When I graduated from college, I started a digital advertising agency focused on video advertising, called VidAdBox. It was a first business we started with a friend and ran it without giving it much thought - we reported to ourselves and based most decisions on “gut feeling."  While projects came in and paid the bills, we struggled to grow. It was hard to find the time to work, plan, market, and use outside financing to scale our business. Several years later, I moved with my family from Israel to the US because we were expecting our second child and my wife wanted to be closer to her family.

Soon after we moved, I got involved in a project where I had a chance to work on a research project and see the power of high throughput molecular data. While the project was short-lived, the experience turned my attention to molecular data and its applications in personalized medicine – precision diagnostics, clinical trials, and drug repurposing. My father, who has been working in bioinformatics research most of his life, encouraged me to take a closer look at this new dynamic and use my business experience to build a company.

So we started. One of the first things on our list was obtaining equity financing. I was full of energy and creativity, but my previous small small business experience gave me limited tools to produce the necessary analysis of market trends and financial models that would be convincing to investors. I felt that I wasn’t prepared, but did not have the time or money to quit everything I was doing and go back to school to get an MBA. I decided to search for an alternative program that would give me some practical skills and introduce me to key ideas in business and finance. I also hoped to keep on working on this idea while gaining these critical skills. 

After some research, I decided HBX CORe was a good fit. The program was a good mix of flexibility and accountability and provided a relevant set of topics for what I was trying to do. It turned out to be a great decision.

While a lot of information about investor pitches can be found online, most of the time the process involves lots of conversations. Sometimes, you have to be ready to walk an investor through your financial projections and demonstrate your ability to build an accurate budget in a short amount of time. I had to learn how to summarize data and business metrics and then present them in meaningful ways—harnessing the power of excel and its associated tools was key. Equally as important was knowing the language of business to describe our models, because, as you may know, presentation matters. 

While introducing me to the “language of business," HBX CORe also provided me with tools I put to work immediately. It gave me a platform to discuss my ideas and difficulties with peers who had different experiences. Finally, I received a credential that was validation for my new skills.

While enrolled in the program, I worked hard on my pitch and business summary that was to be presented to an angel investor. As I learned about product pricing, we received market data and a convincing picture started to clarify. The numbers finally started making sense – we had a product that could be ready for market in time for it to mature. Compiling this information into a series of presentations, we were able to successfully raise the needed seed capital for our new company, Pine Biotech. A big part of it was negotiating a licensing agreement for the technology for our platform. But a plan is never enough—it is all about the execution. In our case, that meant growing our team and involving ourselves in projects where we could showcase the power of our technology.

Today, I am the CEO of our company. We are headquartered in Boston and New Orleans and have six people working on different aspects of the business. Our key product is a SaaS hybrid cloud platform, T-BioInfo, that provides easy access to analysis of molecular data for diverse teams, including biologists and bioinformaticians. The T-BioInfo platform enables researchers to analyze genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and other types of biomedical big data using an intuitive graphical user interface.

In addition to making multi-omics analysis accessible to non-bioinformatician biologists, the platform includes a wide range of machine learning tools and user-friendly visualization. By placing these advanced tools into the hands of clinical researchers and pharmaceutical R&D, we envision revolutionizing the way improved personalized healthcare is developed in the coming years. We are working on multiple projects to enable molecular profiling for matching patients to clinical trials, discovery of small molecules for therapeutics, vaccines, and identification of new cellular pathways as target candidates. 

While we are just at the beginning, we are starting to see the hard work pay off. We were able to apply for research grants and establish collaborations to develop the platform further. This year, we scored our first contracts. In October 2016, the Pine Biotech pitch won the grand prize at The Pistoia Alliance competition. We had to pitch in front of companies like Astra Zeneca, Merck, and Thomson Reuters. In December, we will be finishing the Propeller accelerator program.

