Weekend Guest from Germany & Beer Wars

This weekend my girlfriend Melina came over from Germany to visit me.
It was great fun. I picked her up at the Oxford bus station and about 1 hour & some food later we were on our way to Green College's G-Bop. The motto was "everything that starts with the letter G"...there were students dressed as gifts, goblins, galaxies, goths, etc...we went as Germans (which was pretty easy).















After a while John and I got pretty bored and we decided it would be a good idea to start a beer fight. Well, everyone else didn't think so. We ended up soaked in beer and attracting the displeasure of everyone around us.



















Saturday was a little more quiet. After exploring the city we went to have dinner with Ean&wife, Barry&wife&friend and Shelby. We definitely learned a lesson on planning ahead. It took us about 2,5 hrs to find a restaurant that still had enough place for us (remember: it was a saturday night and there were 8 of us)...next time we will definitely book a table beforehand.














After all, we had a pretty good weekend. 

Class Section C wins soccer tournament!!!

WE RULE!!!

Today we had a small soccer tournament between the three MBA class sections and the MFE class.
Even though almost all of us went to the Bop at Green College last night, a lot of people showed up (except for John "all-of-you-have-to-come-to-the-soccer-game-on-saturday" Stanton, who had a fever...or should I say was hung over). The only problem was, only 5 people from class section C (my section) showed up and all 5 of us were a little hung over. That meant:
a) the team consisted of: James (South Africa), Andrew (Australia), Tom (USA), myself (Germany) and Jesse (USA)
b) we had no replacements
But in the end everything went well and we didn't loose a single game...but almost started a fight with another team, because they complained about us playing unfair. Did we play unfair? Well, let me put it this way, we pushed the limits (and sometimes our opponents).

AND THE WINNER IS: CLASS SECTION C!!!!!!


 

Assignment Nr.1

We just received feedback on our first graded group assignment!

Guess what?! We got a "Pass with distinction" - Professor's feedback: "Well done! Your answer is thoughtful and well written."

Looks like the stress was worth it. So far we are the only group that got a distinction...

The assignment was a case study on Ben & Jerry's ice cream company in relation to competitive advantage. After the case I hated Ben & Jerry's (it cost me some hours of sleep), but now I LOVE Ben & Jerry's :-)

I hope there are many more distinctions to come for us...

...mmmhhh...I think I will go to the grocery store to buy some ice cream to celebrate this!

Italian dinner

mmmhhhhh...just got back from the best dinner I've had so far in the UK.

The Italian girl in red (see pic) cooked for us.
We had:
-green salad with tomatoes, cucumber and avocado
-chicken in white wine sauce
-mozzarella and basil wrapped in grilled slices of aubergine
















We decided that everyone would have to cook for the others at least once during the year...so I guess I will get Norwegian, Canadian, British, Greek, French, Moroccan, South African, Belgian and some more Italian food during the year - yummie!
Unfortunately that means that I will have to cook, too. Well, i guess it's time for some canned ravioli ;-)

As you can see below, Francesco, Martin and myself "volunteered" to do the dishes afterwards - but it was worth it!




















Now I am back in room working on some case studies and there is a huge Pyjama party in my college. Too bad I can't go - damn work!

Study Group assignments - no...please...don't

Maybe I've told you this before, but we are all divided into study groups of six. My group is very diverse...a doctor from Nigeria, two IT specialists from India, an engineer from Spain, a marketing specialist from LA (the only female in the group) and me.
It's fun to hang around with the group, but the diversity doesn't make working together easier.
It's a total mess actually...we argue quite a lot about the case studies that we have to prepare...and sometimes I feel like freaking out. Nevertheless, in the end we always agree on a solution for the case (well, we have to, because the group assignements are graded), but it takes a lot of time to get there. We are still in the process of setting up the rules for our case studies...different cultures can have for example very different understanding of deadlines!

I guess I will spend a lot of time with my study group during the next weeks (lots more group assignments to come).
I just hope we don't hate each other by the end of the term...

Matriculation

From today on, I am officially an Oxford student.
I have already had a week of classes, but until today I wasn't officially a student of the University of Oxford.
The ceremony itself was "quick & dirty", but it felt very orgasmic ;-)
We all had to wear our subfusc (which we also have to wear for exams), consisting of the cap, the gown, a white bow tie and a black suit. The place of the ceremony was the Sheldonian Theatre, a beautiful & very old building. So we were in the Sheldonian and the vice chancellor of the university conducted the matriculation in latin...now that was interesting...I didn't understand a word he said.
Anyways, it took about 10 minutes and now I am a student. Of course, we had to celebrate that with a beer at the famous King's Arms pub...
















