Conquering Manchester....

In a bid to get in some essential practice before the annual MBA Tournament at HEC in Paris (and not to mention a weekend without having to think about assignments and school work), we (SBS MBA Football team) accepted an invitation from Manchester Business School for a four school football tournament (also comprising London Business School and Lancaster Business School). 16 Oxford MBA students (including yours truly) rented three cars and made the three hour trip to Manchester, stopping only at Burger King to improve our fitness levels with a few juicy, cholesterol filled burgers.

We arrived Manchester in good spirits (of course welcomed by non-stop rainfall) and headed to the Manchester Business School to meet our gracious hosts and catch a glimpse of the trophy (while also trying to look as scary and unbeatable as possible to hide the fact that we had never played together as a team). 

Next stop? A sports bar in Manchester called footage and trained for our big game against LBS the only way we really know how.....eating kebabs and playing foosball...

Our first game was against our 'bitter' rivals...LBS. We absolutely couldn't lose this game...we would have been happy to lose 10-0 to everyone else as long as we gave LBS a good hiding. I was detailed as the lone striker but with plenty of attacking support from midfield...and the pitch was absolutely horrible, feeling the effects of the incessant rain. The game started off slowly with our Captain Alejandro bossing the midfield and our central defensive pairing of David Wong and Juan taking no prisoners. I had hardly had a sniff of the ball when I received a pass from midfield...I was one on one with the defender and started running towards him. I successfully dribbled him (thanks in part to the slippery conditions as he fell when I changed the direction of the ball). I was one on one with the keeper....do I try to dribble him, or just try to score from here? Time appeared to stand still in that moment as I felt the three other defenders closing in on me. Make up your mind! Screamed my legs as my brain decided  to draw a decision tree....next thing I knew, all my team mates were running towards me with smiles on their faces....turns out my legs had hit the ball and scored....shrugs. We went on to win the game with me scoring a second identical goal (I had enough time to draw a decision tree on this one, so my brain takes the credit) and Jon (Horbinho) Horbaly scoring the third. We also beat Manchester Business School 3-1 and drew with Lancaster Business School 1-1 to qualify for the finals.

Yes we're one big happy family but don't mess with my food! 

Given the obvious correlation between alcohol and football performance, we stepped up our training regimen for the finals.

Now we were ready....we had played Lancaster earlier in the tournament and drew with them. We kicked off and David 'Jennetrator' Jennison calmed our nerves with two awesome headed goals off corner kicks. We could relax and play our game! I scored two more and Guillaime 'Napoleon' Borda grabbed a fifth...we were champions!

Up next? LBS hosts its own football tournament in two weeks, with a slightly expanded cast, including some Spanish schools...and we all know the Spanish are the kings of football....let's hope they have Kebabs in London....

Rankings, Results and Relief....

It's been one of those weeks....payback week....as everyone waited with bated breath for the release of our results from Michaelmas term and the first MBA ranking of the year (FT) 2012.

The very publicised Financial Times ranking of MBA schools was published earlier this week. I personally believe the ranking system is quite flawed...with way too much emphasis placed on average salaries post graduation and way too little placed on qualitative factors that can not be reduced to numbers. For instance, a larger than average number of SBS graduates go off and start up their own ventures but that entrepreneurial spirit is not reflected in the rankings and in fact counts as a disadvantage as entrepreneurs are less likely to command those high salaries early on. But then again I realise that there's a significant number of people who try to use the MBA as a stamp to land a job in Investment Banking or Consulting....these rankings would perhaps mean more to them than the class of people for whom the quality of the education, experience and brand of the school are perhaps more important than short term concerns like landing that Mckinsey gig.

That's why the choice of school is such a personal thing and applicants should be clear about their reason for undertaking the MBA and select the school that might be best placed to facilitate the achievement of those goals. Anyway the rankings which you can find here, were mostly positive for Oxford as we had a 7 point jump from 27th to 20th in the world and 2nd in the UK. This was made more enjoyable by the fact that 'the other guys' were down in 26th. So while I am generally sceptical about the methodology used in deriving the rankings, I am at least pleased that we appear to be doing the obvious things right. The arrival of the new dean also appears to have spruced things up as he has introduced a few initiatives like the Oxford 1+1 Program and an MBA Pre-Internship  Program. There's only one way to go...UP!

On a more personal note, my results from last term were released today...I PASSED THEM ALL! Some grades were surprisingly low and some surprisingly high but i'm just thankful I don't have to resit anyone of them. For the sake of future students, I'll do a brief post-mortem of each course;

Strategy: Perhaps a little better than i expected given that this was my first 100% case study exam. What would I have done differently? Practice doing a lot more case studies and memorize way more frameworks than I knew during the exams.