I am excited to see how things will develop from here – it’s been a hard, but exciting journey. I am thankful for the HBX CORe team for making their educational content available online in a format that helped me develop some of the essential skills I needed.

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The CORe community consists of a rich and diverse group of learners. Want to learn more about other students who've participated in the program?

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Past HBX CORe participant Marc Zavarella spoke to us about his transition from the military to Columbia University, as well as his plans to pursue a career in medicine.

What role did you serve in the military?

I was an Airborne Infantryman stationed with the 173^rd Airborne and deployed to the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. I was also part of an experimental team engaging in counter-insurgency asymmetric warfare to protect the construction of new infrastructure.

Why did you decide to transition out of the military?

Initially, I intended to transition to an officer from the infantry as I enlisted with a college education. However, during my deployment, I applied to several highly-ranked schools and received positive replies. Although my Commander gave me the keys to any avenue I could dream of pursuing in the military, I could not refuse the offer to attend a university like Columbia. 

How did you think about your transition to the private sector?

At first, my transition to a rigorous education program proved difficult as my studying routine and memorization skills were a bit rusty, and limited resources existed for veterans transitioning to the private sector. However, since that time, a number of organizations have popped up to help transitioning veterans find employment and apply to school. Thankfully, Columbia University offered a wealth of veteran support through their in-house liaison.

What forms of education did you consider, and why did you choose HBX?

My main goals were to learn science, understand and employ the scientific process through pre-medical coursework, ready myself for the MCAT examination required for medical school applications and employment in the healthcare industry. A neurosurgical mentor of mine suggested I explore the business side of healthcare which is how I discovered HBX. He suggested that having a business skill set will be valuable as I work to move healthcare forward and deliver the best possible healthcare to patients at affordable prices. 

What was your HBX experience like?

My experience with HBX was incredible. It was a rigorous program and I highly recommend Harvard Business School's transformational pedagogical model. There were times in the program where I struggled with the material, but the collaborative framework created an incredible sense of belonging and partnership between the participants. This program's structure also drove us to ask questions and search for the answers, instead of having them presented right to us. The active learning model allowed us to better understand the material and engage with eachother in meaningful ways.

What are your plans now?

I intend to complete my healthcare management program at Columbia while I apply to medical schools. I am at a “crucible moment” as I enter a wonderful and supporting marriage and face the decision of carrying on towards medical school or fully committing to physician training. However, I am extremely excited at the possibility that medical school holds. I find myself being happiest with the idea of being a physician executive employing a cost-friendly approach to patient-centered healthcare.

What advice would you have for others beginning their transition?

I would advise all transitioning veterans to reach for the stars. Do your research and work hard on your applications. Don't be afraid to ask your superiors for a recommendation and take every move you make seriously. Research the functionality of the GI Bill and how it can help you get to where you want to go. Ask questions—if you are interested in a school, call or visit to find out more. It is okay to ask for suggestions. Lastly, don’t sell yourself short. America is the land of opportunity, and if you seek an opportunity with the heart and desire that you put into volunteering for the military – you are bound to find happiness and a fulfilling career.

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The CORe community consists of a rich and diverse group of learners. Want to learn more about other students who've participated in the program?

Let’s talk sunk costs. In business speak, a sunk cost is a payment or investment that has already been made. It can't be recovered and therefore shouldn't be a factor in decisions moving forward because no matter what, it can't be recouped. Businesses and organizations often have difficulty abandoning strategies because of the time spent developing them, even if they aren't the right choice for the company.

Imagine a company that decides to build a new factory. They already did their analyses and determined that the future benefit they will receive from the factory will outweigh the cost of construction. They pay for the factory up front and expect to earn a certain level of cash flows from the factory’s production each year. But after a few years, the factory is underperforming and cash flows are less than expected. 

A decision has to be made: should the factory be shut down or not? At this point, the initial cost of the factory is a sunk cost and cannot be recovered. The decision should only be based on the future cash flows—or the future expected benefit—of the factory compared to the value of selling the factory today, not the original cost of the factory.

