GSB: 2000 B. C.
A Look Back At The Evolution of the GSB
Vivek Garg
Issue date: 11/24/03 Section: Perspectives
Recently, I meandered over to Regenstein and found myself on the fourth floor. The smell of old books - a life long vulnerability - took me hostage. I followed my senses till I reached the area where the smell was the strongest. I gingerly dusted the cover of a mega-hardbound and found the LLXVII Annals of the Chicago Business. The volume was dated 2529 B. C. and contained all issues that were within a year of the date. I checked the relic out. Safely ensconced in the C-Shop, I let it unravel itself to me.
The Chicago Graduate School of Business was home to roughly 60 students.
A significant segment of the student populace went to business school intending to learn about the much vaunted preying strategies that were championed by the GSB. The 'two-on-one', 'three-on-one' and 'bait-and-wait' strategies held great sway in those days.
Other GSB aspirants had heard of the crafty arbitrageurs who were wreaking havoc at the local barter exchanges. The arbitrageurs would inexorably negotiate prices of pigs, cows and chickens to their advantage. By strategically positioning their accomplices, they would signal price inefficiencies to each other, predominantly through sly winks, and mint profits. The GSB had gained a reputation for being a feeder school for these market obliterators.
Admissions to the GSB were rather arbitrary. Most admissions were granted to students who showed superior survival instincts, skills that were widely believed to translate well into academic prowess at school. Today, students who apply to the GSB are evaluated based on their reading, writing and counting skills. However back then, reading and writing skill requirements could not be legally enforced. Counting was a hopeless proposition. Overwhelmingly, students would reject reading and writing skills as ornamental, deeming them poorly representative of skills needed in real life outside of academia. Evidently, they lacked proper role models. The GSB however, was a strict proponent of rigor in education and found a way around the illiteracy rights activists: LEAD
The Chicago Graduate School of Business was home to roughly 60 students.
A significant segment of the student populace went to business school intending to learn about the much vaunted preying strategies that were championed by the GSB. The 'two-on-one', 'three-on-one' and 'bait-and-wait' strategies held great sway in those days.
Other GSB aspirants had heard of the crafty arbitrageurs who were wreaking havoc at the local barter exchanges. The arbitrageurs would inexorably negotiate prices of pigs, cows and chickens to their advantage. By strategically positioning their accomplices, they would signal price inefficiencies to each other, predominantly through sly winks, and mint profits. The GSB had gained a reputation for being a feeder school for these market obliterators.
Admissions to the GSB were rather arbitrary. Most admissions were granted to students who showed superior survival instincts, skills that were widely believed to translate well into academic prowess at school. Today, students who apply to the GSB are evaluated based on their reading, writing and counting skills. However back then, reading and writing skill requirements could not be legally enforced. Counting was a hopeless proposition. Overwhelmingly, students would reject reading and writing skills as ornamental, deeming them poorly representative of skills needed in real life outside of academia. Evidently, they lacked proper role models. The GSB however, was a strict proponent of rigor in education and found a way around the illiteracy rights activists: LEAD