Wharton, Part 4

The Running of the Bulls
by Nicole Ridgway

(Page 4 of 4)

OPIM is the epitome of practical education at Wharton. The class dutifully trains students on how to master different types of technology often used in a business setting. All of a sudden, terms like "deterministic modeling," "probability theory," "data mining" and "linear programming" are introduced into the students' lexicons. Formally called "Introduction to the Computer as an Analysis Tool," OPIM's curriculum is always changing to keep up with new technologies for programming and data management. Mainly, though, the class focuses on the most popular tool of the investment banking trade: Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and Microsoft Access databases. The students will use these skills to create economic models and analyze corporate financials for their classes, as well as to impress potential employers when it comes time to find a job. Students are also charged with the task of constructing their own Web page. Many Whartonites will later confess that they struggled through OPIM and remember very little about the programming languages that once were the fodder of their anxiety dreams during the second semester of their freshman year.

Anthony Sandrik enrolled in the Huntsman program and found that, by doing so, he had become part of a distinctive Wharton subculture that would somehow make the anxieties of freshman year even more overwhelming. Originally from Lebanon, Anthony's parents moved to the U.S. as teenagers after the civil war broke out in 1975. After college, they settled in Manhattan, where Anthony spent most of his childhood. While he was in high school, Anthony's father decided to retire from his demanding career in foreign exchange trading. His parents moved the family to Paris for a change of scenery and lifestyle. It was a dramatic change for Anthony, who admits that the Parisian teens he met were much more mature and sophisticated than his friends back in New York.

The experience bore in Anthony a curiosity about other cultures. Armed with a knowledge of five languages, including his parents' native Armenian, he wanted to pursue a life where borderlines rarely exist and to embark on a course of study that would offer him the chance to see even more of the world someday. But he also wanted a pragmatic degree. He had no interest in law or medicine. Pursuing business as opposed to a liberal arts education just made more sense to him. It seemed as if the Huntsman program was tailored to Anthony's dreams, and it was ultimately the reason he applied early decision to Penn over Yale.

When Anthony arrived on Penn's campus freshman year, he was placed in the Kings Court dorm on the same floor with all of the other Huntsman freshmen, many of who arrived from foreign lands or, like Anthony, were children of immigrants. Kings Court was across campus from the dorms of the Quad on Spruce Street where most of the freshman class lived, causing the Huntsman students to feel a bit alienated from their peers. It seemed to make sense to corral this group together, but as Anthony explained, too much of one thing isn't always a good idea.

"Freshman year was a disaster," he recalled. "All of the kids in my program taking the same classes and living on the same floor. People were going crazy: crying, yelling, especially during the OPIM midterm. They were all kids who had 4.0s in high school."

The tension is so great that it has spawned annual rituals on campus. During freshman year, young Whartonites perform a stress-relieving ritual that serves as a sort of rite of passage for the stressed-out and overburdened students. The night before freshmen take their Econ 1 midterms, they all gather in the Quad at midnight and perform the "Econ Scream," a collective roar that not only signifies one night of great tension and attempted release, but also serves as a precursor to many tense nights to come, as they endure even more strenuous course loads throughout their years at Wharton.

Sophomore year is considered by many at Wharton to be the most academically challenging time in their college careers. At this point, students' class schedules start sounding like a series of executive education seminars. They are now fully embedded in the pursuit of the Wharton core. It is during this time that the school requires three intensive courses: accounting, statistics and finance, or as some students like to dub them, "The Triple Threat." These are classes that are not only mentally taxing, but chock-full of group projects entailing case studies, presentations, and problem sets. Unlike the more intimate atmosphere of Management 100, the "Triple Threat" classes tend to be larger in size and full of long lectures, making the experience even more mind-numbing. "Sophomore year was awful," said Jon. "We all kind of suffered through it together. It's like pledging [a fraternity]."

This is also a time when the competition among Whartonites really begins to heat up. Almost every class at Wharton is graded on a curve, causing students to constantly compete with one another. On average, the curve allows for twenty to thirty percent of the class to get A's, thirty to forty percent B's, twenty to thirty percent C's and the remainder D's and F's. Some students view the curve as a good thing, where the majority of people get B's and it's next to impossible to fail. "If you go to classes and do the readings, you have already gotten a B," explained Jon matter-of-factly.

But at Wharton, where almost everyone was once a straight-A student in high school, the curve can be devastating. There are always a few stories of attempted grade sabotage floating around campus or at least a few pages ripped out of important texts. Some students keep to themselves when studying so as not to divulge some piece of knowledge that they might have that their classmates don't. There are also those who selectively "forget" to tell classmates about a study session, hoping to get a better edge.

The rivalry is particularly intense during midterms and finals. "When you're taking a test, you're nervously looking at the person sitting next to you and you're thinking, 'Is he going to be below me in the curve or am I going to be below him in the curve?'" said Nitin Rampat, a Wharton senior in the Class of 2004 who decided to stay at Penn for a fifth year to finish his joint degree in finance and bioengineering. One senior, who graduated with a 3.9 GPA in 2004, admits that she knew the GPAs of her fiercest competitors. "By senior year everyone knows each other's GPAs," she said, as if GPAs were as much a part of a person's identity as hometowns or birth dates.

As Anthony explained, many students even pretend they didn't study in order to throw off their peers. "What's really funny here is that people are overly modest," he explained. "Before exams, people will say they didn't even open a book. You don't want people to think you're smart or they will feel threatened by you and they will compete with you. But it's like, 'Yeah, come on, I know you have a 3.95 GPA, and you say you never study?'"