However, sunk costs aren't just useful for large companies deciding whether to enter new markets or close down factories. This principle can be applied in everyday life, and understanding it may impact how you make decisions. 

Feel free to leave the baseball game if it’s raining.

Some may call you a fair weather fan, but the cost became sunk the instant you purchased your ticket. You might feel obligated to stay and stick it out if the ticket was expensive, but if leaving makes you happier, do it! Either way, you aren't getting your money back.

Don’t go to the gym just because you have an annual membership.

Working out may be advantageous to your health, but your annual membership shouldn't dictate whether you go to the gym on any given day. If you paid up front, that’s money you won’t see again—if you’d rather take a hike, watch a movie, or spend an hour trolling Snapchat, you should. Your annual membership isn’t coming back into your checking account either way. (Although, this is not to say there are no other benefits to working out.)

There's no need to clean your plate.

How many times have you been at a restaurant and felt compelled to finish your meal? What about dessert? You ordered it, so you have to enjoy it and eat as much as you can. Before you give yourself a stomach ache and ruin a perfectly enjoyable meal, let’s think about this in terms of sunk costs: you've already committed to paying for the dinner and dessert in front of you no matter how much you eat. If you are full or don’t like the taste, stop eating. It’s that simple.

Sometimes there is an emotional component to sunk costs.

Maybe you went to law school, passed the bar, started working, and then realized you hate being a lawyer. What should you do? You invested so much time, energy, and money in that degree, so it can't be worth starting over again with a new career, right? Unfortunately, these are all sunk costs, so if your end goal is your own happiness, you might need to cut your losses and refocus your energies elsewhere. 

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Interested in learning the language of business? Take HBX CORe and discover the basics of Economics for Managers, Financial Accounting, and Business Analytics.

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The simplest model of a market involves two things, supply and demand, and the price and quantity of the goods sold in the market are a function of both. When a natural disaster hits, the immediate effect can be two-fold. In such situations, it is not unusual that the demand for certain products may increase. For example, if everyone is trying to leave the area, demand for gas may rise. The other effect is that supply for certain products may decrease. For example, it may be more costly to transport gas in areas affected by a natural disaster, thus decreasing the supply of gas and in turn, increasing the price.

When supply decreases, the price of the good increases. And when demand increases, again the price of the good increases. So we would predict that the market price of gas, for example, would increase in areas recently affected by a hurricane. And in fact we do see this.

Price-gouging occurs when companies raise prices to unfair levels. There is no rule for what qualifies as price-gouging, but it is not an uncommon occurance. For example, EpiPen costs and Uber price surges are both current examples of price increases that have been labeled unfair. 

Stories of price gouging in Florida after Hurricane Matthew have recently made headlines. Price increases due to natural disasters are the classic example of price gouging, and the government will usually intervene and directly prevent companies from doing so. But there can be unintended consequences to market interventions such as these, which explains the ongoing debate among economists and policy makers about the proper response to natural disasters and price gouging.

Want to read more about the price gouging debate?

• The Problem with Price Gouging Laws
  Harvard Business Review 
   
• Post-Sandy Price Gouging: Economically Sound, Ethically Dubious
  Time
   
• Why Economists Love Price Gouging, And Why It's So Rare
  National Public Radio

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Interested in learning Financial Accounting, Business Analytics, and Economics for Managers?

My name is Aziz and I am a recent New York University graduate who enrolled in the June 2015 cohort of HBX CORe. Since completing CORe, I have nurtured my entrepreneurial skills to a new level and have successfully launched a start-up NGO, TajRupt, in my home country of Tajikistan.

TajRupt works on three fronts: renewable energy (providing solar lanterns to tens of thousands of underprivileged children), subsidized financing (allocating grants to gifted students to pursue university education), and anti-corruption (launching an online platform for reporting of bribery cases in universities). I have extensively used my HBX CORe skills to define the operational business model and effectively work on grant proposals with my peers. 

