Exam Results, Rankings & Electives

Good news:
They just published our results for the first term...THANK GOD!!! I passed all my classes!!
So all the hours and hours of studying have paid off.


Bad news:
The Financial Times published the 2007 MBA rankings this week. The good thing is we improved by one place...Oxford University MBA is now ranked No.19 worldwide! A tie with the famos Kellogg Business School of Northwestern University and the Ross Business School of University of Michigan.
BUT!!! The "other place" (Cambridge) made up to 15 from 35 in 2006...unbelievable! That once again proves that rankings are useless ;-) On the other hand, they just audited Cambridge this year, whereas Oxford was last audited in 2004...looks like Business Schools usually make a big jump (up or down) in an audit year, so...whatever!


Electives:
I have picked the following electives for the next term (I will specialize mainly in Finance):
-Lessons from Financial History (Analyzing desasters like Enron...and maybe learn their tricks)
-Restructuring & Implementation (M&A)
-Capital Raising Techniques (How do I get people to give me money?)
-Private Equity (How do I decide whom to give money?)
-Managing Complexity (my only non-pure-finance course; agent-models...really weird stuff, taught together with the Department of Physics)

Unfortunately the course for Corporate Valuation was heavily oversubscribed and I hadn't bid enough points to get in (we had to bid on the courses...everyone had 120 points). We raised hell with the Dean, but nothing has worked so far...a lot of people are really disappointed, because we are paying a whole lot of money and should be able to take the courses that we think we need for our future career.

Instead I will probably take either "Taxation and Corporate Finance", "Fixed Income" or "Derivatives" - haven't decided yet.



Next week will be the "Town vs Gown" boxing match in Oxford. Every year students box against Oxford town people (and get beaten up pretty bad). I would have loved to go, but the event is sold out already...dammit! Out of luck again!
From what I've heard it gets pretty bad and the townies start yelling stuff like "Kill the f#*§ing student!" once the fights start...can you imagine a 20-year old history student fighting against a tough-ass construction worker? Poor student!!!
Too bad I will miss this one!