As part of the Oxford MBA programme you have three options to spend the summer months - and to gain the two credits required for the programme. People contemplating the Oxford MBA read on. Others, pardon the detail.
The first of these is the Summer Consulting Project (SCP). This involves doing a short 6-8 week consulting project (pretty obvious!) for a company, building on and consolidating the academic learning from the course and combining it with past experience and general skills to present a solution for a real-life problem faced by the company. The SCP, which is worth two credits, involves working at the client site or remotely, presenting a practical solution for them, and writing a more academic 15,000 word piece for the formal assessment. The projects are typically sourced by the school (though you can source your own, subject to certain criteria being met), and students are often compensated for their work.
The second option is to take two 'summer elective' courses, each worth one credit. Each course consists of eight three-and-a-half-hour lectures condensed into one week, often accompanied by individual and group assignments. Some courses run concurrently (i.e., in the same week), and so depending on your choice of electives you could be attending 16 lectures in one week and working on the related assignments and practical work. Or you could choose one in the first week of the summer, and one in the last.
The third option is to write an Individual Academic Thesis on a subject of your choice. This is the most academically oriented option of the three, and therefore the least preferred option for most MBAs.
So, what did I do this summer, and what would I recommend to future students of the Oxford MBA? I elected to do the summer electives, and took both my electives in the first week of the summer. Of course this meant an extremely hectic first week - 50 hours of lectures in the week accompanied by several assignments. But it also meant that once I had ridden through that week, I was more or less done for the summer! There were still a couple of assignments left, but I could do them at relative leisure. And why would you want to do this? If you want an easy-going summer, wish to travel, spend time with family, or just utilise the time to look for a job. This option works particularly well for those opting to do internships over the summer, which are not academically assessed and therefore do not count towards the course. For such students, the practical option is to take the two electives and to then spend the rest of the summer completing the internship.
And who should do the SCP? Students who wish to build on what they have learnt in class during the year, those who wish to work for the company they are doing the project with, or those who wish to travel to different countries at the expense of that company (trips this year included those to India, China, Gambia, and Hungary). The report or presentation for the company, and the 15,000 word academic submission can make this pretty demanding in terms of time, though, and people may find they have little time left for anything else. Long term benefits depend on individual motivations, and I have found people in my class to have benefited in varying ways and to different degrees. There are some who are glad they took that option, others are more ambivalent about it and are unable to come up with concrete reasons for why they would recommend it. The process used to award the school-sourced projects is complex, however, and it involves bidding for the project(s) of your choice. The project that is right for you, therefore, is not guaranteed, but you commit to any other project you bid for, and are awarded. It is hard to come up with a process that is fair to everyone, and I'm sure the school and the projects office are working hard t improve on it all the time. Self-sourced projects, however, are not bid for and are therefore guaranteed.
The academic thesis is almost definitely for the more academically minded student - for someone who wishes to dig deep into a subject with a view to entering the world of academia or continuing academic / research work in the future. If you wish to work in the traditional avenues of industry, consulting, or finance, this may not be for you.
Top
Friday, 29 August 2008
The Oxford MBA Summer Options
Chef Alok
Tall claim, surely. Bordering on the atrocious, even.
Still, if it were a relative evaluation, I might just about qualify. For someone who has never really cooked in the 36 years of his life (my activities in the kitchen always limited to doing the dishes, cleaning up, and occasionally, very occasionally, cutting up the veggies), living away from family in Oxford has resulted in me becoming a little adventurous in the kitchen.
It started too late, perhaps in the last quarter of my year here. And it started with one disastrous attempt, followed by slightly more successful ones. Edible food, and gradually, reasonably tasty stuff. Often made with the help of ready-made sauces and gravies topped up with onions, tomatoes, and additional spices! And my repertoire depended on the type of gravy I could buy. My flatmate Varun often turned out to be the catalyst, suggesting we cook in rather than eat out. Incidentally Sebastian, my other flatmate, has never been around when I've cooked. Sheer coincidence though, each time, Seb. Honest
Antonio recently cooked an Italian meal for a bunch of friends at my place. I helped, but my help was limited to cutting the meat, peeling the potatoes, and the like. On another day I cooked some chicken together with another guy at Pranav's house - used some ready sauce to prepare some pretty decent stuff.
