As the Bloodstained Tears Flow on to the Carnation

Third white shirt of the week? Check! Black Suit? Check! White Bow Tie? Check! Academic gown? Check! Mortar Board? Check! Why am I matriculating again? No I'm not....its the third day of exams and i am simply putting out appropriate clothing. Yes you heard that right...we have to sit for 2-3 hours everyday, dressed up like that for five days and try to figure out the trigger for a colluding oligopolist. Sigh....we'll survive.


Another great exam tradition is 'Sub fusc is specially adorned with an appropriately-coloured carnation by students taking exams, which it is reputedly unlucky to buy for oneself. They vary in colour from white (for the first exam of a given set) through pink (for intermediate ones) to red (for the last one). This allows those who have completed their examinations to be singled out and covered in things by way of enforced revelry.It is said that the carnations vary in colour to symbolise the flow of blood-stained tears from examinees'.




We've had exams in Managerial Economics and Decision Science with Strategy, Financial Reporting and Finance to come....I think its been a general consensus that the exams have gone well so far...probably due to the numerous support classes organised by classmates. Its been a tough couple of weeks and we're all just glad its coming to an end.....the highlight of my week was the silent disco session in the library organised by one of my classmates http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RL49r-aD72c&feature=share.

Finally I leave you with this awesome Ted talk by David, one of my classmates......http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGiHU-agsGY

P.S I don't know any of the gentlemen in the picture above (Thank you google)

Its the Little Things.....

When I was being interviewed, the inevitable 'why Oxford' came up. Of course having done my research, I gave the usual 'Oxford has a long and distinguished history with a reputation for educating leaders' among other stuff which sounded great then but had little practical implication. Having had a semester to experience this school, what have I grown to cherish? I would say its the little things like...

Collaboration

An awesome classmate facilitating an exam review session.











Getting a group of ultra competitive achievers to have such a collaborative outlook is no mean feat. Now I understand when admissions officers talk about 'fit'....there's such a huge collaborative spirit at this school that I feel that it would be tough for non-collaboratively minded people to fit in.

Lecturers
One of my classmates expressed my sentiment perfectly when he said 'I've never been in a class where the semester ended with a standing ovation for the lecturer; clearly we've all had an amazing eight weeks'. The standing ovation was for our Financial reporting professor who managed to make us love (or like at least) the course. To show our appreciation, we had shirts made with his catch phrase....

'Give Me Double Entry'.....


And it wasn't just him. Practically every single lecturer was amazing! Our Economics professor was so beloved by previous classes that a blog http://mungonomics.wordpress.com/ was created to capture some of his best quotes.

Our Decision and Data Analytics professor, in addition to helping me finally understand those regression tables, regularly has me in stitches with some phrases inserted in lecture notes;

History


The fact that the school is over 800 years old comes alive when you walk around the town and stumble upon signs like these;

Casually walked past the site where Boyle's Law was discovered and the microscope invented in the 1600s 

Bill Clinton was clearly up to no good in the 60s

Same for Bob Hawke. 2 pints in 11 seconds? That's no mean feat!

Looking back over the last semester, I am truly glad that I came here and wouldn't change a thing.....(and this overwhelming love for the school wasn't triggered by the fact that we were provided free beer today to commemorate the end of the term....ok maybe just a little bit)

Choices....

Reading through my last post again, its clear those were the words of a sleep deprived man, driven over the edge by excess caffeine. I am happy to report that I am back within acceptable blood/caffeine levels after a weekend without any coffee! Its the beginning of week 7 and the end of term is within sights...scary stuff! The MBA is definitely all about choices...What do I mean?

Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford
This without doubt is one of the headline events at the school....leading practitioners within the technology space come together to discuss. Its a great opportunity for students to network with leading lights at firms like Google, Linkedin, Facebook etc. Some students even got to do what's called speed dating....a quick one on one meeting with one of the executives. But I decided to skip it and finalize my other assignments to free up space to study for exams. Although there are many potential benefits of sitting through the event, I feel that given my objectives, my time would be better spent at the library. Tough and potentially wrong choice but one that needed to be made. Meanwhile, another classmate is currently at the CBI conference in London, listening to David Cameron and the Turkish president give speeches....

Picking Electives for Next Term
We have to select two from six electives next term; Branding & Communications, Finance 2, Macroeconomics, Global Strategy, Rethinking Business and Strategy & Innovation. Now the question is, do I stick with what I am familiar with (Finance & Macroeconomics), specialise in finance, and deepen my knowledge of the subjects, or attempt to take on fresh knowledge with some of the other courses? After thinking long and hard, I decided to specialize in Finance and choose both electives. I figured that those two courses are most likely to improve my on the job skills. Thankfully, we have the option to audit (sit in on classes without taking examinations) an additional course, so I'll probably audit Branding & Communications.


