A side street in Cambridge.
Co-ed, touch rugby. Oxford took this one.
The hotly contested cricket match. It was close, and Cambridge came out on top.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Pictures from Oxbridge
A side street in Cambridge.Co-ed, touch rugby. Oxford took this one.The hotly contested cricket match. It was close, and Cambridge came out on top.
Oxbridge
Yesterday was the annual Oxbridge athletic competition between Judge Business School (of Cambridge) and Said. It was much less intense than MBATs, which was nice, and the weather was perfect. There were 15 athletic events that took place, of which Oxford won 8. The day started with an upset (for Oxford) in football and concluded with Oxford taking the punting competition, which included "participants" who sat in the boats and were required to finish a bottle of wine during the race. Somewhat similarly, we won the petanque competition at MBATs, during which time the regulators of the competition informed our petanque teams that they would be disadvantaging the other teams by refusing to drink pimms. Of course they promptly agreed to drink. I suppose these wins indicate that we do well in competitions that combine social drinking with sustained coordination.
After the competitions concluded we wandered around Cambridge a bit, which is less of a town than Oxford but very beautiful. There is much more open, green space, particularly around the colleges. As we were walking along the river path that led from the sports fields to town we passed the rear entrances of several colleges, including Trinity and King's, both of which were enormous and had huge lawns. We even ran into a family of ducks and stopped to feed the ducklings.
We then went to Judge for drinks and to St. John's College for dinner. It was nice to have some time to meet our colleagues at Cambridge and share stories. Near the end of the night two MBAs, one from each university, jumped off a bridge into the river. They survived and we promptly returned them to Judge to get cleaned up. Overall it was a great day. Many of us were saying that the schools should organize an Oxbridge event per term.
After the competitions concluded we wandered around Cambridge a bit, which is less of a town than Oxford but very beautiful. There is much more open, green space, particularly around the colleges. As we were walking along the river path that led from the sports fields to town we passed the rear entrances of several colleges, including Trinity and King's, both of which were enormous and had huge lawns. We even ran into a family of ducks and stopped to feed the ducklings.
We then went to Judge for drinks and to St. John's College for dinner. It was nice to have some time to meet our colleagues at Cambridge and share stories. Near the end of the night two MBAs, one from each university, jumped off a bridge into the river. They survived and we promptly returned them to Judge to get cleaned up. Overall it was a great day. Many of us were saying that the schools should organize an Oxbridge event per term.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
MBATs
Like every other term, Trinity is flying by. Week three was incredibly busy as everyone tried to finish assignments in advance of MBATs, a three-day athletic competition among about 16 European business schools at HEC Paris.
Don't let the name of the school fool you. HEC is a good distance outside of Paris, a few kilometers from Versailles. It literally sits in the middle of a field. The campus itself is huge, full of trees and hills, and the whole event is part of an operations class for HEC students.
There were at least two dozen sports competitions that took place. I ran cross-country, played ultimate frisbee, and filled in for someone in a track event. The big event for Oxford was the men's rugby win over LBS, a school several times our size. The fact that the team made it to the finals was exciting in and of itself, and it was great to watch them win a close game. One of the less neat things was witnessing what happens without Title IX. There were two large fields on which the men's soccer teams played. The women, however, played in a small caged-in area about a quarter the size of the mens' fields and the "field" was dirt rather than grass. At first I thought it must be a scheduling error, but I soon realized it was serious. Growing up in the States post-Title IX, it was pretty shocking to me (and lots of others) that this kind of thing still exists at all, particularly in a "developed" country. It's unfortunate, but the members of the women's soccer teams kept their heads up. For lots of them (i.e. everyone who isn't American) this difference must have appeared normal. I told a couple of people that it wasn't.
That aside, for most of us this event was the last "school" sporting event we'd attend. For others, it was the first and last. At least one person - born and educated in Europe - said she finally realized what the whole school spirit thing is about, which was really kind of neat. People were playing sports they'd never played and filling in for injured classmates so we'd get participation points. A female classmate from Hong Kong even successfull bowled out several male batters while playing cricket for the first time in her life! We ended up finishing fourth overall (just shy of third) and among mid-size schools we were first. About 160 of the 220 people in our class attended. Overall it was a fun weekend, and definitely worth the 13 hour bus ride and sore muscles. I think it will be one of the more vivid memories we have from business school.
Don't let the name of the school fool you. HEC is a good distance outside of Paris, a few kilometers from Versailles. It literally sits in the middle of a field. The campus itself is huge, full of trees and hills, and the whole event is part of an operations class for HEC students.
There were at least two dozen sports competitions that took place. I ran cross-country, played ultimate frisbee, and filled in for someone in a track event. The big event for Oxford was the men's rugby win over LBS, a school several times our size. The fact that the team made it to the finals was exciting in and of itself, and it was great to watch them win a close game. One of the less neat things was witnessing what happens without Title IX. There were two large fields on which the men's soccer teams played. The women, however, played in a small caged-in area about a quarter the size of the mens' fields and the "field" was dirt rather than grass. At first I thought it must be a scheduling error, but I soon realized it was serious. Growing up in the States post-Title IX, it was pretty shocking to me (and lots of others) that this kind of thing still exists at all, particularly in a "developed" country. It's unfortunate, but the members of the women's soccer teams kept their heads up. For lots of them (i.e. everyone who isn't American) this difference must have appeared normal. I told a couple of people that it wasn't.
That aside, for most of us this event was the last "school" sporting event we'd attend. For others, it was the first and last. At least one person - born and educated in Europe - said she finally realized what the whole school spirit thing is about, which was really kind of neat. People were playing sports they'd never played and filling in for injured classmates so we'd get participation points. A female classmate from Hong Kong even successfull bowled out several male batters while playing cricket for the first time in her life! We ended up finishing fourth overall (just shy of third) and among mid-size schools we were first. About 160 of the 220 people in our class attended. Overall it was a fun weekend, and definitely worth the 13 hour bus ride and sore muscles. I think it will be one of the more vivid memories we have from business school.
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