As much as they are put in direct competition with one another, Wharton students are also encouraged to work with each other. A common philosophy at Wharton is that it is essential to train students to work with other people before they venture off into the business world, where teamwork is imperative. Professors often break students into groups to work on corporate case studies or problem sets with one another. The experience ends up being a mixed blessing, however, especially at a school full of people who tend to be natural-born leaders with overbooked schedules that don't tend to accommodate flexibility.

"You have loud, obnoxious people who want to control everything. They won't incorporate other's ideas. And there's always going to be deadweight no matter what," explained Shimika, who said she discovered her worst flaws - her tendency to be introverted and a bit anal - while working on group projects.

At the end of a project, students are often asked to grade their teammates in peer evaluations. Every so often there is a student in a class who will "tank" another person, explained Anthony. "There are only five hundred kids in each Wharton class. So if someone found out you did that, your reputation goes sour," he said.

Group projects can also lead to cliquish behavior, sometimes leaving a few students to fend for themselves. Professors sometimes tell the students to pick their own groups. Knowing that one weak member in a team can bring down the entire lot, the more strategic students of the group start surveying the crowd for strong teammates early in the semester, sometimes even before the syllabus is handed out. At the beginning of classes, Shimika scans the crowd for the people who are the most enthusiastic participants and for those who have had previous coursework in the subject. She also looks for people who have different concentrations than her own so she can tap into their unique abilities. "It's crucial to get people who are not in your major. In New Product Development, for example, you want to have someone who is a finance major and someone who is good in stats," she explained.

Even being picky about your teammates doesn't prevent the pitfalls that occur when a group gets together. Shimika endured a couple of occasions where group projects became disastrous. On one such occasion, a team member got a concussion over the weekend before the project was due and failed to notify his group, which was meeting Sunday night for their presentation the next day. Shimika and her partner couldn't make up the work of their absentee teammate and had to exclude his section from the presentation, which they feared would hurt their chances for a better-than-average grade.

Shimika also discovered that, in some cases, group projects can damage friendships. During her junior year, Shimika befriended an African-American woman who had sought to be a mentor to Shimika. They had decided to work together on a presentation about double minorities in the investment banking world. The project entailed conducting ten interviews with African-American women who worked at investment banks. As crunch time approached for the project, Shimika's partner's priorities swayed more heavily toward the sorority she was in. She rarely responded in a timely manner to Shimika's phone calls and e-mails, leaving Shimika to do most of the work on her own. Shimika conducted all ten of the interviews, only two of which her partner even participated in. Frustrated, Shimika spoke with her professor about her partner's lack of commitment. The day before the presentation was due, the two finally got together and worked feverishly from 3:00 P.M. to 3:00 A.M. to get it together. While the presentation went off without a hitch, it left Shimika with a bad taste in her mouth about her cohort. "You wouldn't know the drama that went on behind it," she said. "I guess it was good because when it happens in the working world, I can't cry about it. I just need to pick up the missing pieces."

Extracurricular activities are more often an extension of learning at Wharton than a distraction, as the focus on business even spills into life outside the classroom. "I haven't done any sports here at Penn because it takes away from your capacity to do other extracurriculars," said Shimika. Instead, the former sports fanatic spent her free time holding posts such as vice president of budget and finance for the Black Wharton Undergraduate Association, national conference co-chair of the University Honor Council, and vice president of committees for the Alpha Kappa Psi Professional Business Fraternity. She knew the titles would look impressive on her résumé and, perhaps eventually, serve as an advantage over her peers when it came time to find an internship or a job.

Most other Wharton students know that as well, and many of them join one of the forty business-related organizations that have sprung up on campus, in order to look that much more impressive to recruiters than their peers. At Wharton, clubs and organizations with names such as the Wharton Hedgers and Traders, the Wharton India Economic Forum, the Wharton Analyst Group (called WAG), and the Wharton Warren Buffett Club spring up annually.

Beth Hagovsky, who helps Wharton students set up these clubs, said many more of them perish after a couple of years. "Some of the students really think that by starting this, it could be the next great Wharton club," she said. "Some of these kids are just so overextended, though." Free time is a much-needed luxury for many Wharton students, and Beth tries valiantly to get Wharton students to let go of their self-induced competitiveness and hang out in a more relaxed atmosphere. One such effort was a cookie-decorating station that was set up in Huntsman in order to create a better sense of community among Wharton students. "At least for five minutes they are looking at each other as goofy cookie decorators instead of thinking 'Oh, you busted the curve for me,'" she said.

As many Wharton students realize after a few years at the school, Wharton's practical education will take them far in their future careers. But some wonder if the long hours they spent on group projects and studying to beat the curve has somehow lessened what should be the time of their lives. Ultimately, they remind themselves of the goal at hand and continue on.

"Sometimes I find myself defending Wharton," said one senior who admitted that he, too, could have spent a lot more time forging friendships instead of trying to beat the curve. "The preprofessionals are like most Wharton students. They are here to find a job and that colors all of their experiences."

Copyright © 2006 Nicole Ridgway

About the Author

Nicole Ridgway writes for Forbes magazine, and her articles have appeared in major newspapers including the Wall Street Journal, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Toronto Globe and Mail, and the Star-Ledger (Newark).