Later on (after a 4-hour-meeting with my study group) I went to a sexy subfusc BOP. It was fun, since most of the people tried to look sexy in their subfusc...basically by wearing nothing (maybe not nothing, but at least not much) under their gown, but I'm not going to show you any pictures of that event. 

REAL hell week has started!!

The fact that I haven't posted for a week should tell you a lot about my Week 1!
The workload is overwhelming and the course is extremely intense. I spend about 13-14 hours per day at the business school (not even taking into account the time I spend in my college preparing for the next day)...I hardly got 6 hours of sleep per night this week. You could really see the influence the workload has on people over the week. On monday everybody was excited, loud and looked healthy, by the end of the week all of us looked like ghosts.

Here are the highlights of my week:
On monday I had a 1-hour one-to-one session with one of the career counselors. We talked about my career goals and the best strategy to achieve them. It is very helpful to have someone to help you develop a career strategy. I will meet again with her a couple of times over the course of the year to discuss my progress and career search strategy.
My first Managerial Economics class was very exciting. We played a trading game (everyone had a certain number of shares at a certain value and a certain amount of cash; the purpose was to trade the shares without knowing the other's valuation of the share and of course to make money) to explore the pricing mechanisms of the market - believe me, it was a very noisy game.
We also started working on our first study group assignment this week - a strategy case study on Ben&Jerry's ice cream company...due today 12 o'clock sharp. It wasn't easy to fit everybody's ideas in the 1000 word limit. To be honest, it was horrible...we definitely have to become more efficient in solving case studies...we argued way too long. I almost freaked out on several occasions when someone would challenge something that we had already agreed on 10 minutes earlier...argh!!
"Sustainable Fossil Fuels: The unusual suspect in the quest for clean and enduring energy" - that was the name of a talk that I went to on Thursday night. It was about why fossil fuels are the right source of energy for the future instead of renewable resources. It was highly interesting and very controversial. Only a small number of MBAs went to the event, but afterwards we had a very long and very lively argument about the topic...I loved it...that is exactly what I signed up for!
On Friday it was all over...I was totally done! After my last class I fell asleep on the couch in the common room. I woke up just in time for the happy hour (we have our own bar in the business school & a happy hour every friday). After having a couple of drinks I went straight to my college where I fell into my bed at 10PM on a friday night - unbelievable, huh?!

Another interesting thing is that recruiting really started from day 1. From monday onwards we met with possible employers (at the moment primarily the big investment banks like UBS, Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns, ABN Amro, Barclays Capital, etc.) to learn about their associate programs (entry position for MBAs) and to network. The good thing is that they always have free drinks and food for us ;-)

Superhero BOP @ ChristChurch

Last night John, Daniel and myself went to Christ Church college's Superhero BOP. Although it was supposed to be a "Christ Church students only" party, we managed to get in. John was invited by a girl he met a couple of days ago, so we snuck in through a side entrance.
The party was a lot of fun and it was dangerous for us to talkto other people as we always had to pretend to be Christ Church students. Everytime someone asked us where our room is or why they hadn't seen us during the first week, one of John's girls jumped in and started talking random stuff...luckily it worked & we didn't get caught!

Here are some of the superheros that we met:



 

Wadham Hall - see post below

This is the Wadham dining hall where I had my first formal dinner in college...looks very Harry Potterish doesn't it?!

 

Week 0 - Done!!!

Week 0? Why week 0?
Things are a little bit different here in Oxford. First of all, Oxford students study in Trimesters...they are called Michaelmas, Hillary and Trinity. Each term is eight weeks long. Therefore, Week 1 -8. But, since many students arrive in the 2 weeks before the term starts (induction events) and stay in Oxford for another 2 weeks after the end of the term (exams), there is naught week (week -1), week 0, week 9 and week 10.
And that's just one of the many unwontnesses in Oxford life.

I have survived the parties of naught week and now I have also made it through week 0. It was a tough week! It was an amazing week! It was a fun week! It was an overwhelming week!
What happened during the week?

