Whitney's MBA

Fountain at Christ Church

2008-09-30T13:58:00.000-07:00

The Chapel at Brasenose

2008-09-30T13:57:00.002-07:00

The Deer Park at Brasenose

2008-09-30T13:57:00.001-07:00

Brasenose with the Radcliffe Camera in the background

2008-09-30T13:56:00.000-07:00

The last of the Bodleian

2008-09-30T13:53:00.001-07:00

More of the Bodleian

2008-09-30T13:52:00.003-07:00

The Bodleian

2008-09-30T13:52:00.001-07:00

The Bodleian

2008-09-30T13:49:00.000-07:00

Capstone and End-of-Course Ceremony

2008-09-30T13:15:00.000-07:00

Capstone week came and went incredibly quickly. The lectures and group work kept us busy almost all day and the week culminated in group presentations to one of the three streams to which the respective groups were assigned. I'm unsure of the percentage of my class that will actually use scenarios in the working world, but I imagine learning the process was useful for future consultants. Perhaps there are others that will use it in different functions. In any case it was an interesting exercise that taught us the fundamental building blocks for and benefits of long-term scenario analysis. It required out-of-the box thinking that I would not have done otherwise, and others mentioned similar sentiments.

The week was also incredibly social with MBAs at a different venue nearly every night, celebrating our final days together. On one occasion a pub owner closed his pub around midnight and came across the street to a pub to find 30+ MBAs toasting the end of the year. He invited us back across the street where he re-opened his pub and offered us all free tequila. We also frequented the usual venues until families started to trickle into town for the End-of-Course Ceremony. Then we invited them along. Other highlights included a Japanese friend and his wife making sushi for a group, a girls-only viewing of Mama Mia (the movie,) and one of the horses in Port Meadow having a colt who followed me as I ran along the path that crosses the meadow. More than once I had to stop to get him to turn around and go back with the other horses. This was not easy as he was really cute and I wouldn't have minded him coming along for a bit.

Fortunately, my parents and Casey made the trip to Oxford for the ceremony. I took Casey as my "date" to the black tie dinner on Friday, which was a fun night of food, drinks, dancing, and lots of picture-taking. Audra and Bradley joined us for the End-of-Course Ceremony on Saturday, which was no small feat considering they had to leave Houston a day early due to the pending hurricane. The Ceremony marked the end of the coursework, but the official graduation takes place by college and requires students to sign-up nearly a year in advance. Many MBAs will graduate in abstentia next year, though it would be neat to be part a traditional Oxford graduation ceremony. For me it was great to have so many people attend this event, particularly because it was so far away.

Following the ceremony we went to Christ Church where one of my Michelmas-term (and Hilary and Trinity-term) study group members had reserved the GCR for friends and family. The GCR was Albert Einstein's room while he studied at Oxford so it holds some historical significance. Overall it was a great day, and the British sun even graced us with its presence for most of it.

I plan to write an additional post with reflections on the year as a whole, but for now suffice it to say that Sebastian was right in his after-dinner speech that followed the black-tie dinner. Walking around Oxford among 800-year old buildings and taking it all in: the architecture, the atmostphere, the relationships you're fostering, the education you're receiving, is always humbling. And the simple act of walking around reflecting on these things is one of only a few things that never gets old.

The End of the SCP

2008-08-29T05:34:00.000-07:00

We are finishing up our final SCP report during the next couple of days. I got back to Oxford on Sunday and have been meeting with the group daily, editing and polishing the 50-page document. In the end I think it will turn out well. We have a solid recommendation and the academic frameworks to support it.

After that's finished I'll be focusing on my job search. There are a few leads I'm still chasing but I need to spend more time applying to open positions. The problem I've run into with "networking" is that it only works if the people you talk to happen to have open positions. Particularly in this economy no one is going to randomly create a job. But those efforts may still pay off so I probably shouldn't discount them entirely. I spent most of July trying to work my way into a strategy position at American Express and I made some decent headway, but the company's poor earnings reports resulted in a handful of cancelled interviews for me. So in August I started to expand my search a bit, though I admittedly didn't look quite as hard as I will be looking after the end of summer. It seemed that many people were out of town in August and I'm hoping they'll be back after Labor Day.