Business Analytics - Drawing conclusions from conducting randomized audits and analyzing data samples 

We were initially planning to launch a microfinance institution that would provide low-interest student loans modelled after the UK Student Loans Company system. To gauge public interest in the program, we posted surveys on Tajik social media groups and sent them out electronically in a randomized manner – exact steps taken in one of the course examples. After receiving survey results that pointed to low public interest in the microfinance venture, we were convinced that the student loan program would be tough to launch in a country where public trust in financial institutions is at an all-time low due to a stiff financial crisis. Thus, we decided to focus our efforts on strictly non-commercial aspects in the beginning in order to build a proper reputation that would then increase public confidence in the organization and strategically differentiate us (a concept from Economics for Managers). This strategy will allow us to launch a microfinance program in a period of one to two years.

Economics for Managers - Fixed and variable cost breakdown 

While my team and I were preparing our grant proposals for the Ministry of Finance, we conducted extensive contrastive fixed and variable cost analyses and adjusted the metrics several times in order to yield the least operationally expensive model by bringing down the variable cost to minimal levels. In our case, renting space for offices and Educational Resource Centers (ERCs) produced variable costs that were too high. To curb this, we transformed the office variable expense into a fixed cost by opting to purchase a small headquarters office as opposed to continuously paying rent. We also eliminated the variable cost associated with ERCs by formalizing an agreement with the Ministry of Education and Science to host ERC activities at administrative offices of the Ministry in five districts of our operation.

Financial Accounting - Cash flow analysis 

Due to the fact that we receive $3.3 million in international grant funds in continuous annual payments from the Ministry of Finance as opposed to one single transaction, we had to properly amend our income statements for annual categorization to prevent over-spending. This prompted us to use a number of course concepts including operating expense ratio (OER) to gain insights into our financial standing and ensure project sustainability.

Thank you, HBX CORe!

By utilizing the network of amazing individuals that I had the pleasure of meeting through HBX, I was able to pursue my dream project and secure over $3 million in grants from the Eurasian Development Bank and OPEC Fund for International Development. Thanks to CORe, I was able to make my dream of launching a start-up NGO come to life.

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Interested in learning Financial Accounting, Business Analytics, and Economics for Managers?

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Gone are the days when people paid cash for the goods and services they needed. More often than not, companies (and individuals) prepay, or pay later for goods and services. The form of accounting that allows companies to keep up with these more complicated transactions is called Accrual Accounting.

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Accrual Accounting: An accounting method that recognizes revenue in the period in which it is earned and realizable, not necessarily when the cash is received. Similarly, expenses are recognized in the period in which the related revenue is recognized rather than when the related cash is paid.

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Accrual Accounting is helpful because it shows underlying business transactions, not just those where cash is involved. Most transactions that a company has are straightforward, with payment happening at the time of the transaction. Other, more complicated transactions, involve buying and selling on credit, which requires a company to account for monies that they will have to pay at a future date or receive at a future date.

Even more complicated are transactions that require paying for goods or services in advance or receiving money from customers in advance. The timing of when revenues and expenses are recognized related to these more complicated transactions can have a major effect on the perceived financial performance of a company.

How does all of this work in the real world?

Deferred Revenue

When a company receives cash before a good has been delivered or a service has been provided, it creates an account called deferred (or unearned) revenue. This account is a liability because the company has an obligation to deliver the good or provide the service in the future.

Suppose you paid a gym $1,200 on January 1, 2016 for a year-long membership. Using the accrual accounting method, the gym would set up a deferred revenue account (a liability) for the $1,200 to show that they had received the cash but not yet provided the service. As each month of 2016 passes, the gym can reduce the deferred revenue account by $100 to show that they have provided one month of service. They can simultaneously record revenue of $100 each month to show that the revenue has officially been earned through providing the service.