Decision & Data Analytics: A little lower than I expected. Did well on the exams but not so well on the assignments. I think this was because I hadn't really understood the way to answer questions on this course. To do really well, you have to do way more than getting the answer....For example, simply saying adjusted R2=85% without explaining why R2 is adjusted means you won't get full marks for that question. The support classes are also absolutely critical for those with no prior statistics expertise.

Marketing: Much higher than expected (in fact my highest grades of any course). Handed in my individual assignment (curled metal...remember?) without knowing if I had handed in the most ignorant piece of rubbish I had ever written. Turns out it was distinction level work....my excellent group also made sure we got a good score on the group work. Like strategy, its key to learn the frameworks early....when the frameworks are internalised, every question can be answered easily.

Financial Reporting: The biggest surprise of the lot. I was pretty confident of a distinction here...but scored a 65. We did well on the assignment but I must have bombed the exams. Trying to think about any obvious mistakes I might have made...can't think of any (apart from one time I mis-interpreted a question and spent 20 minutes answering the question the wrong way. I thought i recovered well though). Anyway, doesn't really matter...I passed the course.

Managerial Economics: About right...did ok without ever reaching the Keynesian heights of awesomeness. I should probably have been a little more engaged in class....spent most of the time I should have used to revise, learning most of the concepts.

Finance: Didn't do as well as I thought and deservedly so....over confidence. It was my last exam and I put in very little revision into it. Got blind sided by a few questions during the exams and never regained my composure....

It was also good to see people with absolutely no prior exposure to some courses getting distinctions in them. Proves that even 'poets' (MBA speak for those without quantitative experience) can excel given that they put the effort in. Overall, I would have taken these results gleefully before the exams given the notoriously difficult marking standards at Oxford....clearly I'll aim to increase my current average of 65 this term. Every single blog I read and every single alumni I spoke with said the same thing....'don't get hung up on grades as long as you pass....

At least I don't have to deal with the embarrassment of a resit exam...I'd have had to sneak into d exam room with a fake moustache and sunglasses....now how do I celebrate? A snow fight? Ok.....

Snowed for the first time this year....Mike Navarette (our in-house creative genius) captures the beauty of the Snow

A less creative picture of a group of MBAs (myself included) who proceeded to engage in a snow battle all the way from Cowley road before ending up at Mcdonalds on Cornmarket street (at 3am!) for a quick snack

Dear Hillary....

Its the beginning of my second term at Oxford...Hillary term. The end of exams in December and the Christmas holidays lures you into a false sense of security....you forget you are a student in an extremely intensive program and Boom! Its week 2 and you have assignments due, an entrepreneurship project to deliver, a job to secure and countless other activities which require countless meetings to finalize! So Hillary, what we hoped would be a beautiful blonde has been transformed into 'Hellary' a hydra headed monster....but we have to tame her....we have no choice!

The term started particularly intensely for me as I had to organize the Venture Capital Investment Competition (where students act as venture capitalists and simulate the entire investment process). We had a record 135 interested participants and as such had to introduce a pre-tournament round to select the top 80 participants. That meant a lot of unhappy MBAs were busy doing research and drawing up term sheets during their holidays (my apologies guys). The main event held on the weekend of week 0 and everything (almost) seemed to go smoothly....

I had to send my shadow to give the opening speech on my behalf seeing as I had to be in a million places at the same time....

The Winning Team - Beat off competition from loads of awesome teams. 

So how were my exams? Frankly I have no idea how I did....my idea of what's right and wrong might be significantly different from that of my professors so let's wait for the results (which don't come out till early February). After an unexpectedly difficult Finance exam on the last day, we were just happy to be done....some people had the foresight to bring some champagne to celebrate....

After a pub crawl featuring four to six pubs (depending on whose version of events you believe and relative alcohol tolerance levels), we went home to change into our ever faithful but slightly over exercised tuxedos for the end of term gala.

It was an awesome event....culminating in a great speech by Stephan Chambers (The Director of the MBA). Even Derek Walker (Careers Director) took time out of getting us all our dream jobs (thank you in advance Derek just in case you are reading this). Derek's job is actually fantastic because most MBA students don't really know what their dream jobs are anyway so he also sorts that out by looking deep into our souls and finding the right match....superhuman I tell you!

'Matan, stop asking me about the Capital Market Line...the exams are over!'  At least I think that's what David was saying....my memories of that night are understandably unreliable....

It was a fitting end to what was an absolutely fantastic start to life in Oxford....absolutely!

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....