Should MBAs Learn to Code?

by Tom Eisenmann

“Should I learn to code?”

MBAs who lack programming skills often ask this question when they pursue careers in technology companies.

Bloggers like Yipit co-founder Vin Vacanti have shared views on the payoff from learning to code, as have several students at Harvard Business School, including Dana Hork, Matt Boys, and Matt Thurmond.

I thought it’d be helpful to supplement bloggers’ perspectives with some survey data. I received responses from 24 of the 41 HBS students who enrolled over the past two years in CS50, the introductory computer science course at Harvard College.

My survey didn’t ask for comments on the quality of CS50 itself. The course is widely acclaimed; my colleague David Malan has grown its enrollment five-fold to 715 students over the six years he has served as lead instructor. Rather, my goal with the survey was to learn whether MBAs saw this well designed and rigorous course as a good investment of their time, given their career objectives and other course options. The tradeoffs are tricky: survey respondents reported spending an average of 16.3 hours per week on CS50—perhaps 2-3x more time than they would spend on an MBA elective that yielded equivalent academic credit.

So, was it worth it? Of the 18 survey respondents who founded a startup, joined an existing startup, or went to work for a big tech company upon graduation, 83% answered “yes” to the question, “On reflection, was taking CS50 worth it for you?” and 17% said “not sure.” Of these 18 respondents, none said that taking CS50 was not worth it. By contrast, of the six respondents who pursued jobs outside of the tech sector—say, in consulting or private equity—only two said CS50 was a worthwhile investment; three said it was not; and one was not sure.

Benefits

Respondents cited several benefits from taking CS50.

Writing Software.Respondents differed in their assessments of their current ability to contribute working code on the job, based on their CS50 learning. Several said they regularly do so, for example: 

• Kyle Watkins, who joined an existing startup, said he has “used CS50 skills to create a half dozen VBA programs that will likely save the startup I'm working for tens of thousands of dollars."
• Michael Belkin, who founded his own startup, said, “After taking CS50, I was able to build an MVP that would have cost at least $40K to outsource. And it was better, because I understood all the small details that drive a user's experience. After HBS, I became one of the lead developers at my startup, which has saved the company several hundred thousand dollars.” 

Communicating with Developers. Other respondents, especially those employed in large tech companies, said they couldn’t really write production software, but felt more confident in their ability to discuss technical issues with developers as a result of taking CS50. For example:

• Jon Einkauf, a product manager for Amazon AWS, said, “I work with developers on my team every day to define and build new features. In addition, the users of my product are developers and data scientists. Taking CS50 gave me a glimpse of what it's like to be a developer — to get excited about complex computer science problems, to get frustrated when you hit a bug. It taught me enough about software development that I don't feel lost in my current job. I can ask intelligent questions, I can push back on the developers when necessary, and I am confident that I could teach myself anything else I need to learn."
• Luke Langford, who joined Zynga as a product manager upon graduation, said that CS 50 “gave me a working knowledge and confidence to be able to review code. PMs at Zynga don't often work in code, but there were several times when I was able to diagnose issues and help the engineers identify why certain algorithms that calculated scores were wrong.   Pre-CS50, I wouldn't have been able to do that.”

Recruiting.Several respondents mentioned that their CS50 experience had helped persuade recruiters that they were committed to a career in technology. As one anonymous respondent reported, “I wanted to get a job at a tech startup and ended up as a product manager at one of NYC's hottest tech startups. The founder, who is a CS PhD, was really impressed that I'd learned to code.  I think it made a difference in getting the offer.”

Costs

The benefits from CS50 came at a considerable cost, however, in terms of workload. In addition to lectures and section meetings, the course has weekly problem sets, two mid-terms exams, and a final project that requires students to design and build an application.

Beyond the heavy workload, respondents who were less sanguine about the payoff from CS50 often cited its use of C to teach fundamentals such as functions, loops and arrays, rather than a more modern programming language. While acknowledging that C is well suited for this purpose, these students would have preferred more focus on languages used in web development (e.g., JavaScript, HTML, and PHP), which are covered in the last one-third of CS50’s syllabus. Likewise, some students said they understood why certain “academic” concepts (e.g., algorithm run times, security) were covered in an introductory CS course, but they did not view such concepts as salient to their “just learn to code” personal priorities.

