Professor Steve Ballmer Will Teach At Two Universities This Year 179
redletterdave (2493036) writes "When Steve Ballmer announced he was stepping down from Microsoft's board of directors, he cited a fall schedule that would "be hectic between teaching a new class and the start of the NBA season." It turns out Ballmer will teach an MBA class at Stanford's Graduate School of Business in the fall, and a class at USC's Marshall School of Business in the spring. Helen Chang, assistant director of communications at Stanford's Business School, told Business Insider that Ballmer will be working with faculty member Susan Athey for a strategic management course called "TRAMGT588: Leading organizations." As for the spring semester, Ballmer will head to Los Angeles — closer to where his Clippers will be playing — and teach a course at University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business. We reached out to the Marshall School, which declined to offer more details about Ballmer's class.
Is he a scientist? (Score:3, Interesting)
Is he an actual scientist? Did he do any scientific research? Did he merit a the title of university professor? Sure, he did make money, but that doesn't automatically mean he should earn a title that few people get after working very hard, usually without extreme luxury or profit.
Re:Those who can't... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's been said many times - Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.
I know where that saying comes from as I have had numerous terrible teachers. However I have had many amazing teachers both in normal public schools and in the corporate world. These people could "do". I also used to teach a popular corporate class and my students always appreciated my insights into the product I taught because I actually worked with it in real life. I quit because of the travel and relatively low pay, but I can very much "do".
I suppose what I'm getting at is, I don't like that saying - it implies that teachers can't do what they teach. I think that's probably the bad apples that create that sentiment. Along the same lines as "99% of the lawyers give the rest a bad name." I'm sure there are a few more percent that are good.
And MBA is not like other Master's degrees ... (Score:5, Interesting)
However the MBA isn't a Science based study but a research/practical based study. MBA program is a lot about reading case studies and working to find better solutions.
An MBA is not like other Master's degrees. One does not delve deeper into on particular field and do research.
An MBA program is an overview of all the pieces of an organization. It covers statistics, organizational behavior (of people, psychology stuff), accounting, strategy, product development, operations, marketing, leadership, etc. Few of the students are coming from an accounting background, many are in fact coming from science and engineering backgrounds.
An MBA program doesn't change you, if you were a software engineer going in you are still one going out. However you are now a software engineer who understands the perspective and concerns of those in accounting, marketing and operations and you can now communicate with them more effectively and are more likely to persuade them.