to choose the constraints. When I went to school and took programming classes, we got to use Solaris on terminals in a lab, connected to an old server. The professor taught with Solaris and Scheme. A lot of those students are programming cutting edge AI now, but they learned on ancient shit computers in a language almost nobody used then and almost nobody uses now. It was a trial by fire, but those who got through it gained skills.

          • Were you forced to use an old, out-dated version of EMACS? That's my argument, I don't care you used Solaris, I like Solaris / OpenSolaris, and if you had used a modern for the time Linux / Unix variant, would he have cared? Were the Solaris installs kept out grossly out-of-date, could you have updated them? If you could update them, or they were updated, there's no problem.

            If a real constraint exists, that's fine, but explain why. When you can never explain why, or just refuse to modernize, that's a

            • In the real world, constraints exist for many reasons. Maybe the new software hasn't been tested with some old component that can't be replaced. Maybe the guy who is in charge of updates has bigger fish to fry. Maybe you're going to break something by updating. It's not worth fighting over.

              • Sure, but then explain why. I'm not saying there is no reason, you just need a reason, and a good reason.

                • In the real world, the people who can explain are often three layers of management away, or no longer with the company, or dead. If they are not asking you to stone somebody to death (The Lottery), if the issue is just somewhat frustrating, then that is just life. Think of the DMV. Everything there was set for a reason. It's a horrible mess much of the time, painful and slow, but it still beats anarchy.

                  • Okay, but, none of that matters. Again professors wanted me to run grossly out-of-date nonsense, but then couldn't explain why in most cases. The why is important, and needs a proper defensive answer, with incompetence not being a defense.

                    For instance, why did I need to run Visual Studio for a C programming class? You didn't need anything from Visual Studio, you needed my files, that's it. If you want to use Visual Studio to test them, go ahead, or, run the make file I provided. If you want me to "tu

                    • Why am I writing about this book I hate by a dead white guy? This essay prompt about imagery and symbolism? It has nothing to do with my life. Still, it has everything to do with practicing critical thinking skills and writing skills. The professor refusing to communicate may be an issue, but at a university, they kind of don't have to.

                    • You still missed the point, I'm not arguing against writing an essay. What if you had to write that essay in MS Office 3.0, in 2010 because your professor said so? If you argue back that you could just use Open Office, or MS Office 2007, or, even MS Office 2010, and were told "no", but not given a reason, why would that be okay?

                      The essay content is irrelevant, but if you want to go that route, imagine having to write an IT exam, where the questions had to be answered as if you were in the early 2000s o

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        Professor objected to his use of the STL in a data structures class.

  • Guy is an idiot... (Score:3)

    by Lavandera ( 7308312 ) on Friday July 25, 2025 @12:38PM (#65545134)

    Learning is not what MBA studies are for...

    They are to make connections with others who can afford spending so much money on the certification...

  • Room Temp policy a problem? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by skam240 ( 789197 ) on Friday July 25, 2025 @12:39PM (#65545138)

    A lot of these complaints strike me as ridiculous. Others have pointed out stuff that doesnt make sense to complain about but I thought I'd point out this one specifically.

    From the article
    In stark contrast with HBS’s “cold calling” method, where each student could be called on at any time to answer a question about a reading or synthesize the current material, professors will often send out a “Room Temp” list the day before class, listing the five to seven people who may be called on in this manner. “You know what that teaches the students?” one student asks. “It teaches them that they don’t have to read or prepare before class if they’re not on the list. It teaches us that we don’t have to learn.”

    That's only teaching them that they "don’t have to learn" if you're conceptualizing them as kids who need to be treated as kids and one thinks there will be no repercussions for them not learning. Meanwhile in reality if they don't do their work they wont pass their tests and they'll fail. In other words, they're being treated like the adults they are and are being trusted to manage their own time.

    • I worked in an e-commerce consulting firm that hired freshly-minted MBAs from the best schools by the bus load.

      I was constantly amazed at how child-like they were, they'd just finished 20 years of school (preK-12 + BA + MBA) and had no idea how to function in society. Yes, some had work experience before going off for their MBA (and trust me, they stood out among their peers), but most never held a job before going to business school.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by skam240 ( 789197 )

        Working a job when you're young is good for you. That 15hr a week part time job provides a lot more value to a high school student then just spending money. I don't think any of the affluent parents who arent encouraging their kids to get jobs when they're young are doing them any favors.