The last bit of the MBA is the week-long Capstone session in mid-September. It's an intensive week of group-work and scenario analysis...I think...I need to read up on everything we have to do that week. Following its completion there is the last black tie dinner and then an end-of-course ceremony. My parents and hopefully Casey (who is also job-searching) will be in town for those events. Audra and her husband are making the trip from Houston for the end-of-course ceremony. I haven't seen them since their wedding last September so I'm really looking forward to their visit. The next couple of weeks will be fun.

The SCP

2008-08-05T09:33:00.000-07:00

Summer has been flying. We are already halfway through our SCP project, evaluating a new area of business for an Australian company called Facilitate Digital. I've been working on it from New York with three classmates who are based in Oxford. There have been a series of early-morning phone calls with the company's London office and another with the CEO who is based in Sydney, so I suppose that part of the project is preparing me for the random hours associated with a career in international business.

Other than the SCP I have been job-searching. Unlike previous job searches I'm trying to network more than I search the internet. It may take a little longer but I'm hoping something better will come of it. It's moving along despite the sluggish economy so I'm hopeful that something will work out in the next couple of weeks. On one level I'm happy to have the job search to take up some time. The SCP requires a good bit of work but I wouldn't call it a full-time job. I'm not really sure what I'd be doing with the extra time if I already had a job lined up!

On a lighter note, this weekend there's an SBS event for those of us in New York, both alumni and current students. There are a couple of people from my class who are in town this summer and it will be nice to see them and have an opportunity to talk to the local alumni. We'll have their same status soon enough.

Week 10 of Trinity

2008-06-25T11:18:00.000-07:00

This is it. Classes are over and exam week is winding down. My only exam this term was Managing Complexity and I took it yesterday. I still have three assignments to turn in on Monday, one of which is 99% complete and another that is nearly there. There is only one that I haven't started yet, but there is plenty of time during the next couple of days. After that I am going to be in New York for July and perhaps part of August. I may come back to Oxford to work on my SCP at some point rather than work remotely the entire time, and I also plan to spend some time at home in Pennsylvania. It will be nice to be there for more than 3 or 4 days.

The SCP should be a good experience. The company we are consulting for is called Facilitate Digital and they make tech products for marketing/advertising agencies. Essentially the products enable the agencies to track web traffic and we are going to be working on a plan to roll out a new product. The range of SCPs that the school offered and that people sourced themselves was pretty incredible. There are people working on development projects in various African countries, others working in finance in the city of London, and others for consulting companies in India. It will be neat to hear all of the stories when everyone returns in the fall.

This is all pretty exciting, but for now we're trying to keep our heads down and get through the last couple exams and assignments. The MBA is really an endurance test in the end.

2008-06-07T16:23:00.000-07:00

Boats on Lac Leman

A soon-to-be mother swan watching over her eggs by Lac Leman...
The Old City in Geneva

UN headquarters in Geneva. Does anyone know what the significance of the three-legged chair might be? Neither Yael nor I was sure...

Lac Leman, Geneva

Week 7 of Trinity

2008-06-07T16:03:00.000-07:00

Crunch time is rapidly approaching. With that in mind, I had about 1.5 weeks with relatively few assignments so I did the logical thing and went to Geneva to see Yael. She spent a month there as a summer associate at White & Case and is now back in the DC office. We had a really nice time. The city was beautiful and it was good to catch up with her. Pictures to follow.

The day after my return from Geneva I hopped on a flight for my last 3-day trip to New York. During that time I won the "Weekend Warrior" award as part of the class Sylvester Awards Ceremony. I suppose it's fitting as I'm probably out of town more than anyone else; it's nice that people noticed. I also thought it was particularly important that I was not in town to receive the award. The winner's presence at the ceremony would have grossly devalued it. :) The less fortunate part about all of the travel was that assignments started up just after it was over and I had to miss my five-year class reunion at Wellesley. I was really looking forward to it but Annie called me from reunion so I got to talk to a few people. Being closer to home next year should make getting to this kind of event much easier!

