Hello Guys,
Nice to see some replies last week. Also got some mails other than replies. As much as I would like to answer them all in details, I may not be able to do it regularly. I apologize for that. But I would keep sending this weekly mails as far as I could.
So Here is how week 3 was.
New look
Surprisingly many people in my class liked my haircut. They were asking where did I get it and apparently few of them went there too. Funny, isn’t it? May be that is where the MBAs are different from dogs at Kothrud ;-)
Assignment
My fear came true. We screwed up. We got only 60%. This is very less. Can’t do anything. May be we next time... May be this time my teammates will listen to me....
Job hunt
But we are same as our most faithful pet in terms of smelling the stuff we want the most. Jobs. Many companies are coming for the presentation every day. Most of them are for undergrads. But we MBAs are reaching there anyways and as self centred and arrogant we are, we are really ridiculing the Company people with our very personal questions. I went to one presentation every day. Free drinks and sometimes free snacks. Many times free accessories. It is difficult to get job in big consulting companies. So these presentations is the only way to know about so called ‘boutique’ companies of small size. But I don’t really understand their funda of presentations. These firms are really small and most of them recruit less than 10 people a year. Still they recruit only from five elites in Europe, INSEAD, LBS, Oxford, Cambridge and IESE. They go to these colleges and spend lot of money on presentations only to recruit 10 people. Most of these companies get about 1500 applications per year for 10-15 positions. Quite frustrating ratio. I am getting sick of worrying about a job.
Coca Cola CEO Neville Isdell to Oxford
Meanwhile Coca Cola CEO came to Oxford on Saturday. Nice old man. His lecture was in Nelson Mandela lecture theatre and this guy is a big fan of Mandela. So he shared couple of interactions he had with Mandela. Then he started talking about the community work Coca Cola is doing everywhere. I liked it at start. But then I got bored. I mean, come on yaar... you sale coke, a carbonated drink for the price tens time greater than the manufacturing cost and all you are talking about is how socially responsible you are. But this guy was certainly down to earth and he seems to have prepared his speech talk for us, Unlike the UTC CEO babbling about unreceptive Indian corporate environment. And Naville admitted that Coke screwed it up in India. He said that if there is one area where we are not doing better job, it is India. Overall I liked him better than UTC CEO. Quite an good experience. At the end they gave us all T Shirt. Very much like we had during the first year of IT for strokes (ITians rock the world and embroidered bull at front, quite crummy). CEO of 3I, Phillip Yeo also came to SBS this week but I couldn’t attend his speech due to work load. This is the best thing about Oxford. You can hear almost any powerful person in the world.
25 hour Sunday
Also This week I kindda learned how to let it go. I mean how ‘not’ to attend each and every event in town and how not to read each and every page assigned. So I managed to get some time. I used it to have the most preposterous use of time for MBAs. Sleeping. For two days I slept little over than 7 hours. Quite a luxury here. And today was like dream come true. The daylight saving ended today. So we got to set our watches back by one hour. That means this Sunday was 25 hours. How cool is that... Enjoyed one hour of extra sleep.... bdw now the time difference between here and India is 5.30 hours.
Week end
But this not-working-hard put me under little depression. I was so ridiculed after Friday happy hour that I came home straight away and spend next 60 or so hours doing not-so-value-adding work. I didn’t even go to any Saturday night party (I should have. They had a great bop on Saturday. [PS: Bop – party in Oxford]) Instead I watched movies. Four of them. Any Given Sunday (best inspiring speech of Al Pachino. Inch by Inch), Good will hunting, Blue umbrella and little trip to heaven. That made me feel bad about wasting time. So used the 25 hours Sunday effectively. Did some cooking, lot of study, and in the afternoon went to play Touch Rugby. This is mellow version of Rugby where you don’t need to kill your opponent. Instead of tackling, you just need to touch him. But still it could get very bad. And I played with two Brits and an Americans and an Australian who were just kind enough not to run over me. It was a typical British day and raining all day long. We played anyway in rain and liked it.
Nice to see some replies last week. Also got some mails other than replies. As much as I would like to answer them all in details, I may not be able to do it regularly. I apologize for that. But I would keep sending this weekly mails as far as I could.
So Here is how week 3 was.
New look
Surprisingly many people in my class liked my haircut. They were asking where did I get it and apparently few of them went there too. Funny, isn’t it? May be that is where the MBAs are different from dogs at Kothrud ;-)
Assignment
My fear came true. We screwed up. We got only 60%. This is very less. Can’t do anything. May be we next time... May be this time my teammates will listen to me....
