The Busy Yet Fun Week

This week truly deserves more than one post, but then I will try and put it in one to keep some uniformity

There are many events in this week

1. The VCIC First Round

2. The CMA awards

3. The Burns Night 

4. International Week, Microfinance Talk and Ohters

VCIC (Venture Capitalist Investment Competition) is a competition held every year among MBAs to actually be the venture capitalist and evaluate investments in any firm.  We form teams of five members, and to start off I was very impressed with the entrepreneurship professor bringing a real business even for the internal competition at Cranfield.  As a team we did well in terms of preparation and answering questions, but we never know the criteria for winning in such competitions and so unless you win, you never know what you did right. 

The CMA awards was an evening at London, where last years award winners were honoured, we had a presentation from an alumni who is the CEO of ARMs holdings, it was a nice place to meet people who did the MBA 25 or 30 years before us in Cranfield, and then you get a feeling that you belong to a nice place.  The ceremony itself was arranged well, in the Royal Institution of London, an impressive place with lots of history.  

Burns Night is an event organised by Cranfield to welcome London Business School every year for some sports and a night of dinner, a primarily student organised event, where we get to play and also mix with some like minded people from the other side.  

Cranfield Rugby team really took this seriously, to the extent that they had Saracen to support them, which is a big achievement in itself, we did put up a great show in many games, but LBS won most of the games, the dinner was good and I met a few interesting people, with whom I believe I will continue to have some contact.

The Big story about burns night is that we won in Table Tennis !!! I cant moderate my emotions here, because I was the captain of the team, even though the team itself was a great team.  In some ways the feeling is of completing a good job because personally I was not the best player, but I am happy that the coordination and efforts paid off.  I am seeing the cup in front of me now and I think this is the first time in my life that I have been a winning sports captain, all through my life, I have been exceptional in games, but never a captain, a happy change and a huge reward to the hard working team.

On other events, it was the international week at Cranfield, personally the Indian day is tomorrow, so its all been observing others to me.  There have been some good stalls from whom I learnt about some countries.  There was a talk about micro finance with particular relevance to India, and I was pleasantly suprised that an ex Cranfield Professor is a board member in Basix.  He talked about the evils of microfinance in particular, which is an interesting inside perspective.  I got some insights, and I enjoyed talking to him after the conference, the one thing he said which I do not probably agree is that the social problems of India is related to the poverty, and without solving them solving poverty is not possible, which I think is not my view I think there is a solution to poverty (with many bright people in India) and there is vested interest not allowing them to progress.

The rest of the week has been normal, and term two is going a bit tighter in terms of schedule than term 1.  All results available till now indicate that I am about the 75th percentile in terms of scores and I am really happy about that, given the fact that I am not putting in a lot of efforts into learning as an activity.

The First Real Week of Second Term

The second term lectures have finally started, with the Operations (Term 1) exam on the first day, I did not do the exam particularly well, but was happy that I could actually talk about some of my previous experiences in the light of the theory that we have been taught.

I got some results, and as usual I am above the average and that is all that I want, basically this is not an academic challenge for me, the MBA is more of a life-changing experience, which in fact is happening in my life. We have the VCIC competition next week, and our team is preparing well towards that.  I am happy on that part.  I also had a good week with a few other things to do in terms of business after MBA.  All that I need to now do is focus on the opportunities at hand and select the path that I would take.

I attended the briefing on the field trip which was arranged by Challenges worldwide, and in fact I was very impressed at the opportunities, some saw it as a data collection exercise, some saw it as an audit, but to me, meeting five entrepreneurs in the social sector, with a reasonably successful (at-least they got to be examined by a multinational NGO, and found fit for further investigation) record in a space of five days and discussing with them their business to date and the future is simply too exciting to resist.  I hope nothing spoils my plans to do this IBE.

I learnt a few new things in Law, which I havent learnt before, primarily because all the law that I had learnt was in India.  I also learnt a few new things about strategy and economics, which are two exciting subjects for this term in addition to financial management, which might be sounding familiar to me, given my background.

Burns night is fast approaching and we did some shopping for the formal dinner dress at London.  My visit to London also allowed me to meet my friend from Mumbai, who was on a short term trip.  I also went around the National Gallery in London, which was very good in terms of richness of its pictures.