I've actually spent a good bit of time at Brasenose during the past week. Graduate dinner was on Thursday and I did a 5K run for breast cancer with women from the HCR this morning. We held a fund raiser / tea in the HCR yesterday afternoon to raise money for the run and then I took Lindsay, Karen, and Richard to formal hall. The 5K itself was pretty fun. Afterwards Kerry took Megan and me into her lab, which was right next to the site of the run. We got to see her ferrets. She is finishing up her PhD and has been testing their hearing to help make better hearing aids for humans. Learning some of the (high-level) details about her research was really interesting. Tomorrow I'll be back at Brasenose for a ceremony for "leaving" students and formal hall with some Brasenose MBAs and guest MBAs, including my guests: Mukul and Hermeet. On Tuesday I'm taking my study group from first term to formal hall. I think I'll have been there more often in the last week than during the entire term!

Pictures from Oxbridge

2008-05-25T14:59:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-25T14:27:00.000-07:00

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.

MBATs

2008-05-18T21:58:00.000-07:00

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.

Spring in Paris

2008-04-30T07:43:00.000-07:00

Spring in New York

2008-04-30T07:11:00.000-07:00

Week 2 of Trinity

2008-04-30T05:49:00.000-07:00

I told myself that I'd do a better job of updating the blog this term, but that clearly hasn't happened. Here we are in Week 2 and this post is my first.

During the break I stayed in New York a little longer than originally planned as signs of spring started to infiltrate the city. I went to Central Park to take pictures of the flowering trees and enjoy the weather.

Back at Said, the only classes this term term are electives and I've chosen: corporate valuation, entrepreneurial finance, business in China, retailing, real estate, and managing complexity. The first lectures generally went well and I'm hoping that the content will be useful down the road. Speaking of the not-too-distant future, I have been about as bad at job searching as I have with updating this blog. My current plan for the summer is to take electives but spend most of my time in New York looking for a job. I have a couple of decent leads and am hoping that some of the hiring freezes I've heard about will soon end. During the summer I also plan to work on the Oxford Business Review. The OBR is going to be an academic journal and I have been working with a group to get it started. Unfortunately a few of those people are incredibly busy with other projects and can't continue to work on the OBR, so I'm going to try and get it going myself, hopefully with a couple of new folks. It's a fairly big under-taking but it will bring some visibility to the school and provide some cool opportunities for students, plus I think starting and managing something of this size will be a good experience for me. Hopefully you'll read more about it in the near future!

In other news, my mother came to visit for a couple of days. She spent only one night in Oxford before leaving for Paris the next day. We took the chunnel and arrived in a couple of hours. The weather, remarkably, was perfect. It was 70+ degrees and sunny and as a result we park-hopped from the Jardin des Tuileries to the Jardin de Luxembourg to the Champs de Mars. Though my mother might have been slightly fed up with "walking aimlessly" for hours, we got to see a good bit of the city. We did a self-guided tour of the Opera, stopped for lunch (and tea)at Mariage Freres and drank some good wine. My French has definitely taken a serious hit in the (almost) six years since I lived there, but I can still get around and hold basic conversations, which is helpful. This Friday I am off to see Chris in NYC. I'm nothing if not intimately familiar with that trek by now!

Earth Hour

2008-03-29T08:19:00.000-07:00

This is not directly related to my MBA, but it's worthwhile on a much larger scale. Check it out:

http://www13.earthhourus.org/

Brugge

2008-03-25T11:20:00.001-07:00

Brugge

2008-03-25T11:19:00.001-07:00

Brussels

2008-03-25T11:14:00.000-07:00

Week 11 of Hilary

2008-03-25T10:50:00.000-07:00

Technically this week is number 11. Exams were in week 10, so we're actually finished for the term. Almost. My financial management class has a formal assignment that is due at the end of this week. We made some good headway on it but it still requires work. Half of the group is out of town so we plan to complete the project over email and skype. Thank goodness for skype. My EP group is taking a similar strategy, working remotely; our final write-up is due the first day of Week 0 of Trinity.

The EP pitch was an interesting experience. Our project is essentially creating renewable energy co-operatives in local communities. It's a proven model in the UK; we simply put a different spin on it and moved it to the U.S. Everyone in the class had to pitch three professionals that the school brought in to provide feedback. We pitched our idea to a former McKinsey guy turned social entrepreneur and two VC's. Overall I think the presentation went well, but we didn't get feedback that was particularly useful. We cited a recent Yale study that found that 90% of Americans are in favor of using renewable energy to show that there would be a market for our idea, and one of the guys told us that the statistic we cited is like saying that 20% of Americans think they've been abducted by aliens. I thought about telling him that we would be fine with co-op members who thought they'd been abducted by aliens as long as they bought into the co-op using the proper currency, but held my tongue to be safe. It would have been nice to hear something more constructive, but getting up and pitching them with nothing to lose was still a good experience.

