Srikumar S. Rao isn’t really like most business school professors. For starters, the syllabus for the course he teaches at two leading schools begins with a lengthy argument as to why many students should not consider signing up. The reading list below — all 33 pages of it — is similarly unorthodox.
For example, the six books Rao cites as compulsory pre-course reading cover not only business creativity but also a spiritual travelogue through Egypt and a 1910 novel by noted English humorous author P. G. Wodehouse.
And the aim of the course? Nothing less than to help each student “discover your unique purpose for existence.”
“At business schools, the vast majority of students don’t have a clue what they really want to do,” explains Rao.
“They’re in business school for a number of reasons — the most important one is economic security, they want to go out and make a ton of money, they want to be in a prestigious company.”
The course is intended to get students to ask themselves about their values and hoped-for legacy, and how these could be expressed in work — as Rao notes, “questions which are very important but which are not even acknowledged, much less addressed, in a business school.”
This dude is way too subversive for the average MBA candidate. Having a sense of humor — is probably a profile trait listed as unAmerican by Homeland Security and the NY Stock Exchange.
What a waste of tuition dollars
How to go barfbuddy. You proved the good doctor’s point without even using the word “philistine”.
I think the idea behind the course isn’t bad.
Think about it… If you are getting a business degree with the sole purpose to get rich, you gotta think about “why?” What are the ramifications of doing “whatever it takes” to get rich in business?
Not a waste of tuition IMHO.
This should be a required course for all degrees!
42.
The idea behind the course is excellent. I recognise some of the the books on his list, and have read parts of some of them, and I can see what he is trying to do.
An absolutely brilliant idea.