Entrepreneurship Project
Here at Oxford, we're mandated to form teams of five to come up with a business idea and draw up a business plan for it during Hillary Term. There are loads of ideas to choose from as classmates and external bodies alike pitch their ideas to students. One of the great things about being in a school like Oxford is the interaction with other departments. Its arguably in this area that the benefits shine through as people come from different departments to pitch awesome sounding ideas to students. They'll most likely have invented something great and just need MBA students to draw up a plan to make it a viable business! Its tough to choose because of course, some of these ideas might eventually become full fledged companies! My instinct however is to do something different, something i've never done before...the easiest thing to do would be to do a finance related project, but in this case i would love to explore previously unchartered territories. So when I saw a classmate post the possibility of an EP in the sustainable solutions area (I'm being deliberately vague), I decided to explore the opportunity...lets see how that goes!

Having handed in the marketing assignment on time (Oxford are extremely strict about time limits. Any form of lateness leads to deductions....a classmate ran from the business school, assignment in hand at after printing his work at 11.50 am (with a 12 noon deadline).....I feared for him initially, but he clearly has the skills of a long distance runner as he made it to the High Street based Examination schools in 10 minutes), like good MBAs, we celebrated by heading to the swankiest joint in Oxford 'The Randolph Hotel' for a black tie celebration of a classmates's birthday...

Beginning of the night...looking all civilized

Later on....looking less than civilized...yes, the assignment was that difficult!

Zombie Diaries....

Sitting in marketing class, listening to people talk about pricing Louis Vutton bags and asking myself...'Bayo, when last did you have a meal?'. To my horror, I realize I haven't had a meal in close to 24 hours! To make matters worse, I'm not even hungry! The assignment submission deadlines are here in full force with the marketing assignment (60% of total grade) due on Friday. Panic! Shock! as MBAs discover previously unexplored segments of the library....a friend even inundated me with tales of strange ticking sounds he heard in the library one night as he tried to figure out how to price curled metal. He'd either had too much coffee to drink or the library's haunted by the soul of some poor MBA who wakes up screaming 'Correlation! Covariance! Help me Tomo! I don't know double entry!'. And it gets worse....i project a dramatic increase in 'sleep rates' during class from next week.....won't the lecturer notice? MBA's are skilled in various facets of life....well disguised sleep should be a piece of cake....we should definately have a 'best sleeping technique in class' category at our annual Sylvester awards....I think i know already who would win this award!

Ok...mini break over....back to trying to figure out how.....gasp! The lecturer's looking at me! I think she's going to ask me a question......Phew! False alarm....

Desi Girl! Desi Girl!

What on earth is Desi Girl? One sec....let me just google that.....Ok it means Indian girl. So why did I have that as the title of this post when I don't even know the meaning? Might be the fact that I'm sitting in the library, pumped full of coffee, reading cases, writing up assignments, and trying to keep my body going for another few weeks before the Christmas break. We have major reports in Economics, Marketing (2 reports), Financial Reporting and Finance due in a couple of weeks, asides spending time reading pre-assigned lecture notes and trying to catch up on formal dinners, Oxford Union debates, Private Equity OBN activities and a multitude of other stuff.

Anyway, enough of that....back to Desi Girl. We celebrated the Indian Diwali festival recently and I accepted to participate in a choreographed dance on stage with a group of friends (in keeping with my 'Just say yes' policy). This was a particularly brave decision as I am certain that Elephants dance with more rhythm and co-ordination than I do.....we were supposed to dance to this song (Desi Girl) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2C0SEIjc7A which is by the way my new best song. So we rehearsed a little.....

Our great instructor

and finally performed...and I managed to escape with my credibility intact (I hope....)

The video of the performance is here by the way....http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150523822442524

After the show....which featured performances from genuinely talented people and Ron's hilarious but politically incorrect jokes (I loved them anyway....comedic licence), we all retreated to some delicious food and awesome Indian music. Of course they played Desi girl again and you bet I was on that dance floor....digging it!

Private Equity OBN

Back to serious stuff....I was elected Chairman of the Private Equity OBN a couple of weeks ago and we've been busy trying to plan our activities for the year. We have put a team together (which I am very happy with) and also have the support of the absolutely awesome Prof Jenkinson. We had our first post election event during the last week when the managing director of a huge emerging markets focused fund came to speak at the school. The event went very well and I was quite happy with the turnout despite many competing events that night. I'm also busy trying to run the internal version of the VCIC (Venture Capital Investment Competition)....with the winning team going on to represent the school at the European finals in Barcelona next year.

Incoming Batch

It feels like just yesterday, sitting in what I now know as Seminar Room A (then it was just this big awesome room in this big awesome school), during the Open day/Interview Day in February listening to last year's MBA students speak about their experiences and wondering how awesome it would be to be in their shoes. Looks like the process has already started and there's an open day for potential incoming students scheduled for mid-November....looks like I'll find out how it feels to be on the other side!

Ok....battery low on my laptop....library shuts down in 10 minutes anyway! Time to go home and listen to Matan (my flatmate) talk about his weekend trip to Edinburg with about 20 of our classmates while I spent all weekend in the library (no I'm not jealous! not at all....)

