Yearbook,AT Kearney & Diwali(16-20th Oct)

The second week of the MBA kicked off. Even before we have realised,another week has whizzed by us.It began with the presentation from AT Kearney about the Global prize business case competition.We were asked to register in teams of four before Wednesday if we were interested in the business challenge.During the evening ,we spent some time with Bill Tribe,one of the last year Cranfield alumni who has joined ATK post MBA.He briefed us with few pros & cons of getting into a consulting job-the tough hurdles of innumerable case interviews,personal interviews & final partner interviews.He suggested that we should do our bit of research and preparation before we faced the interviews.There was a Loreal briefing about the business challenge simulation game which we could register for in teams of three.On Wednesday we were all very excited and eager to register for the ATK case comepetition before the deadline(as only the first 15 teams would be registered in).


However due to some technical snags on the ATK site,we finally registered quite late by sending e-mails to them.Gladly they accepted to register all the teams who had signed in (although the no exceeded 15) to compensate for the fault on their behalf.There was a time management session that evening by one of our alumni,Robin Hilton.Most of us found it difficult to manage their time and to cope up with the MBA pressure that was building up.We got some valuable tips as to how to control our time,we would have to implement them in our day-to-day working to sail safely thru this year.The yearbook deadline was drawing nearer.We spent sleepless nights on our yearbook page one last time before we submitted them to the Careers on Friday the 20th.The weekend social was the special occasion of celebrating the Indian festival of lights 'Diwali'. All (Indians & non-Indians) were dressed in colourful Indian attire to grace the event.The skit 'MBA Ramayana' from the Hindu epics stole the show with Peter,Ian & Silvana acting as Rama,Ravana & Sita respectively.We marvelled at the innovative script which related the mythology story to our MBA jargons of market share,Boston matrix.It was followed by the Bollywood cocktail where a group of us danced to the rappy Bolywood number sung by AmitK,SJ & myself.Finally some mouthwatering hot Indian snacks followed and everyone hit the dance floor to conclude another busiest week of the course.The weekend saw us hovering over all our reading for the coming week,with occasional games of Football & Tennis.

Learning teams and international night

It was a very important day for us as were introduced to our learning teams in which we have to work for the entire Term 1..and MBA was all about teamwork.We dispersed into our respective team syndicate areas where we chatted with our team members and then introduced our learning teams before the rest of the stream.This was followed by the 'Desert Survival' simulation exercise where we had to work in our learning teams and prioritise a list of items which were particularly necessary for surviving in the desert after a plane crash.Prof Lance Moir introduced us to 'Case Studies'-the short cycle and the long cycle process.We worked individually on a case using the short cycle criterion and then discussed about the findings in our streams.This was followed by the '3 day cycle' introduction which was the heart of learning teams-the way we had to plan our week ahead,do our individual reading,have team discussions and prepare for the lectures following a 3 day cycle.We thronged at CMDC for the 'International evening' in our individual national attires for dinner.It was a marvelous evening where we were amazed to see the diversity and richness-in nationalities,culture,language,dressing that our batch was comprised of.

The O week begins-2nd October

The Orienteers(all the MBAs from the previous batch) inducted us to the Full Time MBA course.The day kicked off with a talk by the director of the SOM -Michael Osbaldeston and John Glen(director of FT MBA).The O week started with a presentation called 'Lift-Off' by Paul Lawes(lead orienteer) and the other stream orienteers.Our entire batch of 114 were divided into our independent streams blue,green and red and we were allocated a 'buddy' whom we had to introduce before the rest of the stream after spending some time knowing him/her.This was followed by some official work-registration and campus tour.

The afternoon session began with (R)evolution.We were asked to pen down three things we wanted to carry with ourselves from this MBA course,keep it safe and check regularly so that we always remained focussed on our goal.We were briefed about the course structure,learning teams,suppport systems,assessments,language options,WACs and exchange programs.It was great fun at Stafford Crips where we gathered for dinner in the evening and bet on horses in our individual stream teams.