Gandhi, Meet Sam

Well! We've received our first homework assignment (outside of the pre-MBA prep some of us are scrambling through: stats, accounting, intro to finance).

The assignment: background reading to prepare for our Careers course. I'm a little surprised to learn that there is a Careers course, though it is a hopeful sign that the school intends to put its immense resources behind helping its MBA grads do what they want to do.

Anyway, the summer reading list: autobiographies of Sam Walton and Gandhi, plus a biography of Warren Buffet.

And here we enter the first round of what I expect to be/worry about becoming a major struggle throughout the MBA program: learning everything useful that I can -- even from practices and businesses I'm completely opposed to. Walmart, for example. Terrible labor practices. Destroying local economies across the country by driving small local retailers out of business. Swallowing up hundreds of acres of open space to build a sea of parking lots around a new Superstore. Pretty much soulless.

I wonder if Walmart will be venerated when our reading comes up in the fall. Will there be as much criticism as praise? Or will the mountain come to Mohammad, and I'll discover something to change my pointblank anti-Walmart stance?

Either way, I think I'll start with Gandhi.