That's enough school talk. After exams I went to Belgium. I spent some time in Brussels, Brugge, and a few hours in Veurne before driving by the North Sea. There are a number of new buildings along the coast which makes the ocean view from the road all but impossible to see. I ended up driving to the coast and getting out of the car to take a few pictures. The wind was so strong that I had to actually put my hand over my mouth to breathe properly and I was blown around a good bit, but it was fun for a few minutes. :-) I felt like a reporter in a hurricane, talking about how crazy it is that anyone is out or even in the same area as the bad weather while actually standing in it herself. Ha.

I made it safely back to New York and am working on job stuff for the first time in weeks. I'm planning to visit Casey in Boston and go home to Pennsylvania for a bit before heading back to Oxford in April. There's only one term to go...this year is flying.

Week 6 of Hilary

2008-02-23T01:53:00.000-08:00

Comparatively, this term has been less hectic than Michelmas. The main difference is that the EP has taken the place of a class, giving us an extra 3.5 hours per week. That half-day really makes a difference. The other day I used some of that time to Skype with Casey for two hours, but often that 3.5 hours is extra time to study, run errands, or schedule group meetings.

There are plenty of study group meetings, but the dynamic is very different. With so many groups, scheduling is tricky and a lot of work takes place over email rather than face-to-face. My core study group turned in the last group assignment yesterday, and I think that came as a relief to everyone.

Right after that happened, I went with Lindsay and Tyler to Harris Manchester's formal guest dinner. I'd only been to one other guest dinner, last term at Templeton. It was a great evening with a good MBA turnout. After dinner a few more MBAs came to the JCR to join us for drinks. I met some new people and got to talk with a few others that I hadn't spent much time with yet, and that was fun. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures, but I'm hoping others will share theirs soon.

As far as college events go, there are a few Brasenose events this week: a fellow MBA is running for social secretary so we plan to show up and vote, and there is a formal supervisor dinner on Monday. I haven't been to many events at Brasenose so I'm really looking forward to that. I've been spending more time in London this term and that's been great. I've gotten to explore more of the city and Chris and I both go when he's in town. Next weekend I'll be back in New York, which is always a good time. Now that I've been living in the UK for a couple of months, most things there seem inexpensive. Who would've thought that New York would ever seem cheap?

2008-01-26T04:12:00.001-08:00

The doorway in this photo is called the "Rabbit Hole." This is where the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland got its name. It is located at one end of the Christ Church dining hall. The professors enter the hall through it and sit at the High Table on the right.

2008-01-26T04:09:00.001-08:00

The dining hall at Christ Church. This is where Harry Potter was filmed and, more importantly, where my study group had dinner.

Week 2 of Hilary

2008-01-26T03:45:00.001-08:00

A few weeks ago Chris was joking about how much I slept during the break, but Week 2 of Hilary reinforced why it was so necessary to catch up. The workload and group work were in full swing, and the general consensus among my classmates is that the real challenge is going to be juggling four different study groups that all need to meet on a regular basis.

On a lighter note, my study group from last term got together for a reunion at Christ Church. Tait invited us to dinner, and Pushpak's wife, Alka, and Cesar's brother-in-law, Daniel, joined us. After dinner, Francois and Tait went head-to-head in several games of pool, and Prakash and I joined them for a few games. The evening was the highlight of the week and I'm posting several pictures from it.

In addition to that dinner there were several high-profile speakers at school this week. One was the CEO of Cathay Pacific. He was a down-to-earth guy (and Brasenose grad) who really seemed to enjoy his job. He's spent 30 years with the company so I suppose he would have left long ago if there was something he strongly disliked. I got to go to a dinner at school with him and several other corporate guests, and it was interesting to hear insiders' takes on the airline industry. Last night the CEO of L'Oreal spoke at SBS. He had a funny take on industry trends, noting that the same things go in and out of style and by now L'Oreal has been involved with all of them. They simply have to figure out which one will come back next and stay ahead of the curve.