For all those cooks sniggering away, trust me when I tell you it is a big deal for me! So who knows, for someone who has never really understood the point of cooking for several hours only for the food to be eaten up in 15 mins, this might just be the turning point. I might just turn chef - one day!
Top
Wednesday, 27 August 2008
Punting
One thing you've got to do when in Oxford, is go Punting. A couple of months ago I had written about my experience with punting (see here) when I'd gone with friends from Mansfield College. This time it was with friends from SBS. And thankfully, the conditions were absolutely perfect for punting, and we had a blast of a time! Here's proof.
Top
Capstone, and the Beginning of the End
In one of my previous posts I had promised to let you know about the final course of the Oxford MBA - the Capstone Course. Don't ask why it is called that, but it involves the development of scenarios for a client who is facing challenges presented by climate change. Working in small groups, we will identify key changes in the client's strategic environment likely to arise from developments relating to energy security and climate change, and develop a set of scenarios that will help them confront those changes. Should be pretty exciting!
It is a relatively short course, starting on the 8th of September and finishing on the 12th. Our MBA culminates in a black-tie 'farewell' dinner on the 12th and an 'end of course' ceremony on the 13th.
It has been an absolutely fantastic year for me! There's just over two weeks left, but I'm expecting the remaining days to be very eventful and memorable.
Top
Thursday, 14 August 2008
Foila Car
Literally Foil-a-car, here's something interesting for car enthusiasts: foil from a company called Foila Car that can be applied onto a car's panels, thereby instantly adding a removable additional layer. The foil can be transparent and therefore only protective, or coloured to completely transform the appearance of the car. Apparently this is catching on in Dubai (where else?). Here's a few pictures of a car being, well, foil wrapped!! Click on play to view.
Top
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
I'm sorry, but I'll conveniently use this cliche to post another set of pictures...even though I am months late and the night in question was in late May. Some 'real' posts will follow. I promise!
The night in question was Pranav Garga's birthday, which started with dinner and a few drinks at Las Iguanas, and ended after many hours and a few (ahem!) more drinks at Anuba. The party, after we were kicked out of Anuba, moved on to Cranham Terrace where it continued until the small hours of the morning.
Top
The Oxford MBA 2008 Photo-book
For the last few weeks a group of volunteers has been working on creating a photo-book for the Oxford MBA class of 2007-08. It was hard work, but equally, a lot of fun. The photo-book is ready to be printed now, and should be available for us by Capstone week (what is that? I'll get to it - in time), that is, around the middle of September.
Here are some pictures of the team.
Top
Oxford in Pictures
Some pictures of Oxford, taken on a delightfully sunny day, not too long ago...
Top
Back...
...after a rather long, and unexpected, hiatus. My last post was just over two months ago, and though the 4-5 weeks after that were pretty much taken up in assignments and exams, there really is no reason why I shouldn't have posted anything for the last month or so.
Well, I'm back now, and hopefully will remain more consistent hereon.
Top
Thursday, 5 June 2008
Croquet and Punting
Isn't it wonderful that the world is so full of obscure, intriguing things, many of which we have never heard about before? In my previous posts I have referred to Real Tennis, and more recently, Petanque. Well, now here are Croquet and Punting. I'd just about heard these words before I came to Oxford, but didn't quite know what they were about.
Last Saturday saw me learn about, and indulge in, both - courtesy the Mansfield College MCR. We played a bit of croquet on the college lawn. The game involves hitting balls through hoops using a big, wooden mallet, the objective being to pass your ball through a number of hoops in a particular sequence, and to end by hitting the ball onto a wooden post. It is not a game that requires a lot of skill, but tactics can play a big role in how you fare. Here are some pictures.
