Lebanon, NH: Prospective MBA students often wonder whether the $130,000 investment in their graduate education is really worth the money.  Some of the students who enter top-tier MBA programs forgo lucrative salaries for the chance to study the fundamentals of business.  But we all know that the real value of an MBA from a top school is the opportunity to build a professional network of ambitious, intelligent people who can help open doors to success. 

The Tuck Profit is widely recognized in the MBA community as a definitive source of information on career management.  We interviewed dozens of Tuckies to get their advice on how to avoid common pitfalls in professional network management.  We distilled their answers into the following list:

30 Sure-Fire Ways To Contaminate Your Professional Network

1. Take practice swings in the sand trap
    
2. Send out LinkedIn and Plaxo requests to people you have never spoken with
    
3. Have surgery on your knee, get a handicapped parking sticker, and use it to park in front of Whit for the next 4 months, long after you're recovered
    
4. Have sex with your classmate's wife
    
5. Challenge a study group member to a fight
    
6. Steal a ladder, for no apparent reason
    
7. Collect job offers
    
8. Cheat on a test, in an environment where grades don't matter
    
9. Write an unfunny Safe Rides Email
    
10. Steal a computer from your ASW host
     
11. Use the word "pussy" in a Safe Rides Email
     
12. Cheat in an election for student board
     
13. Tattle on students who graciously supplied weed to admits at ASW
     
14. Sound like a McKinsey partner talking to a group of middle managers from Duluth when making comments in class
     
15. Bring carnivorous animals to Stell to study with you
     
16. Crawl into a random person's bed during ASW
     
17. Sleep with a professor
     
18. Wear two shades of pastel at once
     
19. Make fun of racists
     
20. Break furniture in Whit during the International Party
     
21. Yell “I’m an alum” from a fraternity pong table
     
22. Write fake letters for your “real” campus newspaper
     
23. Steal wine bottles from Stell kitchen
     
24. Drop out of a winning TUCK GIVES consortium
     
25. No-show for eight Visiting Executive dinners
     
26. Order your dog to bite someone in the face
     
27. Piss on the floor of Collis hall
     
28. Be hyper-aggressive at Tripod Hockey
     
29. Spam the class about backpacks, rides to Boston, lost laptops and lost power cords.
     
30. Start rumors about your classmates and publish them on the Internet