Job hunt
But we are same as our most faithful pet in terms of smelling the stuff we want the most. Jobs. Many companies are coming for the presentation every day. Most of them are for undergrads. But we MBAs are reaching there anyways and as self centred and arrogant we are, we are really ridiculing the Company people with our very personal questions. I went to one presentation every day. Free drinks and sometimes free snacks. Many times free accessories. It is difficult to get job in big consulting companies. So these presentations is the only way to know about so called ‘boutique’ companies of small size. But I don’t really understand their funda of presentations. These firms are really small and most of them recruit less than 10 people a year. Still they recruit only from five elites in Europe, INSEAD, LBS, Oxford, Cambridge and IESE. They go to these colleges and spend lot of money on presentations only to recruit 10 people. Most of these companies get about 1500 applications per year for 10-15 positions. Quite frustrating ratio. I am getting sick of worrying about a job.
Coca Cola CEO Neville Isdell to Oxford
Meanwhile Coca Cola CEO came to Oxford on Saturday. Nice old man. His lecture was in Nelson Mandela lecture theatre and this guy is a big fan of Mandela. So he shared couple of interactions he had with Mandela. Then he started talking about the community work Coca Cola is doing everywhere. I liked it at start. But then I got bored. I mean, come on yaar... you sale coke, a carbonated drink for the price tens time greater than the manufacturing cost and all you are talking about is how socially responsible you are. But this guy was certainly down to earth and he seems to have prepared his speech talk for us, Unlike the UTC CEO babbling about unreceptive Indian corporate environment. And Naville admitted that Coke screwed it up in India. He said that if there is one area where we are not doing better job, it is India. Overall I liked him better than UTC CEO. Quite an good experience. At the end they gave us all T Shirt. Very much like we had during the first year of IT for strokes (ITians rock the world and embroidered bull at front, quite crummy). CEO of 3I, Phillip Yeo also came to SBS this week but I couldn’t attend his speech due to work load. This is the best thing about Oxford. You can hear almost any powerful person in the world.
25 hour Sunday
Also This week I kindda learned how to let it go. I mean how ‘not’ to attend each and every event in town and how not to read each and every page assigned. So I managed to get some time. I used it to have the most preposterous use of time for MBAs. Sleeping. For two days I slept little over than 7 hours. Quite a luxury here. And today was like dream come true. The daylight saving ended today. So we got to set our watches back by one hour. That means this Sunday was 25 hours. How cool is that... Enjoyed one hour of extra sleep.... bdw now the time difference between here and India is 5.30 hours.
Week end
But this not-working-hard put me under little depression. I was so ridiculed after Friday happy hour that I came home straight away and spend next 60 or so hours doing not-so-value-adding work. I didn’t even go to any Saturday night party (I should have. They had a great bop on Saturday. [PS: Bop – party in Oxford]) Instead I watched movies. Four of them. Any Given Sunday (best inspiring speech of Al Pachino. Inch by Inch), Good will hunting, Blue umbrella and little trip to heaven. That made me feel bad about wasting time. So used the 25 hours Sunday effectively. Did some cooking, lot of study, and in the afternoon went to play Touch Rugby. This is mellow version of Rugby where you don’t need to kill your opponent. Instead of tackling, you just need to touch him. But still it could get very bad. And I played with two Brits and an Americans and an Australian who were just kind enough not to run over me. It was a typical British day and raining all day long. We played anyway in rain and liked it.
And then went to the Eid dinner by Oxford India Society and Oxford Pakistan Society. The dinner was good but then they decided to have a niche talent show and people started singing and one guy was making is worse with Guitar. Bear them for some time and finally left. So no here I am in the room studying for tomorrow’s lectures and the assignment due on Wednesday. It is almost 2330 and have miles to go before I sleep bdw do you guys like this poem??? If you don’t have it, find it attached.
Epilogue
So this was kinda sluggish week. Ready for next week. We have a SBS photo session tomorrow. So again getting dressed in white bow tie and out batman / Dracula / harry potter capes. May be that will be a good chance to get a snap with friends and not-so-friends and some snaps of school. Letz see. Other than that coming week seems pretty ok in terms of workload. So have a great week guys. Wish you all Eid Mubarak. Enjoy and take care.
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