Prepaid Expense

When a company pays cash for a good before it is received, or for a service before it has been provided, it creates an account called prepaid expense. This account is an asset account because it shows that the company is entitled to receive a good or a service in the future.

Suppose that a dental office buys a year-long magazine subscription on January 1, 2016 for $144, so patients have something to read while they wait for their appointments. At the time of the payment, the dental office will set up a prepaid expense account for $144 to show that they have not yet received the goods, but they have already paid the cash. As each month of 2016 passes, the dental office can reduce the prepaid expense account by $12 to show that they have ‘used up’ one month of their prepaid expense (asset). They can simultaneously record an expense of $12 each month to show that the expense has officially incurred through receiving the magazine.

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Interested in learning the language of business? Take HBX CORe and discover the basics of Economics for Managers, Financial Accounting, and Business Analytics.

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If you've been following the election at all, you've probably noticed that some polls give very different estimates of who's likely to win the presidency in November. For example, at 1:00 PM EDT on Tuesday, September 27th [this will probably change by the time you read this]:

• The New York Times shows Clinton leading 45% to 42%
• The Los Angeles Times reports Trump leading 46.2% to 42.7%
• HuffPost Pollster shows Clinton up 47.6% to 44.1%
• Data analysis site FiveThirtyEight gives three different estimates:
  • Their Polls-only forecast is 55.8% to 44.2% in Clinton's favor
  • Their Polls-plus forecast (which includes such factors as the economy and event-related spikes in either candidate's favor) is 55.2% to 44.7% in Clinton's favor 
  • Their nowcast (what they'd expect if the election were held today) is 52.7% to 47.3% in Clinton's favor

There are a number of reasons for this: they poll different people, using different questions, via different media. For example, polls that use only mobile numbers, and exclude landlines, tend to under-sample older voters. And wording changes as simple as which candidate is mentioned first by the poll can affect responses.

But the biggest differences may be caused by weighting, a method used to make the sample (which may be demographically different from the expected voter turnout) look like the population. Each organization uses its own weighting algorithm, leading to a diversity of predictions. In fact, the New York Times recently shared poll data it had collected with four well-respected analysts.

Even with the exact same data, the different weighting methods led to results varying from a four point lead for Clinton to a one point lead for Trump. That's because each organization has a slightly different idea of what the electorate will look like in terms of gender, ethnicity, education, socio-economic status, etc. These assumptions about who will vote influence what the polls tell us.

One thing is pretty clear: this will be a tight race, and people seem more emotionally invested in it than they have been in many recent elections. And given last night's debate, the numbers will likely fluctuate in the upcoming days.

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Interested in learning more about how to interpret data? Take HBX CORe and discover the basics of Economics for Managers, Financial Accounting, and Business Analytics.

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Graphs can be an effective way of communicating information about data. However, when poorly used they can be confusing, inaccurate, or misleading. Thanks to the internet, many of the worst displays of data remain long after their creators have identified the problems and corrected or removed them. Here are five of the more egregious instances that have shown up over the past few years.

1. The pieces of a pie should add up to 100%.

There's a couple of things wrong with this graph. First, any chart (such as a pie chart) that divides a single image into subsection should sum to 100%. This chart shows distinct stripes, but clearly if 88% of organizations raise funds via one-on-one solicitations and 87% use direct mail, there must be some overlap. Secondly, the four categories are virtually the same size, but there's about six times as much ink for Direct Mail (which 87% of organizations use) as for Special Events (which 88% use).

2. Shapes have meaning.

This chart does show about 100% in each column of figures, but the choice of shape makes it confusing. The different parts of the map have distinct meaning, beyond the demographics listed. Given this, it looks like Asians only live in Maine and Washington and that Texas existed only in 2010.

