Letters to Live By – GSB Acronyms

I was first exposed to the acronym culture as an undergraduate. While I did not have the pleasure of attending Stanford, I was involved with a Stanford undergrad while I attended Santa Clara. There were times when I would be listening to a conversation and quite literally have no idea what was being said. Acronyms had way of making me feel excluded, not cool enough to know the right way to say something. Coming to Stanford, first in the Civil Engineering department and then the GSB, started with a similar sensation – not always knowing what was being said. Now, two years later, these acronyms have worked their way into conversations with my SO, so engrained in my mind that they are no longer acronyms, but the only name I know them by. With that past headache in mind, I’ll share some of those (as well as a couple of words that are not acronyms, but have worked their way into the GSB vocabulary) that come to mind.

Arbuckle – Main dining facility in Knight

ALF – Arbuckle Leadership Fellows – Group of students selected in their first year that coach first year squads and have three coachees

Bass – Library in Knight

BBL – Brown bag lunch – A meeting that occurs over lunch that can be eaten at. Host will often provide food to attendees, but not always. It is not atypical for there to be 8 BBLs occurring simultaneously on Wednesdays. Pick your poison

Blast – Email sent to the entirety of the student body. Can be incredibly effective, or overly spammy

BPL – Beer Pong League – Held weekly on Thursday nights at the Patio

BT – Blast Tax – Funny or interesting link or image included on a blast email, must be included or will be reprimanded by the Blast Sheriff

CMC – Career Management Center – Offers career advice to all GSB students as well as alumni

CoHo – Coffee House – Part of Tressider and frequented by all members of the university

CPG – Consumer Packaged Goods – Consultants will often drop this in class while talking about one of their cases they worked for an anonymous client

d.School – Classes on campus that seek to teach design thinking, very people across-the-street class option

EANABs – Equally attractive non-alcoholic beverages – Stanford requires EANABs be made available at any event that is serving alcohol

FOAM – Friends of Arjay Miller – Top 10% of students are Arjay Miller Scholars, the other 90% are their friends. Weekly on Wednesday nights at a designated location

GER – Global Experience Requirement – One of the requirements to graduate from the GSB, participate in one options to travel to a foreign location and breathe in the culture. Options include Global Seminar Trips (most popular), Global Seminars (before school, low capacity), GMIX (Summer after year 1, also popular), self-directed options exist (less popular)

GMIX – Global Management Immersion Experience – One of the options to fulfill the GER. Done during the summer between year 1 and 2

GSB – Graduate School of Business – Stanford’s acronym for their business school

GST – Global Seminar Trip – One of the options to fulfill the GER. Occur over winter or spring break where a group of MBA2s lead a group of students to experience the culture and work landscape

HBS – Harvard Business School – Harvard’s acronym for their business school

HH – Happy Hour

Knight – Main GSB campus, donated in large part by Phil Knight of Nike

LSJUMB – Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band – The Band, they’re different

LPF – Liquidity Preference Function – Held weekly on Friday night in Town Square

MARRS – Meeting and Room Reservation System – How you book a room around Knight. One of the few poor IT tools

MGE – Managing Growing Enterprises – One of the most popular electives

OCR – On-campus recruiting – Organized by the CMC, it brings dozens of employers onto campus to interview potential interns and full time employees

PLC – Personal Learning Coach – Many first years will elect to have a PLC assigned to them where they will work to improve themselves

SEQ – Science and Engineering Quad – Connected to the main quad and surrounded by new buildings, many students will take classes on this side of campus

Schwab – Main GSB residence, known for single students who are interested in being surround by 250 of their classmates

SO – Significant Other – Gender neutral term for a partner of a student, said “S” “O”

SOE – School of Engineering

TALK – Weekly ritual where two students will address their classmates on a topic of their choice, most typically their life story

TF – Touchy Feely – Stage name for Interpersonal Dynamics, one of the most well-known and popular classes at the GSB. Students meet weekly to discuss their feelings to improve communication and leadership skills

TD // 7/29/16