Finished my (hopefully) last exams for the MBA

I did it!!!

I'm done with my last exams for the MBA!!!!

Unbelievable!

so, how did it go:

Restructuring & Implementation: good, as expected

Managing Complexity: Considering the fact that I started studying the day before the exam, it went extremely well

Capital Raising Techniques: I totally rocked this exam!!! Very easy...

Taxation: OUCH!!! could be my first "fail" of the MBA...i totally tanked this one

Financial History: so so...should be a pass

Guess what we did right after our last exam...we went to the pub at 11:30 in the morning and celebrated this historic day with Pimm's, beer, Steak, chinese dinner and a night at the club until 3AM in the morning.

Wadham Ball

OH...another ball

NO!!! not just another ball, WADHAM BALL!!!

Theme: "Viva la Revolution"

Believe me, it was a revolution...my college is awesome! There were about 40-50 MBAs and so many of them told that this was by far the best ball they had been to in Oxford.

-excellent food
-lots of cocktails
-bumper cars
-miniature ferris wheel
-lots of Pimm's
-shisha tent
-a "capitalist pig"-roast
-open air stage & bands
-ice sculpture
-ice cream
and much much more

it was one of our last parties together here in Oxford!

Since the the was "revolution", I decided to not wear the traditional black tie outfit but to go a little more revolutionary with a Che Guevara TShirt under my black suit, a leather tie and a communist star button...but see for yourself

Exam Prep

This will be a really close one!

I have 5 exams next week and I have hardly done anything so far...

I should study really hard, but all I do is surf the web, watch movies, sleep and bum around!

this is how Oxford students study: get a white board and cram all the information from 8 weeks on it...then stare at it for 10 hrs until it makes sense :-)

Grand Final of the MBA: "Drumming the stress away" and "Sylvester Awards"

Friday was our last official day of lectures! Some of us (including me) will take summer classes, but it is not mandatory for everyone. We will also come back in September for one more week, but these will not be regular lectures.
So, friday was a big day for us.
In the afternoon I had to give a presentation with my team for my Capital Raising Techniques class. We had to pretend to be an investment bank that was pitching for a deal to take a company public. Interesting experience!!! Although the team was great and everybody contributed, my part was the heartpiece of the offer. I did the valuation of the company and structured the deal to get the maximum payoff for the owner - so, i ended up doing most of the talking. I think we did a great job and were told by our lecturer (an ex-investment banker himself) that we were very professional and "slick"...NICE!!!

In the evening, the school had set up free drinks and a free BBQ for us...with lots of meat.
It also seems to a kind of tradition for the MBA class to finish the last term of lectures with a drumming session. So we invited some guys from the Drum Cafe in Oxford to lead the drumming session. It was an awesome way to drum the stress away and scream your lungs out...see for yourself:





if you can't get enough, check this out...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c81lpw_ZSU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEN_oDXhgOc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag9JYpxReYA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAlBGvduxEc

The night ended at the "Baby Love Bar"...it wasn't late when we went home...no, it was early morning already!


After collectively nursing our hangovers in the library while finishing some last assignments, we were all ready for our very own "MBA Sylvester Awards Show".
Over the last 2 weeks people could vote on the internet for which student should get which award (more on that later).
The Sylvester show consisted of food, drinks, belly dancers, more african drummers, live music (from our very own MBA punkrock band - GO EAN! GO EAN!), MBA songs, recollections of the year and of course...the awards!
There were a number of categories for awards...e.g.:
-best to take home to parents (male/female)
-classanova
-most likely to fail the course
-best team member
-best abuse of MBA e-mail list
-best story of the year
-most stereotypical of his/her country
-secret crush (male/female)
-most likely to become leader of his/her country one day
-and lots more

I was nominated for:
-CLASS CLOWN: For the student that put pride aside and happily played a fool for the greater good of the class

and

-CSI Oxford - The Inaugural Jeff Skilling Award: Celebrating potential achievement in the field of Corporate Social IRresponsibility. Who's the most likely to flirt with trouble?
(in case you don't know who Jeff Skilling is: he was the mastermind behind the Enron scandal, which ended as one of the greatest bankruptcies in history)

