In Depth
What makes a profession?
» A core body of knowledge
Students decline to specialize
Melvin T. Copeland, in his And Mark an Era — a history of HBS published in the 1950s — cited three reasons why HBS students were uninterested in the kinds of specialized courses that the School attempted to offer in the second decade of the 20th century.
First, Copeland wrote, there were restrictive hiring and promotion policies within certain industries. (The seniority systems that dominated the railroads, for example, precluded rapid advancement through their ranks.)
Second, business school students — then and now — sought to avoid limiting their employment possibilities as a result of having taken overly specialized courses of study.
And finally, many students simply found it more stimulating intellectually to solve problems in a variety of industries, rather than just one.