Why am I not in the pictures if I was playing, you ask? Well, as usual I am behind the camera!
Croquet was followed by punting on the river Cherwell. For those who are unaware of what punting is (like me, until a few months ago), it involves, well, punting a boat along a river - using a long metal pole (or a wooden one, if you are in Cambridge) to push yourself against the river bed. The pole is also used to steer the boat, along with a little paddle used at the front end of the boat.
The current on Saturday was strong, owing to a few weirs that had been opened upstream. And that meant that while we merrily punted our way downstream, turning around and making progress upstream was difficult. In fact, we went a little too far downstream, close to where the Cherwell joins the bigger (and faster) river Isis. Too close, one might say, for we found it difficult to turn around, and were being swept towards the Isis. At one point, I think, we were less than 10 ft. from the main Isis current!
So, heading back upstream proved to be a challenge. We often found ourselves at the same spot for over 10 mins, furiously trying to make progress. I was a passenger in the boat most of the time, and let more experienced punters (is that the right word?) do the job. When I did try, I realised how important it was to use the pole to steer the boat - to keep the front end of the boat pointing straight ahead. And, how difficult it is when the current is strong and skill levels are low.
Well, it turned out not to be the picnic we'd imagined it would be, and we got back to the boathouse a difficult two-and-a half hours later. What great fun, though! Would love to do it again, but after only after a quick check on the strength of the current!
Top
Petanque
I have mentioned Petanque, which I've never played before the Oxbridge a couple of weeks ago, in my previous post. I had never even heard of the game, and I expect most others never have, either. So, for those intrigued, here's how the game is played (taken from www.britishpetanque.org)
THE PLAY
You play with a metal ball called a “boule” and a jack made from wood. The boules have a diameter from 7.05 to 8.00 cm and a weight from 650 to 800 gram. At first sight they look identical but they differ greatly by being made from different metals with a wide range of markings or engravings
To place your boules nearer to the jack than those of your opponents.
COMPOSITION OF TEAMS
Pétanque is a sport in which
| | 3 players play against 3 players (triples), each player uses 2 boules. | |
| 2 players against 2 players (doubles), each player uses 3 boules | ||
| 1 player against 1 player (singles), each player uses 3 boules. |
START OF THE GAME
To start a game the teams toss a coin to see which team will throw the jack (a small wooden ball of 25-35 mm in diameter). In the following example the Blue team has won the toss.
BEGINNING OF PLAY
A player of the Blue team draws a circle on the ground (35-50 cm diameters) from which the jack is thrown to a distance of 6-10 metres from the circle. When throwing the jack and boules both feet of the player must be within the circle and on the ground, until the played boule has touched the ground.
THE FIRST BALL
The Blue team now play their first ball by trying to get it as close to the jack as possible.
Then the first player of the Red team steps into the circle to play their first boule and it tries to beat the Blue team’s boule.
This can happen in one of two ways either by
When the team pitches or rolls their boule, judging the distance so that it stops closer than the opponents boule
or by
SHOOTING
With a purposeful throw the thrown boule removes the opponent’s boule.
IF SUCCESSFUL
It is a player of the Blue team that must now play.
IF NOT SUCCESSFUL
The players of the Red team must continue to play, until either they place a boule closer to the jack than the opponent’s boule or they have no boules left to play.
If a team has no more boules, the other team now plays until they have played all their remaining boules.
A team receives as many points as it has boules closest to the jack than those of their opponents (at least 1 point to a maximum of 6 points).
In our example Blue made 3 points.
The team winning the end draws the circle and throws the jack to start the next end.
THE END OF A PLAY
The team, which first reaches 13 points, is the winner.
SO VERY SIMPLE – SO WHY SHOULD IT BE SO FASCINATING?
The simple principle of this game leaves plenty of room for tactics and the imagination, with the result that every round looks different.
A tactical mistake is usually more serious than a badly played boule.
With every boule that is to be played, there are so many different ways of playing the game:
- shoot away your opponent’s boule
- obstruct the path to the jack
- change the position of the jack with the boule etc.