Give Me Double Entry!!!!!

We're halfway through Week 3 and I've found all warning I received about the intensity of the program before coming here grossly understated. Every minute of the day is literally accounted for! I guess this depends on your level of activity outside of traditional classes. I try to be active in a lot of things, hence the pressure.

Anyway, talking about classes, we have six courses this term...Strategy, Decision Science (sort of like statistics but decision science sounds more intellectual), Marketing, Financial Reporting, Finance and Managerial Economics. I must say i've enjoyed all of them so far (mostly due to the lecturers). Tomo Suzuki (Financial Reporting) is definately my favourite! In Tomo's world, everything can be reduced to 'DOUBLE ENTRY!' I suspect the class has internalised this view point as a classmate came up with the double entry for buying a beer (Cash on the Right (Reducing Asset), Beer(Increasing Asset) on the Left....genius! An honourable mention goes to my Decision Science lecturer who's made the course bearable (almost) with his eccentric and highly dramatic performances!

I've however had to learn to adjust to the way classes are structured here. The lectures are based primarily on case studies which are made available in advance. Students are then expected to read (actively read) these case studies (typically ranging from 5-20 pages long) prior to classes and form a well considered opinion. Then a good chunk of the class is spent talking about the case and listening to other opinions....the lecturer hardly ever puts forth his/her opinion. Their job is to sort of guide and facilitate the discussion. We're also expected to question the lecturer's viewpoints (I almost had a seizure when a classmate got into an argument about a concept and the lecturer seemed to welcome the argument)! Coming from a background where the lecturer strides majestically into class, being the all knowing wise one, and reels out pearls of wisdom to his fortunate students, who accept his view point without question, this represents a significant shift. It can also be a challenge for those who don't have a lot of experience analyzing case studies as you're expected to hit the ground running. I'll recommend this book (Ellet, William. : The case study handbook :how to read, discuss, and write persuasively about cases) to anyone coming for an MBA....I wish someone recommended it to me before I came here! 

What else have I been up to?

A-Z Bop at GTC....yes that's a real person (well done Daniel!)

Matriculation

Sexy Sub Fusc....a Bop right after Matriculation where students have to wear something from their Sub Fusc (official matriculation outfit) and try to look sexy....(Matan, Elias and I all trying and failing miserably) I have 'sexier' pictures of people who totally pulled sexy off....but I shall spare their future political careers.

With Ananth and Haben at the Emirates living it up!

Good times...

Three weeks in....

Three weeks??? Already??? Time has absolutely flown by...leaving the relics of parties, dinners, induction sessions, career sessions, OBN meetings and episodes of 'How I met your mother' (That last one is specific to me) in its wake. Let me attempt to recall some of the memories....

Punting
One thing i have learnt within my short time here is to 'Just Say Yes'. You'll find that your best memories are formed by saying yes to the strangest things. So when someone said...'Let's go punting', my natural instinct was to say no (given that I'm as good at swimming as Ashton Kutcher is at trying to replace Charlie Sheen). But I said yes.....and we had a great time!

With Manish, Ines, Joe, Mario and Matan

Trying to make it seem I wasn't terrified

Celebrating our safe return

Food Update
So after my fifth burger in two days, I realised I had a problem. My creative side kicked in...there had to be a solution. I needed Nigerian food desperately....and then it hit me! Look for a Nigerian church! Where many Nigerians are gathered, surely Nigerian food shall be in abundance...and i was right. I went to a Nigerian church and met a lady who specializes in making Nigerian food in bulk and selling to desperate souls like myself. Now I have a big bowl of Nigerian stew sitting in my fridge....I can finally call Oxford home.

OBN Election Update
I decided to run for the Chair of the Private Equity OBN and sent in my 250 word personal statement. I also organized (with the help of a few friends) an information session on Private Equity which was very well received. I spent a lot of time on the presentation but the reception from my classmates meant it was time well spent.

Dinners, Bops & Pub Crawls
These are three words that will come up over and over again during the course of the year. There seems to be a dinner happening somewhere in Oxford every other day. Bops (don't google this, its an Oxford specific term) also mean parties and colleges regularly have them. My college had one last week which I missed and has another tonight which I WILL NOT miss. They're usually themed parties and tonight's theme is A-Z (come dressed as something starting with the first letter of your name). So I need to figure out something starting with the letter B. I've still not figured out what I can go as. All I have so far is Brazillian model and seeing as i'll require plastic surgery for that, i'll probably have to pass. Pub crawls are basically crowds of people moving from pub to pub...zombie style!
We had our college induction dinner last night.....good food, wine and conversation with amazing professors that must have forgotten much more than we know...

Career Stuff
Had a meeting with a career counsellor who reviewed my cv and cover letter. Had a great chat with him about the future and 'finding myself' (yes terms like that are in fashion when you are doing an MBA). Sent off an application to a bank....fingers crossed.

Still can't figure out what to go to the party as....might just settle for going as a.....wait for it........BLACK dude!