3. Start numbering at zero.

One common problem in graphs is misuse of the y-axis (the vertical axis at the left of the graph, which often indicates frequency). The y-axis isn't labelled here, but it looks like it probably ranges from about 73 to 78, which makes the drop from 77.3 to 75.3 seem precipitous. But if the graph covered a more reasonable range of knuckleball speeds (say 40-100 mph), the decrease would seem much smaller.

4. Numbers should read up from zero.

In this case, the y-axis has actually been inverted, so that the highest numbers are on the bottom. Logically, there's no reason you couldn't make a graph like this, and the graph does include the scale of the y-axis. However, we're so used to seeing graphs with the high numbers on the top, that we automatically assume that the change after 2005 is a decrease, when it's actually an increase.

5. Use the same scale for both axes.

The lack of labeling on the y-axis is particularly confusing, because it appears that the two lines on the graph are using entirely different axe. The change in both lines appears to be about the same, even though one change is almost 30 times as great as the other (the red line goes up 37,250 and the pink line goes down 1,071,987). Furthermore, on the left side of the graph, the smaller number is on the bottom, while on the right side, the smaller number is at the top.

Graphs can be a great tool to tell stories about data. However, just like language, images can confuse or deceive. So it's worthwhile to be a conscientious consumer of data and make sure that the pictures you see accurately reflect the numbers.

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Interested in learning more about how to interpret data? Take HBX CORe and discover the basics of Economics for Managers, Financial Accounting, and Business Analytics.

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At first glance, I seem like the last person to ever consider taking a course like HBX CORe. I am deeply rooted in arts and social justice, most of my peers critique capitalism at every turn, and financial documents make me yawn. However, I do love learning, and have a philosophy of signing up to anything that seemed interesting - and HBX CORe seemed intriguing enough to try. To my surprise, I found HBX CORe far more engaging than I anticipated, and I was able to find many ways to connect my background and my values with my learning experience.

Understanding analytics can protect you from being exploited by misleading information and fine-tune your knowledge in an area of interest.

Statistics of all kinds are commonly used to persuade or advocate for any position - this group is correlated with high crime rates, or this diet change correlates to massive weight loss, for example. It’s easy to be confused by a random p-value or the use of a different kind of “average” (mean, mode, median) than expected - and unfortunately many take advantage of that confusion to present false information.

Being able to read and understand analytical data helps you be more discerning: you are able to recognize when someone is misusing data to push an agenda, know what the results actually say, and can draw more solid conclusions. On the flip side, understanding basic analytical skills – such as linear regression or surveying – can help you better understand your topic of interest and be able to communicate your findings accurately: from community opinion polls about a recent Governmental measure to what you should sell at your next Artist’s Alley booth.

Accounting is really all about organizing how money comes in and goes out in a business.

At first I found the whole concept of financial accounting daunting and dreadful; I could never make sense of all these profits and losses, and actually shied away from starting various projects because I didn’t think I could handle the financial paperwork. However, through HBX CORe I learned that all those documents are really just different ways of recording and organizing financial transactions that happen in a business: every purchase, sale, loan, investment, even tax and depreciation.

Start with a record of every transaction, organize them into categories (“accounts”), and from there group similar accounts together to see where the money is going. Once all that data is organized, the ratios to figure out things like profit margins or cash conversion cycles become very straightforward. How quickly are you going through your inventory? How much profit are you earning relative to the costs of your business? When do you pay off your debt, when do you get paid by your customers, and how long does this take?

Even if you don’t plan to start a business, knowing what those terms refer to can help make sense of big financial news, such as a company's IPO or prospectus release. You get a sense for where those companies’ priorities lie and which areas are stronger than others.

Understanding economics concepts can really strengthen your political/social justice position (and HBX CORe is a welcoming space for it)!

Through my strong involvement in intersectional activism, I’ve learned a lot about how capitalism and mainstream economics can become oppressive forces for marginalized communities. Certain parts of the Economics module in particular became very challenging and somewhat frustrating because it felt like they did not really dive deeper into the socio-political implications or critiques of those theories.