PLAYING TECHNIQUE AND TACTICS
In principle, there are two ways of playing a boule - in that you either point or shoot.
This imparts a certain backspin to the boule, and when you get the hang of the idea, you can manipulate the boule as the nature of the ground and the situation of the game demands.
The tactics however are equally as important as mastering the technique, which is what makes the game so intriguing.
When playing with experienced players you will quickly learn the tactics, you have to make your mind up quickly to choose if a solution is too dangerous or maybe too late nd the only choice is to try and save the game by playing a defensive boule.Top
Oxbridge 2008
The Oxbridge games, the annual sporting event between Oxford's Said Business School and Cambridge's Judge Business School, are hosted by the b-schools alternatively each year; this year they were held on 24 May, and were hosted by Judge. So that meant some 150 of packing into three buses and heading off, quite early in the morning, for Cambridge. Luckily, this was one of the better days of May, and we were set for a fantastic day of sporting events.
Cambridge did a great job of hosting us, and of organising the games. We won 8 of the 15 events, and the Oxbridge games for the fifth consecutive year. So I guess it did not matter that we had forgotten to take the Oxbridge cup with us from Oxford. It would have been rather embarrassing if Cambridge had won the games! I played ultimate frisbee and Petanque(a game I'd never even heard of until a few weeks ago - but more about that later). We won the frisbee, but I lost my game of Petanque (though we still won the team event).
The evening involved heading back to Judge for drinks, and then to St. John's College for dinner. Our hosts again did well by showing us around Cambridge and by generally taking good care of us. Well done, guys! Cambridge is very pretty. The colleges have great architecture, but unlike Oxford, they are visible and not hidden behind great big walls. The Judge Business School itself is very quirky - you'd love it or hate it.
Most of us were pretty worn out by the time we got back on the bus for Oxford - some of us after one drink too many (but hey what the heck, this is a once-in-a-year event for the schools, and a once-only event for us).
Top
Wednesday, 28 May 2008
Defining Poverty
So how does one define poverty? Is poverty absolute or relative? Is someone who does not have access to basic health care and education poor? Or is someone who is financially well off but is not allowed to become a part of society poor? What about someone living below the breadline? Or someone who does not have access to basic shelter and clothing?
I guess this is a debate that can go on for a long, long time. However one thing is clear, though I'm no expert, that the definition of poverty is a matter of perspective. In the developing world, where billions of people struggle to make ends meet, where the next meal is in question, where disease and malnutrition are the scourge of society, poverty is defined as not having access to the very basic of human needs - food, clothing, and shelter. The developed world, on the other hand, largely believes in relative poverty. So anyone in the US who cannot afford a car is considered poor. One in five children in the UK think not owning a mobile phone is a sign of poverty.
The Oxford dictionary rather unhelpfully defines poverty as "the state of being poor", though it defines the word poor as "having very little money; not having enough money for basic needs". Merriam Webster defines it as "a: the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions b: renunciation as a member of a religious order of the right as an individual to own property". The World Bank currently uses a figure of $US 1 per day (in 1985 purchasing power dollars) for absolute poverty. Under this measure, roughly half the world's population lives in abject poverty.
The alternative has been to define poverty as relative deprivation, for example as half mean income (or as 60% of the median income, as in the UK), or as exclusion from participation in society. Thus the European Union has decided that ‘the poor shall be taken to mean persons, families and groups of persons whose resources (material, cultural, social) are so limited as to exclude them from the minimum acceptable way of life in the member state in which they live’.
Growing up in India I have always seen people struggling to scratch together the next meal. In such circumstances, someone living in their own house - however decrepit it may be, someone with assured basic resources, someone not literally starving, is not considered to be living in abject poverty. In some senses this is unfortunate, for just being surrounded by people who are simply struggling to survive denies these 'also poor' the attention they need.
So, is there a right definition of poverty? The answer, almost certainly, is 'no'. Poverty means different things to different people, and to different societies and nations. The true definition of poverty for any individual, however, and the only definition relevant to him or her, is how it is defined in the society he or she lives in. Any other definition is academic, and any other understanding is meaningless.
