Term 2 Exams and Challenges

This week we had term 2 exams, the common feeling was that people were less prepared than term 1, with the exception of PMAN, every other subject had some twists that the students did not expect.  As far me, I did pretty well, considering the amount of preparation that I had prior to the exam.  I think I might score near average (still a pinch below though) in all the subjects.

The lesson learnt from this week's exams and the marks that I have obtained is that, they are not completely random, it has some correlation with the amount of effort put in during a term.  I think my efforts in term 1 were higher than my own effort in term 2, and that I think is the only reliable way of measuring this relationship.

We are flying to turkey during next week, and may be I might miss a weekly update for the first time, in case if I am not able to make a weekly entry, I will try and make it on the 7th, when we return as the week is going to be filled with fun activities.

Now comes the challenge, this week for the first time, I had a serious challenge in my MBA, we had some confusion over travel to MBAT and since I had arranged for a Flight travel and a reimbursement, many students, although not in a very mature manner, pointed fingers at me as to why I decided to be different, even though I was thrown off for a few moments, a few clarifying words and encouraging words from friends made me feel better.  I did reply, though not very strongly, with my responses, I think its arrogance to say the least to not accept the fact that there is a difficulty and all this argument is for 20£ per head (max) of additional inconvenience to avoid more than half of us spending 100£ extra.  Let us see how things shape up.  I am going to deal with this pro-actively, even if it means taking some hard decisions.  As long as there is no personal finger-pointing (which did happen last week in some cases), I am happy with the results.

The Approach towards MBA

This is an interim post, this is not associated with any week, and I think as a "Diary" for myself this post is important to myself and any student that might take the Cranfield MBA who has an outlook like me.

Throughout term 1, I had a feeling that the subjects were necessarily a repetition of what I had learnt in may of the courses that I had taken earlier and also term 2, was half prepared... in the sense that I had read about 5 forces and about NPVs and IRRs, this post however is slightly pessimistic about taking that approach, I think this is a mistake that I have done in this MBA, this not only denied me an opportunity to learn these stuff from top-of the world faculty but also denied me an opportunity to learn stuff that was built around it, I mean areas that were not part of any academic program that I had attended, I know it sounds irresponsible, but thats the way it is, sitting here preparing for term 2 exams I feel that I missed a lot of academic content.

Another point of view about this missing "action" is that in teams that I participated, my role was just muted, and in term 2 many of our team members had a similar thought process and I think we shaped the team work very individualistically to say the least.

I think term 3 and 4 provide me an opportunity to make up, but for me, if I were to do the MBA back again, I will do it much more seriously if not for the learning, just for the sake of it.  I think recording this is important now to reconcile where I stand at the end of this year.  I hope I will make myself proud by saying that I put in 100% into each of the subjects that I learnt.  Be competitive, it does not hurt... and make sure it does not hurt others... that I think is the other extreme... of being self learning focussed and damage others' learning... 

Review week, Exam Preparation and Charity Auction

This week proved to be a busy week.  All the subjects which had exams had a review session and two other subjects, the IT and Business Law kept us busy in their reports.

There was another important event that happened, the charity auction to support Marathon runners.  This is a special event that is held every year to auction dinner with faculties and other such items, some of them tangible like the directors' tie set.  It was an interesting evening with prices of dinners reaching over 1000 pounds (for six people) in some cases.

The review sessions made me feel a bit low, I realised how under-prepared for the exams and how much I have missed the subjects in Term 2, basically because I took them too light.  I also realised its part due to my arrogance towards studying.  I think this is a big learning, and one of my stated objectives of my MBA was to become a better student, I think I am half way there (quite literally too in the MBA).   The next half will have to be spent implementing the learning.

We, a group of four including my wife, also booked up a trip to Turkey during the term 2-3 break.  Given the fact that we are visiting Paris for MBAT and then the next month I will be visiting Uganda for an educational trip, I will now be seeing a mid-point culture, between Asia, Africa and Europe.  I think these three trips (two of them for the first time), would certainly add to my overall learning in the MBA.

This post has to be short :) I have to start implementing my plans for studies... 

Busy week ahead of Term close, SOAR introduction

Yes, the title is not without its intentions, the only way I can summarise the previous week was that it was really busy.  We had to submit the Strategy Presentation, People Management presentation and also our Business Law assignment which is due on Monday (tomorrow, well today as I am writing this entry late).

So much of activity as the term is coming to an end, a term, which I think I took too lightly, which in itself has been a lesson too.  I think taking the subjects seriously is absolutely crucial for a good MBA experience, and I am going to do that in term 3, in fact I have even set a personal target to put in 100% effort and try to top the IRM paper, which is part of Term 4.  At the face of it this goal seems to be far away from other goals of the MBA, however since I want to pull myself up to a harsh next few months, to get into my own business, this might be a good time to start off.

We also had an introduction to the SOAR 1 report, which is part of term 3, and is considered part of the OBPPD subject that we have.  We had a looooong introduction to the subject and the report, in which we were told the importance of the report and its usefulness, we were also given a short glimpse as to how one can go about preparing that report.

Term 2 exams are nearing, and as I havent done as good as term 1 in the reports, I have to spend more time on the exams.  I think this is important from a clean record perspective, as I dont want to fail in any of the subjects.  Term 2 has largely been dominated by work commitments that we had and even though I would take the commitments into term 3 & 4 and even after the MBA, I have to keep it to time limits to run with other parts of life.

Looks like we will go to Turkey for a term 2 break trip.  This is not a very good thing considering my original plans were to go to Italy, and could not happen due to VISA issues, I am not yet 100% sure of where I would go, but certainly I would like to go to some place outside the UK and concentrate on tourism, as European tourism is a good option. 

Last Core WAC, Preview Day, Recruitments and Midway through

Got this strange feeling that this MBA is 50% done, well... it did not feel as if it flew but when I think about it, I think I have lived it all, no regrets for it having gone so fast...

We had the last WAC of the Core course, the Global Macro Economics WAC.  This is a WAC on a country of your choice, basically the choice is made when we decide to go for the International Business Experience.  This is a nice way to get a good introduction of the country you want to visit.  Personally I got a good introduction to Uganda, I think now visiting the place would be much more useful and even fun.

I also had volunteered to talk about the MBA to some of the prospective admits into Cranfield next year.  I think I gave a fair view of the MBA, and even though I personally felt that the candidate (an Indian Married Female) was not serious about Cranfield, I gave a fair and true view of the course.  Felt good to have an outside view of the course mid way through.

We had an Amazon presenting at our college for recruitment and also KPMG, the positions are good for a slightly less experienced person than me, but I think when I attended those presentations, I could clearly see that while my perspective towards the job has changed, I still have a long way to go in terms of perceptions that I have created around me, the technical view of things..

I also missed a party, I think I will attend more parties just to have a change around perceptions and also my view of the world :).

I also changed my passport during this week, and it was a nice one day experience, even though it cost me £ 100 extra, I think India has come a long way from the time I applied for the passport first time, when the earliest you could get a passport even in Tatkal was about 30 days.