Advice

I asked respondents for advice on how MBAs who enroll in CS50 can get the most out of the course.

• An anonymous respondent said, “Go to office hours Monday night; it’s the least busy night, so you have the best chance of getting lots of TA help. Get to know the undergrads: they are fabulous! Build something for your final project that you're passionate about, and use a language that’s relevant to your career plans.”
• Einkauf added, “You need to really commit to it.  If you just watch the lecture videos, complete most of the problem sets, and build a basic final project, you can get a decent grade—but you'll only get a fraction of the possible value.  You should plan to attend your section meetings, set aside plenty of time for the problem sets, really invest in the final project, get to know the other students, go to the hackathon, etc.”
• Vincent Ho-Tin-Noe advised, “The class is very easy for 2-3 weeks, and then it just gets crazy. Don't be caught off-guard. Start working on your problem sets as soon as you get them to gauge the amount of time you'll need. Don't start 2 days before the deadline; you won't be able to manage your workload otherwise, even with all-nighters. Also, make sure to watch the lectures live or within 24 hours online. Don't try to catch up on lectures and short videos all at once, right before starting your problem set, or you'll get swamped. Watch all the videos, including problem set walkthroughs and shorts, if you want to get the most out of the class. Finally, make sure to attend sections. They're extremely useful, and bonding with your teaching fellow will definitely be helpful.”

Many respondents acknowledged that there are online options for learning to code that would not require as big a time commitment as CS50. However, they saw a graded course for academic credit as good way to ensure they would actually get the work done. An anonymous respondent said, “I knew that I would never learn programming if I didn't have something—a problem set or test—to keep me accountable every week. I don't want to generalize, but I highly doubt that most HBS people after doing their cases/travel/socializing are going to set aside time to consistently do Codecademy or Treehouse every week.”

Justin Ekins added, “You can learn everything in this course online, but, let's face it, you're not going to force yourself to do that. And you won't get the depth of knowledge that CS50 will provide. It's an outstanding course, and it's incredibly well taught. I'd recommend taking it and then spending J term [three weeks in January when regular HBS classes do not meet] with Stanford's online CS193P, which will get you to the point of building iPhone apps.”

Sixteen of the survey respondents are happy to be contacted by current HBS students who have questions about taking CS50. You can email me to get their contact info.

I AM A PRODUCT!

At the risk of sounding extremely materialistic yet I always tell budding entrepreneurs and future leaders that an education in management teaches one among other things to become an expert in marketing products. It teaches one to understand the needs of the consumers and position the brand in such a manner that the consumer feels he / she needs the brand and goes and buys it. Most of the students of management are quick to learn this and by the time they graduate they are ready to impress the corporate world with their newly learnt skill of ‘marketing’. As david ogilvy once said “a great marketer can even sell snow to an eskimo”. Many management graduates pride themselves upon the fact that they can ‘market almost anything to anyone’, and most of them are actually pretty good at it too. So then all these so-called expert marketers must also be greatly successful in their careers?

Surprisingly that is not true. This is because these marketers learnt to market everything and anything but forgot to learn to market the most important thing and that is ‘marketing themselves’!

FORGET THE RESUME FIND YOURSELF FIRST

Amitabh Bachchan

The traditional way of marketing oneself was with the help of a good resume. Today you need to go a step further than that. You need to ‘brand yourself ’. Just listing your achievements in a resume will not take you far. You need to be able to ‘sell and market’ your achievements effectively. Here are some points to keep in mind.

Be Distinct: Now I see you

This is a fact that we all are being judged all the time, and whether we like it or not, whether we realize it or not, we are constantly selling ourselves. In the business world it’s all about branding. The most ‘well branded’ product rules the market share and the hearts of the consumers. To be really successful in the corporate world you need to ‘brand’ yourself. You need to ‘position’ yourself correctly so that people see you as you want them to see you. Do not wait for people to discover for themselves your real qualities, your true potential and your strengths. You need to show it to them yourself through correct branding. You need to find out that one thing you are best at and use all possible resources to build upon it.

