Every year hundreds of eager acolytes enter the halls of the Harvard Business School in pursuit of one of the world's most sought-after and potentially lucrative degrees, the Harvard MBA. What they find is a high-powered, high-caffeine environment where ulcers are nourished in breathtaking luxury, and where one must be smart, savvy, and somewhat insane to make it through year one. Robert Reid is a survivor, having climbed the ivy tower without falling to the flagstones below. In Year One, he does for HBS what Scott Turow's classic One-L did for Harvard Law: he tears away the ivy to reveal the average student's frenzied first year of study.