International week kicked off today at the Cranfield SoM forum ! Indonesia, New Zealand, Singapore, China, Taiwan, South Korea were out there in full force at their stalls displaying aspects of their country, culture, arts, food and wine(s) !
Australia was next. The Aussies put on a mighty good show as only Aussies could !
We had a small fund-raiser in memory of the victims and the devastation caused by the recent Queensland floods. Adam, Charlie, Todd and company whipped up an amazing barbecue (yes ! In cold windy Cranfield !!) with hot dogs, burgers and Aussie beer and wine. The evening ended with a highly entertaining Aussie quiz.
I hope to post some photos soon.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
VCIC competition and CMA awards
Well we were done with our VCIC presentation yesterday... Can not reveal the company or the business plan that we were analyzing... We made a conservative pitch expressing our willingness to fund but with changes in the revenue model proposed by the company and a variation in the funding tranches. It was interesting... 8 minutes can be used up very quickly ! Certainly we need to learn to make elevator pitches quickly and effectively...
Next up in the evening was a trip to London to the Faraday Theatre at the Royal Institution ! The CMA awards for 2010 were held there. We had a free bus ride from Cranfield to London. It was great to see many of Cranfield's alumni at the meeting. We had an address from ARM's current CEO and the founder of Cobalt technologies. Good to see the success that two of the Cranfielder's had in their careers. Ngaire and Paula from the previous batch were awarded the Ford and Odgers prize respectively. It was great to see Paula as she was one of the orienters for our cohort. Man, have to say she must have a great deal of energy having accomplished so much in her MBA and getting a good job with AT Kearney as well. She did not quite reveal what the secret to her success was - cans of Red Bull or bottles of multi-vitamins, but that does set the expectations for us if we want to be as successful as her.
The long winding drive back home did sap the energy out of us though... We were all impeccably dressed but the weather was a lot warmer... I think I even sweated a bit Work on the M1 did not help as the bus had to take a circuitous route back home... But that gave us the chance to chat up with each other talk about careers and hardships and the PSW issues and work and fun and the break and the vacations and .uhh everything we could think of... Hey its a MBA brain !... It has the capacity to think and out-think regardless of sleep, energy or interest.
Next up in the evening was a trip to London to the Faraday Theatre at the Royal Institution ! The CMA awards for 2010 were held there. We had a free bus ride from Cranfield to London. It was great to see many of Cranfield's alumni at the meeting. We had an address from ARM's current CEO and the founder of Cobalt technologies. Good to see the success that two of the Cranfielder's had in their careers. Ngaire and Paula from the previous batch were awarded the Ford and Odgers prize respectively. It was great to see Paula as she was one of the orienters for our cohort. Man, have to say she must have a great deal of energy having accomplished so much in her MBA and getting a good job with AT Kearney as well. She did not quite reveal what the secret to her success was - cans of Red Bull or bottles of multi-vitamins, but that does set the expectations for us if we want to be as successful as her.
The long winding drive back home did sap the energy out of us though... We were all impeccably dressed but the weather was a lot warmer... I think I even sweated a bit Work on the M1 did not help as the bus had to take a circuitous route back home... But that gave us the chance to chat up with each other talk about careers and hardships and the PSW issues and work and fun and the break and the vacations and .uhh everything we could think of... Hey its a MBA brain !... It has the capacity to think and out-think regardless of sleep, energy or interest.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Motivating myself to study
I have a Project management exam tomorrow. It is part of the PMI course where we learn the basics of project management. Somehow I don't feel like studying for it. I mean what's the point - every project has innate variances, we can't predict them nor prepare for them - we can only react - hopefully react smartly and soon enough to avoid any potential disaster. Of course, I do guess that part of the reason for not studying is that I don't want to spend my weekend studying... I just want to laze around and catch up with the world around... Guess by the time I am writing this, I have lazed around enough... I need to pick up the PMI casepack and study EV,PV etc. Trouble is that's not the end ... We have a VCIC competition tomorrow... will be analyzing a business plan and acting as VCs determining if it is worth investing our client's money in it.... it would be like a full on WAC, but with a client presentation as well. The good part though is that when it is done on Tuesday, we will be travelling to London for the CMA awards organized by the alumni. Free trip, hopefully some food ;-) and meeting some alumni... what else can a MBA student want !
Just chanced upon this old Range Rover ad on youtube ... cute little piece of new age style music in the background and some 4x4s ...
Pity it's tough to get in to Jaguar Land Rover for a non-EU guy... but anyway that ad has refreshed me enough and now I am going to open up my PMI case pack... Subconsciously dreaming of a Range Rover in my backyard...
Just chanced upon this old Range Rover ad on youtube ... cute little piece of new age style music in the background and some 4x4s ...
Pity it's tough to get in to Jaguar Land Rover for a non-EU guy... but anyway that ad has refreshed me enough and now I am going to open up my PMI case pack... Subconsciously dreaming of a Range Rover in my backyard...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)