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!