Look at it this way, who was the ‘angry young man’ of Bollywood? Yes, it was Amitabh Bachchan. Even though he gave stellar performances in other roles, he ‘branded’ himself as the angry young man. Who is the most generous Bollywood star? Salman Khan. In fact, his charitable organisation ‘Being Human’ has helped him make his branding as the ‘most charitable star’ even stronger.

Salman Khan

Social networking sites are an interesting platform for one to start their personal branding. In June Former Secretary of State (US) Hillary Clinton joined Twitter. However, the thing that got the maximum attention was her bio that she had posted more than her tweets. She branded herself as “wife, mom, lawyer, women and kids advocate, FLOAR, FLOTUS, US Senator, SecState, author, dog owner, hair icon, pantsuit aficionado, glass ceiling cracker, TBD…” Where TBD stood for ‘to be decided’, with many interpreting it as a sign that she might join the Presidential race in 2016. If she does join, then it’s her personal branding that will help her differentiate herself from the other candidates, just the way Obama did. He came out of nowhere, but his personal branding was so strong, so bang on target that he was noticed and remembered and voted for. He branded himself as the man who could do it. ‘Yes we can’, “Change you can believe in”, have become slogans that you associate with him only. No wonder when Narender Modi chanted ‘Yes we can...’ in Hyderabad as he flagged off the BJP’s election campaign he came under a lot of criticism with some even labeling him as ‘fake Obama’. That is the power of a strong branding – nobody can copy you. As in business – Coke is the ‘Real Thing’, and Pepsi can never be known as that or Nike is ‘Just do it’ and Adidas can only say ‘Impossible is Nothing’ but cannot ask its consumers to just do it! When you find a distinct way to brand yourself people start seeing you that way too. So don’t just be an expert in marketing for its too vague. Make it more specific. An expert in social marketing is probably a little more specific.

Hillary Clinton

Apart from people and products today cities are branding themselves too. One of the most well branded cities is Las Vegas. It promotes itself as the place where you can do what you want and nobody will bother you, for its tagline says “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”! Yash Raj Films branded Switzerland as the country for lovers and Switzerland can never thank him enough for the countless couples who started going there after seeing Switzerland in Yash Chopra’s films.

The more focused your branding the more easy it is for people to remember you and identify you, for now they see you more clearly and distinctly.

Be Honest

A successful brand is one that is built on a unique concept but more importantly one that is built on the foundation of honesty. The reason Oprah is one of the most passionately loved celebrity (read brand) is because of her total honesty. She was brutally honest about her poverty-stricken past, her failures, her struggles with her weight and just about everything. So on her talk show when she motivated people and told them they could overcome their problems, they believed her. It made her a success and her show the biggest talk show in the history of television. The reason ‘Comedy Nights with Kapil’ today has the highest TRP is not only because of the clean honest humor its host Kapil brings to the show but also because his total demeanor has sincerity and honesty around it, for he does not pretend to be someone else, and the audience love him for that. In just the same way the people loved Steve Jobs. It was not just his marvelous products but his honesty about his weaknesses his failures along with his successes that endeared him to his customers making the brand ‘Steve Jobs’ iconic and him a legend whose tales will be told and retold many times over.

Be Relevant: Keep upgrading

Barack Obama

We are all pretty much like softwares. Just as they need constant upgrades so do we. Once you have identified your unique and distinct branding strategy and started branding yourself most honestly you will see success but if you stop now you may be lost once again. You need to keep moving and keep modifying yourself to suit the needs of the changing times. If I go back to my old example of Amitabh Bachchan, then from the ‘angry young man’ to ‘the most stylish superstar’ the man has constantly changed and upgraded himself to remain relevant to the new generation too. Coca Cola is still the ‘Real Thing’ and it has managed to remain relevant by constantly finding new ways to brand itself.

Branding is all about standing out so that the target market chooses you over competition. If you want to be successful start by branding yourself first. Be as distinct as the McDonald arches, as iconic as Apple, as loved as Nike, as admired as Facebook, as desirable as a Rolls Royce. Look at any success story and behind that you will find a well planned branding strategy. It’s time you started thinking like a brand and crafting your own branding strategy. In today’s fast moving world only the distinct and the distinguished make it to the top. Remember the golden rule that success starts by first selling yourself and never forgetting that you too are a product!