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Top 10 things I learned as a Sauder MBA

February 24th, 2006
Sauder School of Business logo

10) Always consider the ROI and NPV.
9) The administration doesn’t admit mistakes.
8) MBAs especially executive MBAs are cash cows.
7) There are four types of Chinese students:

i) Canadian Chinese whether native born or long time immigrants.
ii) Hong Kong Chinese which speak Cantonese not Mandarin.
iii) Taiwanese who speak Mandarin but possibly have some ideological differences with the mainland.
iv) Mainland Chinese, who are often staunch PRC nationalists.

6) MBAs would rather gossip than study.
5) The ROI of helping others even those who have already helped you is not worth it so don’t bother.
4) Cheating although officially frowned upon, is unlikely to be punished let alone harshly.
3) Although not impossible, it is rare that an MBA flunks out. This is due to students being cash cows and the administration having to admit they might have been wrong in admitting the person in the first place.
2) If you don’t want to talk to someone anymore, just accuse them of harassment.
1) The truth is rarely popular.

Update January 21st 2013

Given how I was treated by the administration and how I continue to suffer now over seven years after graduation, I can not recommend the Sauder MBA program at the University of British Columbia.

5 Comments

  • Muskie says:

    Although my MBA classmates don’t believe me, don’t care how much they hurt me or how many problems they caused, don’t want things to be better and definitely haven’t been my friend now literally years after March 17th 2005. Students in subsequent classes occasionally write me and thank me for little tidbits of advice or study notes. MBA students (most recently in France) and aspiring MBA students elsewhere write me, random people looking for ramen shops in Beijing write me. They believe me.

    But not my classmates, not the Laus, not anymore…

    I paid so much for telling the truth and trying to help someone who repeatedly said they were my friend. So very, very much Marlene, why?

    Two other things I learned during my MBA that I thought to add to this post while spending the one millionth or more hour thinking about the whole Sordid Sauder Saga and the unceasing painful fallout are:

    It doesn’t matter if you tell the truth, if people don’t believe you.

    And

    No matter how bad things are, they can always get worse.

    These two sentences should be familiar to classmates who bothered to talk to me after March 17th 2005 or have read my blog more than a token glance.

    Please! I need things to be better.

    You people literally broke me. I always told you the truth…

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