Monday - read previous post

Tuesday - more induction events (including a team-building event...the business school has a partnership with a consulting firm, who offers one-on-one sessions to MBA students for skills training, self assessment, etc...the good thing is, that it is included in the tuition fee)

Wednesday - kick-off meetings for Oxford Business Networks (OBN) in Management Consulting and in Private Equity; OBNs are interest groups for MBAs who are interested in this sector, students organize speakers, meetings, conferences and network in the industry of interest; I went to both kick-off meetings and it seems that it is comparatively easy to attract top industry leaders to come to Oxford, although, it is additional work for us and one can only actively participate in one/maybe two OBNs; today was also my first formal dinner in the college...suits and dresses...good food...eating with the professors in the Hall (see picture in next post)

Thursday - more OBN kick-off meetings; I went to the finance interest group...sounds really interesting; afterwards, I went to the Fresher's Fair with Diliana and Daniel, where all Oxford clubs and societes try to get you to join them; it is unbelievable how many societies there are...seems like there is a club for every interest (from political via origami to legalize fox hunting), sport (from soccer via decathlon to salsa dancing), culture (from norwegian via chinese to hindi),...I joined the arabic society, the fencing club, 3 finance societies and the scuba diving club, we'll see what I'll be able to do once week 1 has begun; at night I attended a panel discussion on "Capitalism: a force for good"; 3 entrepreneurs talked to us about how capitalism can be utilized to make the world a better place; one was an ex-Goldman Sachs investment banker who is now involved in fund-raising for several charities, one was a hedge fund manager who only invests in "social & sustainable" businesses, and the third one has founded several companies that make money by helping the community (I wonder how that works?!); after their presentations we had the opportunity to ask questions, but the really interesting part came when they turned the whole thing around and started asking us questions...and their questions were tough! Although I have a hard time connecting to that kind of thinking, it was nevertheless a very interesting and inspiring event

Friday - more OBN kick-off meetings; I went to the energy interest group; seems like only a few people are interested in this field - somehow I became the temporary chair of the OBN; my task is now to set up the next meetings and come up with an idea of how we want to organize ourselves and what we want to achieve during the year; I have decided to be actively involved in the Energy OBN and go to most of the meetings of the Finance OBN...I probably won't be able to participate in the other OBNs because a day has only 24 hours (sadly); I spent the rest of the day updating my outlook calendar for the next 4 weeks...took me about 4 hours...the opportunities are unbelievable...some many choices to make every day; honestly, every day there is always at least one company presentation that I would like to go to, a speaker I would like to see, an sports event that I want to attend...oh, and by the way: I have classes that I have to attend!
My college had one of its famous BOPs (oxfordish for party) that night: School Uniform BOP...unbelievable...if you know what I mean ;-) It was definitely a wild party!

That was my week 0! How was yours?

Member of the MBA class of 2031/32

Here you can see a future Oxford MBA...starting to network with us future alumnis at the Amgen CEO reception very early in his life.

Amgen CEO reception part 2

Made it through the first day

Finally I made it through the 1st day!

INFORMATION OVERKILL!!!!

I guess I better learn "selective hearing" as quick as possible, otherwise I won't be able to handle all the information that is thrown at us.

Apart from a lot of administrative stuff, all MBAs had the opportunity to introduce themselves in front of the class in one minute (they actually did "kick" people off the stage for talking more than one minute). So I had my one minute of fame for the first day.

After free lunch and dinner, at 5PM, Amgen CEO Kevin Sharer arrived at the business school and talked to the class about leadership, corporate culture and challenges in the pharma industry. In the end we had the opportunity to ask questions and argue with the CEO of one of the world's largest pharma companies...what a great opportunity.
I actually talked to him personally over a glas of wine after the reception. Although I wasn't really impressed with what he had to say, it was still a great experience to talk to the CEO of the year of 2005.

Here are some more impressions of the reception afterwards:



 

Hell week start...part 2

Hell week has begun...

...with breakfast!

I'm still meeting lots of new new and interesting people - the diversity of this wonderful class is fascinating and unbelievable!



 

the calm before the storm

Some impressions on this wonderful monday...my first day at the Said Business School.
The induction program starts in about 15 minutes - we'll see what happens!

The beginning of a wonderful, life-changing, fun and successful year!!!
 

Going to church

Have you ever partied in a church? No?
Well, then you better come to Oxford...the city where everything is possible!

After the Oxford Treasure Hunt we went to a club called "Freud's" last night. The location is very unique, since it is in an old church.

As you can see from the pictures we had a really good time "praying" ;-)

Ohh...gotta go! I'm meeting with some of the guys to play soccer outside on a beautiful and wet Oxford day.


 

MBA Treasure Hunt

Just had our first official Said Business School Event as a whole class - a treasure hunt through Oxford.
Although all male, my team was pretty good and very international (from left to right: Lachhi from India, myself from Germany, Andrew from Australia, Anuj from India and Eric from Texas).
We were 100% sure that we had won, since we handed in as 3rd or 4th group (we had run around Oxford like crazy). However, it turned out that we didn't even make it to third...nobody knows what had happened! Somebody must have bribed the jury big time ;-)
So all the running around in the rain proved to be useless - except of course for the great fun we had.