        Even with a part time job one still has plenty of time to get into all of the trouble one should when one is a kid.

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday July 25, 2025 @12:40PM (#65545142)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Formal education has always been more about the certification rather than the learning itself. There's not much taught in a college class that can't be learned from books. At schools like Stanford, Harvard, and Yale (especially MBA programs), the other main reason to attend is to socialize with other "elite" students, which is a network you'll be able to tap throughout your career.

      Most upper tier MBA students would do just as well to play ping pong all day in class, because anybody with the credentials to g

      • If you didn't get more from your professors than what was in the book, I don't know what to tell you. Someone didn't do their job right, and it was either you or the professor. Or both, I guess.

        • Of course I did, but a lot of it was from interaction with my peers. Such interactions didn't necessarily need to occur in the context of a university setting. A lot of it was also from independent study that didn't need to occur in a university setting.

          Note that I am not arguing that the certification has no value- both to the person receiving it and to society as a whole.

          • True, but drinking doesn't have to happen in a bar, worship doesn't have to happen in a church, and business doesn't have to happen in an office. But, those places are purpose-built to facilitate/enhance certain activities, so they are going to be the best places for doing those things. Universities are designed to be conducive for academic activity. At least in theory.

            The certification itself just indicates that you were in such a place and, since you graduated, probably learned things and developed

      • > There's not much taught in a college class that can't be learned from books. Yes, but how do you know which books, and which chapters, and who do you get clarifications from, and what projects do you undertake to get beyond book knowledge, and what tools (labs, software, specimen, etc) do you use, and who struggles thru the learning with you providing mutual support, and what group do you discuss literature and philosophy with, and who provides expert perspective, where do you find a community of fell

        • There are plenty of syllabi and courses of study that are publicly available without attending a school. It's pretty trivial to look up what courses make up a typical math major (for example) and find a list of things you should know/be able to do after the completion of a course of study. You can even find sample exams.

          If you need clarifications, you could probably pay a tutor to answer questions far more efficiently than university tuition. Most students only get a few hours of Q&A/1:1 time with a pro

    • And for goodness sake, if the school sucks, don't go public - you're only hurting your own prospects.

    • MBA programs are post-grad.

  • They're MBA students... (Score:3)

    by paul_engr ( 6280294 ) on Friday July 25, 2025 @01:39PM (#65545270)
    If they just realized that they're not learning anything... Yup, MBA's

    • And now that they've graduated, they can start making those student loan payments.

      And don't look now, but by going public and revealing your prestigious MBA from Stanford is worthless, you are undercutting your ability to leverage that quarter-million dollar loan into a high-paying career.

      Genius!

  • MBAs are garbage degrees. especially if it's the first and only degree you have. Might as well get a degree in circus management.

  • That is the MBA way (Score:3)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Friday July 25, 2025 @02:48PM (#65545436)

    All you are supposed to learn is greed, narrow focus on statistics and metrics and no understanding of actual reality. Seems to me these students complain about getting what they signed up for. They should try to get a real degree instead.

  • If you can't figure out how min max works without spending 250k on a school....
  • That's what these universities are for. My grandfather used to say, "it's not what you know, it's who you know."

    Even at 8 I hated to hear it but it's mostly true. At least in the MBA and related circles.

    But we have too many trying to get into that space now. Clutch my pearls, god forbid they have to get real jobs [wikipedia.org].

  • Sounds like an good MBA program to me.

    The danger is when they come out thinking that they DID learn something and proceed to destroy companies like Boeing, HP, GE, IBM, etc..

  • It is not obvious that learning academic stuff is the goal of a business curriculum.

  • The ones complaining expected to get that $250,000 back in the first three months.

    I don't know why anyone would need to spend a quarter mil
    just to learn the best ways to take stuff and get away with it.

  • Society is morphing back into a nomadic hunting and gathering phase. The environment has changed, becoming a technological ecosystem, but the practice is the same. You will need to hunt for your own food, you'll need to gather your own supplies. It's already happening in the creative industries at a large scale and it will trickle down to everything else. Every worker will be a free agent, living by their own rules, finding opportunities where they can before moving on. On one hand ability well supersede c

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