Payback for the Boat Race

On April 7th 2012, the 158th annual boat race between crews from the University of Cambridge and our very own crew at the University of Oxford held in London. It's a massive event, arguably one of the biggest and oldest inter-collegiate sporting events in the world (the first edition was held in 1829). 'The race came about because two friends from Harrow School, Charles Wordsworth of Christ Church College, Oxford, and Charles Merrivale of St. John’s, Cambridge, met during the vacation in Cambridge, where Wordsworth’s father was master of Trinity. Wordsworth went rowing on the Cam, and the two school fellows decided to set up a challenge. On February 10 1829 a meeting of CUBC requested Mr Snow of St John’s to write immediately to Mr Staniforth of Christ Church stating ‘that the University of Cambridge hereby challenge the University of Oxford to row a match at or near London, each in an eight-oared boat during the ensuing Easter vacation.' 

We had a couple of MBA students among the Oxford crew and were understandably gutted when Oxford lost the race when one of the rowers had his blade broken after a clash of oars. This was after the race was restarted (with Oxford in the clear lead) after a protester had dived in the water. The defeat (more appropriately, the manner of the defeat) left us seething and provided added motivation for the Oxbridge MBA games to hold a couple of weeks later. Every year, Oxford and Cambridge MBAs face off in a number of events to claim bragging rights for the year. The games were held in Oxford last year, so we had to get up at dawn and make the three hour journey to Cambridge....not that it made much difference to the results though. We won football (5-1), cricket (9 wickets), badminton (9-0), basketball (45-20), Table Tennis (6-1), Tennis doubles (6-0), foosball (2-1), and petanque (11-7), we lost in only one event (cross country) due to a manpower shortfall. 

We retained the plaque (Oxford also won last year's edition)

The basket ball team trying to look mean

SBS United!

It was a good weekend, filled with friendly banter with the guys from Judge. 

On another note, this blog won the clear admit best of blogging awards for 'most entertaining student blog' and best representation of student life. It also came second in the best overall blog category....with that award going to Jeremy Wilson's excellent blog. I remember stumbling upon the best of blogging awards a couple of years ago while doing MBA research, I couldn't have imagined back then that I would also be a recipient. Thanks to all that voted! 

We head to Paris tonight for the biggest sporting event of the MBA year.....the MBAT! Featuring all the top schools across Europe, it promises to be four days of non stop action, networking and partying, limited only by the knowledge that we all have tons of papers to complete right after the tournament....but we'll survive!

May the best team win!

A Week In The Life Of An Oxford MBA Student

What exactly do Oxford MBA students do? Do they spend all week at the pub? Or in the Library? I'll answer this with a typical MBA phrase.....'It Depends'. Some people focus on academics and spend most of their extra time doing 'book' related stuff, others focus on sports and are almost always on a boat somewhere, rowing for their colleges or Oxford as an institution. Some recognize the importance of networking and focus on the social side of things. The vast generality of the student population sort of lie in the middle of those three extremes....attend all (most) classes, hand in assignments on time (only just), do all (most) of the pre-assigned readings, attend a couple of parties/balls/dinners a week, attend 2-3 career events a week and listen to a couple of debates at the Oxford Union. 

I would attempt to paint a more explicit picture of life here (admittedly through my somewhat limited perspective) by going through my week thus far and my scheduled activities over the next couple of days;

Sunday 

8-11am: Had breakfast, worked on my part of the Finance 2 assignment, replied emails.

11-1pm: Met up with other members of my Finance 2 group to discuss and agree on answers to the questions.

1 - 5.30pm: Headed to the common room at SBS to work on the financial model for my entrepreneurship project and simultaneously watch Arsenal beat (destroy) our rivals Tottenham 5-2 with fellow Arsenal fans Ananth, Haben and Sreekanth and poor Tottenham fan Monesh. Also caught a glimpse of the penalty shootout victory by Liverpool in the Carling cup final.

6.30-10pm: Entrepreneurship project brainstorming meeting.

10-1am: Sort out dinner, check emails, send emails, check careersconnect (our in house careers portal) for interesting job postings, watch an old episode of two and a half men. 

Monday

8.45am-12.15pm: Developing Effective Managers class....I had to do push ups in front of the class to help the professor illustrate a point about obedient staff.

12.30-3pm: Hung around the common room to work on the planning for the forthcoming Private Equity forum and read the cases for the next day's Operations Management class.

3-7pm: Went home to grab lunch and rest for a bit.

7-10.30pm: Entrepreneurship project (EP) brainstorming session.

11-3am: Sort out dinner, check emails, send emails, check  careersconnect for interesting job postings, watch a movie (bad idea...forgot I had a football training session at 7am)

Tuesday

6.30am: Alarm goes off for football training session....I can only lift my hands enough to press the snooze button.

6.45am: Alarm goes off again....snooze (you get the picture...Captain Alejandro won't be happy but....reset alarm to 9am)

10-12am: Head to school for planning meeting for PE Forum and to go over school notes from last week.

12.30-1.15pm: Planning meeting for European finals of the Venture Capital Investment Competition (we would host the finals on March 10th)

1.30-4.45pm: Operations Management lecture

5-7pm: Light research on potential speakers for PE forum

9-12.30am : Dinner with friends (including an alumni from a couple of years ago)...awesome Indian/Malaysian food and lots of wine.

Wednesday

8.45-12.15pm: Finance 2 lecture

12.30-1.30pm: Grab lunch, hang out in common room

1.30-4.45pm: Macro-economics lecture (with the brilliant Oren Sussman)

6-8pm: Operations Management review class....selflessly facilitated by two of my course mates (Wiebke Pahl and Satya Amu)

9pm: Sort out dinner, check emails, send emails, check  careersconnect  for interesting job postings....slept early (about midnight).

Thursday

9.30-11.30am: PE Forum planning meeting with Faculty adviser

12.30-2pm: PE Forum planning meeting with the school's events co-ordinator....dashed off to catch the last half of a Macro-economics review session facilitated by another brilliant classmate (Bryce Eakin)

2.15-3.30pm: PE Forum planning meeting with a second faculty adviser...

3-6pm: Send emails...Happy hour (all drinks at the school bar at half price) started at 5pm..had a few drinks and had a football team meeting in the common room to plan this weekend's tournament in London. Write this blog post.....

Tomorrow (Friday), I'm scheduled to have an EP Meeting with our supervisor, have a brainstorming session with my other EP group members, be part of a current student panel at the school's open day, have a meeting about a Macro-Economics assignment, be part of a 'town hall' style meeting with my fellow MBA students, and end the day at a friend's flat (a fellow MBA) who just got a grill and wants to host a barbeque. Then of course, I'll head off to London to participate in the LBS Tackle Africa football tournament where we hope to win the cup....

Of course, not all weeks are like this as some have a little more social activity than this week as had. There are also regular dinners (I have one next week), balls and hockey games to watch (Oxford plays Cambridge this weekend with three MBA students part of the team). 

There are also conferences (I am attending the London School of Economics Emerging Markets conference next week).

Juggling all these activities can be tough...but would I have it any other way? You bet I won't.....

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....