This weekend I'm heading into London. I didn't take advantage of being so close to it last term so I'm going to try and change that this time. It's nice to see Annie there and Chris is always up for a trip to the city. Perhaps I'll take my camera and post pictures after one of these visits.

2008-01-13T14:51:00.001-08:00

Here is another view of Brasenose, the best college.

2008-01-13T14:46:00.000-08:00

This is another Cheryl picture from St. Mary this Virgin. This one is of my college, Brasenose.

2008-01-13T14:35:00.001-08:00

Cheryl took this picture of the Radcliffe Camera from St. Mary the Virgin, a church in Oxford.

2008-01-13T14:22:00.000-08:00

Tonight is the last night prior to the start of Hilary term classes. The break was both productive and relaxing, and I'm looking forward to getting started again. This past week was fairly slow, with the EP induction and Trinity elective presentations. Christine and Paul also made a trip to Oxford, and we all got together in London with Annie the following day. They climbed the steps to the top of St. Mary the Virgin, a church in Oxford. Cheryl and I did the same when she visited in December, and I'm posting a few pictures she took.

As for the term, there are two core classes this time: Marketing and Operations Management. As electives I chose Finance II, Financial Management (which is a fancy term for Accounting II,) and Global Strategy. We're also required to complete an EP (or entrepreneurial project) in groups. Essentially each group is to pretend that financial constraints are not an issue and write a business plan for a company of their choosing/creation. My group has chosen to concentrate on renewable solar energy, and I'm really looking forward to it. At the end of the term we have to pitch the plan to a professor and several investors. They then provide us with feedback, which we are encouraged to incorporate into the final project that we submit during the first week of the next term. I think this will be one of the more fun and rewarding aspects of the MBA; in fact, it's part of the reason I chose Oxford. It was the only business school I found that required students to write and orally present a business plan. More on this as the term unfolds!

Pictures of Oxford

2008-01-03T20:50:00.002-08:00

This picture shows Christ Church Meadow. Many Harry Potter scenes, including those in the dining hall, were shot in the building in the background.

I took this picture from the top of Oxford Castle. A building on the castle grounds was used as a prison until the late-90s. Now the prison is an upscale hotel.

Post-Michelmas, Pre- Hilary

2008-01-03T19:08:00.001-08:00

As most of my classmates would probably tell you, the one-year Oxford MBA is intense. It packs a traditional 18-month MBA program into 12-months and brings together 221 students from 48 countries. Overall, I'm learning a lot, making friends from all over the world, and enjoying the larger Oxford experience. I return to New York to visit Chris from time to time, and in addition to those visits I hope that this blog will enable me to update my friends and family regularly on life in Oxford.

The first term, Michelmas, went well overall. There were six courses: Finance I, Financial Reporting, Decision Science, Developing Effective Managers, Strategy, and Managerial Economics. My study group consisted of two Indians, one South African, one Colombian, one Canadian, and me. We worked well together, and I'm sure this made our lives easier is some ways.

The exam week at the end of the term was by far the most hectic exam week I've experienced. As an undergrad, all final exams were self-scheduled. The exam period normally lasted for 5 days and students had the option of picking up their exams either for a morning exam session or an afternoon exam session. When I explain this set-up to people, they often ask how the administration kept students who took the exam early from providing students who planned to take the exam later with the exam questions. I'm not naive enough to think that this never happened, but in four years I never heard about it, and neither did anyone I talked to before I enrolled or since I graduated. I attended a women's college, and the students were quite competitive with themselves. Providing test questions (or suggested answers) was simply not part of the culture; students respected themselves and the professors in a way that was (and still is) perhaps unique.

In contrast, Oxford scheduled six exams during a four day period. My classmates and I dressed in traditional sub-fuscs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-fusc and took the exams together in one big room. Early in the term one (American) professor half-jokingly noted that some students looked better in sub-fuscs on exam day than they had all term. My section laughed at this comment, but I have say that I think it held some water. We really did clean up, and it was kind of neat to sit for exams in a different atmosphere. Following the last exam we headed for the Turf pub, one of the few pubs in Oxford with the space to accommodate most of our class. After a busy first-term and intense exam period, it was nice to spend time together in a relaxed atmosphere. The break was certainly welcome and has been both productive and enjoyable, but I'm looking forward to returning to Oxford to start the next term.