I decided that, rather than be silenced for fear of jeopardizing my grades, I was going to take this opportunity to bring my passion and experience to the program. I drew connections between what we learned in class and how they applied to the wider world outside our HBX bubble. I spoke up about the real-world impacts of minimum wage and illustrated the connection between Willingness to Pay and sex worker rights. While these conversations were sometimes very heated, I found that my coursemates and even the professors were open to my critique, with many appreciating the varying perspectives I brought to the table. 

Our work and perspectives have value.

As artists, activists, change makers, community builders, creatives, and others with more alternative life paths, we are often surrounded by messaging telling us that our work is not worth as much, that it’s frivolous and not as important as being rich and successful. While we may not seem like the target market for a business course like CORe, there’s actually a lot of material within that we have every right to adopt, make our own, and benefit from understanding – from being willing to price ourselves by our true value (rather than undersell ourselves), to tracking concrete measurements of the value we give and receive. There will be plenty of people in your cohort that are more than willing to listen to your point of view and respect you for sticking to your values.

You may not ever need to make profit and loss statements or set up a multiple variable linear regression in Excel, but at the very least you’ll understand another powerful language to navigate the world - and make it more like the world we envision.

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Interested in learning Financial Accounting, Business Analytics, and Economics for Managers?

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When I got my acceptance letter for HBX CORe, I did not know what to expect from the program. Aside from significantly enhancing my knowledge about the fundamentals of business, CORe also grew my personal network. Don't underestimate how powerful this is! Here are some ways I was able to meet new people thanks to CORe:

1. Getting social

After you get accepted into CORe, you have the opportunity to join your cohort's Facebook group. Not only do you get to share knowledge with your peers, but you also get to know your classmates from all around the world on a personal level. You will learn how everyone lives and works all over the world, what opinions they have, and they will definitely make you laugh from time to time!

2. On the course platform

Facebook isn't the only way to reach out to your peers; the CORe platform is set up in such a way that everyone fills out a profile with professional and educational details. You can also include social media handles as well as personal information - everyone is free to choose how much they want to share. Apart from that, there is significant interaction on the course platform with fellow students - you're even graded on your participation! You quickly get a sense for what others are good at and how they can help you, and vice versa.

3. Face-to-face meetings

I had the wonderful opportunity to travel all the way from Amsterdam in the Netherlands to Harvard Business School for HBX ConneXt - an event with past HBX participants as well as the HBX faculty and staff. Meeting fellow HBX students face-to-face helped me to make better connections with my peers as well as to grow my network even more.

There weren't many students from my cohort in the Netherlands, so I hadn't had the opportunity to have any face-to-face meetings with my peers prior to coming to ConneXt. However, if there are HBX peers in your area, make sure you meet them. People who are part of HBX CORe are intelligent and have incredibly interesting backgrounds that you might only get to know about if you meet up in person.

4. Reaching out after the course

Even though I took CORe a year ago, I am still in touch with the friends I met through the program and am still growing my network. After working intensively together for months online, we are still just a click away if we want ask our cohort for help or just share a nice experience or success.

5. Past and future students

My network has continued to grow in the past year as I have connected with more and more people who took, are taking, or will take part in an HBX course. HBX offers multiple cohorts every year, and I've heard from a number of past participants and prospective students who want to know more about my experiences, share knowledge, or set up partnerships.

There are plenty of informal groups that have formed in order to connect with participants across different cohorts of CORe and I've even heard from some companies who saw my connection with HBX and wanted to share professional opportunities with me.

When you take CORe, you show that you are taking an extra step beyond your busy job, school work, and life to expand your knowledge or help make a decision about your future. People see that and connect with you. I am happy to tell everyone who asks that HBX CORe is not just another online course, but a great one that simulates a real-life class experience online!

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