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.