Gradually but surely I am moving towards many opportunities (outside being employed) to live after the MBA, which is very very exciting.  I think I am in the right direction, hope God brings me through it...

The Project Week (PMI)

Just one week... its the start of term 2 and then there is so much action, all thanks to PMI.  We had a lot of action in a project where we are supposed to build a warehouse within a given budget.  This is the sixth simulation (counting 4 during pre-MBA- The MiniMax, The Euronet, The Legobridge and The Planks) , 1 during Operations course and this project simulation, this is the most important one because its marked, and its shorter in terms of time in which we perform it, and this is more of a people and planning challenge than a complex project.

There are rules / constraints and probabilities for events, which makes it interesting, the learning should have been (I did not do this) to do this project completely without computers, even though there was some advice from the faculty not to use the computers, I started making something for the cash flow and then started thinking that sheet itself could be used for everything (The trap), which made it a shocker when half way through I find my 28-sheet, all-complex-formulae controlled-by-one-figure-change excel workbook, to be very weak when it came to the real complexities that were thrown in, in the form of change of scope mid-way.  Its not about excel, its just that the time available to you is so short that you cannot build something that can do the job for you.

A little bit on the project itself.  There is a building to be constructed, for which you plan using the tools that are taught in the course, I learnt about earned value management, which is intuitive but needs detailed calculations.  Basically randomness (delays, unexpected breaks, new activities etc) is thrown in to make the project subject to schedule and cost variances.  Its a game and everyone competes.  We ended up making a 4.5% return which was an above average performance.

Interesting to say the least, it occupied more time than any other activity did (in terms of % of daytime spent) on it.  Now its over and we have another exam, the operations exam which was moved from term 1.  Next week the real term 2 would start off.

I met and got to know a bit about my team mates, which was great.  I think as a team we would perform well given the overall composition, I am also happy that this time around I belong to a team representing a wider geography (Korea, India, Nigeria, UK and Russia).  I am now in the Blue stream, and yes it does seem different to be with different sets of people, each interesting in their own ways.

On the personal side, the freelancing journey is continuing at its own pace, I am spending a lot lesser time on it now than during the breaks, but there are a couple of interesting things going on, this is a nice way to develop an UK based network as well.

Shopping from tesco.com has also become an interesting activity once in a while.  Most of my purchases are from the tesco value range, or things that are even cheaper, finding some deals and updating them and optimizing the delivery cost, well... not worth in terms of money but its an interesting activity.

I am slowly but steadily progressing towards going back to India after the MBA for a business, convincing people around and also making solid plans which can be implemented.

The last week of Term 1 Holidays

There was no significance to this last week, no major events, no major changes, nothing week I would say.

This tells me one thing, all the changes that have happened to me in the last three months is actually because of the MBA and not a generic change that is happening in me during this period in my life, these are simple things to realise, but then when there is some solid "experimentation" period like the last week, I think things become very clear.

From now on, we have the classes, the challenges in term 2 are supposed to be tougher than term 1, I am hoping to continue my small freelance work, and largely concentrate on a model to outsource them to India, let me see, if I am successful in that, I already have a sustenance level business which can allow me to explore other business Ideas, I am very exited about that.

As far the freelancing is concerned last week was really busy, in fact had it not been freelancing I would have slept and wasted the week, I hope to balance and carry on with things in the next term.

The New Years Week

Oh well... this week has been very low key except the superb London trip on the new year's day.

The London trip was enjoyable, we went on the London Eye, a major tourist attraction, went to the London Bridge (the tower) and then we got a great view of the fireworks of London in the night.

I also met an interesting person in between the fireworks event.  I learnt a bit about how the transport system works and also a lot of facts about the places that we visited.  Overall an enjoyable week and the trip was great because it was planned in the last moment and executed as if it had been planned for ever.

I hope to make many more trips to london in the coming months, but this will always be remembered for it was on the new year's day.

My freelancing work is also becoming a bit more interesting with a few people wanting me to help them in some interesting work.  My wife is getting busy with completing these works too, which is a nice outcome.

One more week of holidays left before the mad rush begins once again, I hope to have a much better term this time around, in terms of learning.

On a personal note, I was a bit unhappy this week about how my friendship circle is reacting to me... its not their fault, but somewhere I have done something that I thought was right but many did not... anyways repenting of the past isnt the best use of time... so I move along...