I had a student who graduated Phi Beta Kappa from an Ivy League school. She spent her time between undergrad and graduate school working for a non-profit. While at Harvard’s Kennedy School, she decided she wanted to do consulting, but she had no business background. Her first attempt at a mock case interview with me was a disaster. That day she started a journal. For every live case she did with me, her classmates, and alumni (she did around 30 live cases), and with every case that she read (about 80 cases), she wrote down the problem, the solution, and most important, what she hadn’t thought of. The student constantly reviewed it, so that what she didn’t think of naturally soon became second nature to her. She also recorded structures, concepts, ideas, and strategies. When she had spare moments between classes or bus rides, she would flip through her journal. When she read articles in The Wall Street Journal , Bloomberg Businessweek, or McKinsey Quarterly, she would add to her journal. It never left her side. She ended up at a top firm and took the journal with her. With every engagement she learned something new and added it to her journal. When she and her co- workers sat around brainstorming problems, she would flip through her journal and throw out ideas, which often sparked discussions and occasionally led to a solution.引自 3 Case Questions