This networking culture at HBS is undeniable. Referring to the MBA ecosystem, Celia A. Stafford, a PhD candidate at HBS, told me that “the entire point is networking, and so it can become very transactional a lot of the time.”
“It’s very common at HBS to get an email or a text or like, a message from somebody you don’t know asking to get coffee,” Lewis told me. “You don’t know if there’s an angle there, because they know you work in a certain field. You don’t know if it’s because you might have a mutual friend, and they just want to get to know you.”