Week-2

It's just been two weeks and it seems as if we have been together as a group for a very long time. It's cool as we get to know everybody even better at school. So many parties, pub nights and get-together. I'm slowly fitting back into the vibrant college mode.

This week started with a session with Kevin Roberts (CEO, Satchi and Satchi), wherein he highlighted the importance of doing things differently, rather than just falling into the eternal follow-the-leader mentality.

We finished our course on Economics (wow!!! that fast). We even started working on our CVs and case interviews.

I guess the highlight of the week has been the large number of pub-nights and celebration of the Chinese Full-Moon festival.

The first week

The first week is now over and I enjoyed every bit of it. It was a slow start with introductions and a few classes. Most of the time was spent in interacting with class-mates and knowing each other better. Even though I cannot remember the names of 149 of my class-mates yet; I can remember something (e.g., name, country, industry or background) about each of my class-mates.

The three most inspiring and cool session during this week has been

1) Team building - Complex High Performance Teams with Mark de Rond (JBS Staff who worked closely with Cambridge's rowing team): A wonderful insight into teams and performing in very difficult situations.
2) Branding a City through Olympics with Lois Jacobs (President International Operations - Jack Morton) - An inspiring talk about how Jack Morton managed the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2004 Athens Olympics with about 4.5 million people watching the event.
3) Simulating Innovation for a More Competitive Europe by Prof. Around de Meyer (JBS Director) - The presentation had some very interesting numbers about outsourcing and how Innovation is viewed from the European perspective (Even though I don't concur to some of the finer details presented:)

The first two weeks will be a bit slow, but after that it going to get really busy starting October.

We had an Alumni meet on Saturday (22nd) and it was a Black-Tie event (The first black-tie event of my life). I chipped in £48 to attend this dinner. At first I was a bit sceptical about the huge amount (especially when you are student) for a single dinner. However, after attending the dinner and meeting the people at the dinner, I realized that it is not about the food. It was more about networking and getting one-self acquainted with formal dinner events. There were about 30 odd people from my batch who had attended, and it was real cool to see everybody dressed so wonderfully. I will post some pictures of the event at a later point of time.

Next week we have a few Case Study boot-camps conducted by the Career Services team.

Overall, I'm quite happy with how things have transpired so far. So much fun and what a wonderful batch of new friends.

MBA: Term-1: First Day at School

My first day at school (today) was real fun. We got to meet the entire batch and get a brief introduction about the whole programme.

The day started at 8.30 AM with registration and formalities. It then moved on to introductions and welcome notes. The whole day was spent pretty much in introductions, getting to know my fellow class-mates and collecting course-ware. We even had a few students from the previous batch come over and provide us a few practical tips.

Our batch consists of 149 students from 45 countries. We have people from very varied and different industries (from Plastic Surgeons to Investment Bankers).

I found it a bit too difficult to remember the names of all my class-mates in just one day. It is so much fun and a great learning experience to be amindst such a talented and diverse group.

Aidah (my wife), had also come for the tea session, where in partners were also invited. Some of my friends had even got their kids for the tea session. The kids were all over the place and having a good time as well.

At the end of the day(6.30 PM), we were quite exhausted and a few of us headed to the pub near the school.

I now look forward to head back to school tomorrow and get into our first session on Economics.

MBA-Prep (Settling down in Cambridge)

Aidah and I reached Cambridge on the 4th of September. Since then we have been busy settling in to our new environment.

Cambridge is a wonderful city. A wonderful place to relax and study. It took us about a week to get an Internet connection. On my visit to HSBC Bank today, they completed the paper work for the student loan in 30 minutes (that was very fast by Cambridge standards).

Our one-bedroom house is on the 3rd floor. Nothing fancy, nothing great......but just a nice house to spend a year in Cambridge. It is about 1.5 miles from the business school, and there is a beautiful bi-cycle/pedestrian path leading towards the school/city.

Please find below the list of things we did to make our lives a bit more comfortable (in no particular order)

1) Took the National Express from Heathrow to Cambridge (with a lot of luggage -the direct bus was very comfortable)
2) Signed the tenancy agreement for the house/flat
3) Purchased a bi-cycle
4) Got a pay-as-you-go mobile connection from T-mobile (got myself a new phone as well)
5) Got the Internet connection (Virgin media - took us a week to get this)
6) Got ourselves registered with the GP (medical doctor/surgery service)
7) Purchased a lot of house-hold items (e.g., microwave, utensils etc.) - mostly moving sales
8) Had a wonderful lunch out with 25+ of my future classmates and their families (a great occasion to know each other)
9) Made a trip to Sheffiled to meet friends
10) Got a JUSTVOIP.COM id to make cheap phone calls to friends and family across the globe


Class begins on Monday (17th Sept) and I'm now going to do some pre-reading that was recommended earlier.