I ended up winning the Jeff Skilling Award (and you know what: I AM DAMN PROUD OF IT!!). So, what does that tell me...do my classmates think I will end up in jail?! I guess I got the award because I often joke about the "ethics" in business. For me, making a profit is the most important part of the business...I believe that when a company is profitable it creates the most value for society.
Another part of why people voted for me might have been that I am up for every "bad" plan that is out there! As long as it sounds like it will be fun, I am in! But I also know when things get too hot and when to bail.
Anyways, Jeff Skilling was also incredibly smart and self-confident (During his admissions interview for Harvard Business School, he was asked if he was smart, to which he famously replied, "I'm fucking smart"), so I should be proud to have won that award. I will end up being better than him though...he didn't know when to cash in and bail - I will!!! I prefer a nice Island in the Carribean to doing hard time in jail :-)

Daniel and I also presented an award - of course in real Oscar's award show style. We presented the "Conan the Librarian - For the library stalwart who could be found in the library at any hour"!

What a way to finish the last term of my MBA!

Finals

Another Oxford tradition:
When you visit Oxford in May/June, you might see something really strange (apart from all the other strange stuff that is going on here).
Students throwing flour, ketchup, baked beans, rice and other gross stuff at each other...while wearing suit/dress, gown and bow tie!!!

Apparently all the finalists get "trashed" by their friends after their last exam. All their friends wait outside the exam schools for them and as soon as the finalists leave the building, their friends kidnap them, tape them up, infuse them with champagne and pour ketchup, flour, shampoo and other gross things on them.

The whole ritual usually ends at a bar with lots and lots of beer...here are some impressions (good god i hope that doesn't happen to me)

Random Stuff

Just some random things to keep me from studying:

-Movies
Apparently Oxford is a famous site for shooting movies. Every once in a while whole streets are blocked, because some film crew decided that part of their movie takes place in Oxford. To us students this is really annoying, since this means sometimes we can't take the shortest way to school and thus loose time...

-Tourists
Also quite annoying...every weekend they swamp the city, causing huge queues in the sandwich shops! Sometimes I feel like an animal in a Zoo...they constantly point at us (especially when we have to wear our gown and bow tie for some reason) and take pictures of us - makes you almost feel like a celebrity

-Death
A couple of weeks back a student from St Johns College got hit by a garbage truck in front of my college. He died right there on the street. Not a nice way to die, especially when it's your last year in college.

-Assignments
Last year's class told us that the last term would be the easiest one...with lots of hanging out in the pubs. Apparently their MBA was either different or they managed their time a lot better than we do. Everybody is going nuts with assignments! Apresentation here, 4 essays there, a couple of case studies and some spreadsheet assignments. It seems like EVERYONE is in the library...this place is crowded!

-almost over
WOW! I can't believe it! Only one week of lectures to go...
I just can't believe that this is it...
I spent the better part of the last 9 months with my MBA friends and now this part of my life is almost over. Everyone will leave Oxford in a couple of weeks and go to work somewhere on this planet (UK, USA, Spain, Russia, China, India, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Kenya, Korea, Brasil, etc.).
I will miss this place and my 200 friends, but I will still have all the memories that I will never forget.
The good thing is though that a lot of us will be in London after their MBA. So we will still be able to hang out together.



I better get back to my assignments...

Bergkirchweih - Trip to Germany

So I just came back from a short weekend trip to Germany with my buddy Barry. Flew into Frankfurt where Andy picked us up and went straight to Erlangen to have some fun at the Bergkirchweih (huge beerfest close to Nuremberg).

3 days of eating excellent & greasy food, drinking lots of beer and hanging out with my fratboys.

Barry (from the USA) LOVED the beerfest. He especially enjoyed the pork knuckle and the huge Schnitzels - of course I did too.