Top
Sunday, 25 May 2008
Crazy dance
I came across this video and couldn't resist posting it here. Weird? Whacky? Jaw dropping? You choose the adjective.
Top
Monday, 19 May 2008
Lost in Paris
On our way to the MBAT at HEC School of Management in Paris a few days ago, we got lost in Paris. I wasn't surprised. First, we were driving on the wrong side of the road. Second, we were driving on the right in a right-hand-drive car. Third, the signs were for inexplicably long French place names - and very difficult to read while driving along even at normal speed. And finally, I was completely foxed by the complex road numbering system in France (and a very bad map).
How do you read these signs? Or this map?
In fact we got lost almost immediately on driving into France. We were to take the A16 to Paris from Calais, and followed signs diligently. Yet how we landed onto the A26 and then on to the A1 I have no idea. What we did right was follow signs to Paris and that meant that though we took a rather circuitous route we eventually did get to Paris. However that also meant deviating from the planned route through Paris. And that's where it all went wrong.
In France motorways bear the prefix 'A' and National roads 'N' (what's the difference?). Local roads are 'D'. But then, there are also 'E' roads (what are they?). And if the map we had was to be trusted, some roads were both 'A' and 'E' on the same stretch. Or 'A' roads become 'E' roads. Or 'N' roads. Confused? Not as confused as I was while we were driving through Paris and I was trying to navigate in vain. I still am (confused - not trying to navigate in vain!). And for someone who believes in his sense of direction, it was a cruel, belittling, blow. Strangely, signs often prompted us to take the innermost lane - until we suddenly found we had to exit the busy motorway - changing 3 or 4 lanes in about a hundred metres or so. Bad enough for Seb, who was driving my car, but even worse for the driver of the second car, Joby, who had no idea where we were going and was blindly following us.
Are we on the A26? Or on the E15?
We drove around Paris, trying to decipher what road we were on, what direction we were moving in, and what road we were supposed to be taking next. The map didn't help either. Certain roads disappeared suddenly...and certain others had no numbers associated with them (well, they did, but not on our map). We found ourselves going round in circles, and rediscovering roads and landmarks we had seen only a few minutes before. I think we finally found our way through Seb's sense of direction (I console myself by thinking, 'I wasn't driving...I'd be more in control of my sense of direction if I was') and Vinita's map reading and backseat navigation skills.
Is our car likely to explode on this road? No, as it it turns out, it is the suggested route for vehicles carrying flammable materials.
On the way back from HEC three days later, we rather easily managed to get on to the main Paris ring road, the A86 - but did not realise for about 30 minutes and about 25-odd kilometres that we were in fact driving in the wrong direction! Then to compound matters all signs for the A86 suddenly disappeared and signs for the N86 (or was it E86?) appeared, and we thought we were lost again - until signs for the A86 magically appeared again (and signs for the N86 / E86 stopped!). Thankfully the nature of a ring road dictates that as long as you stay on it you cannot get lost - and though it probably meant about an extra 20-25 kilometres and about half an hour of lost time, we could find our way out of Paris and onto the A16 to Calais with relative ease.
Yet in some ways I found French roads absolutely fantastic. Contradiction? You bet. I suppose once you understand the city layout, the way roads are numbered, and what the major signs say, driving in Paris is a pleasure. On one of our nights there, we took a taxi from HEC, which I guess - judging from how long it took us - is about 30 kms from Paris centre, to Concorde Plaza in the heart of the city. I was surprised that right from leaving the HEC campus to Concorde Plaza we only had to stop twice - there were practically no traffic lights or roundabouts on the way. Almost every single junction was negotiated through a tunnel or over a bridge. A similar journey in London, and you can expect numerous sets of traffic lights slowing down traffic and increasing travel times substantially.
I guess I need to spend some time deciphering the French road system. It can't be that complicated. Or is it?
Top
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
