Food for Thought

One of the real positives of returning to university has been the joy of having cheap, hot food readily available all day, be it in the college dining rooms, the business school canteen or the student discounted burritos next door to Judge. Surprisingly though, that sentiment isn’t echoed across the MBA. 95% of my classmates are from abroad and the majority don’t seem to think the availability of food is such a good thing because, as one of my friends put it, “your food is awful”.

Toad-in-the-hole has been the subject of particular mirth since the chefs at Hughes put it on the menu for dinner a month ago. I’ve tried my best to educate everyone on the delight of taking two of life’s greatest pleasures (sausages and batter) and combining them in one simple dish, but people seem to see it as more of a culinary hate crime than a local delicacy. Other notable difference are that no one understands Alan Partridge quotes and people think of Steve Carrell rather than David Brent when you mention The Office.

All the above feeds quite well into our Management Praxis module which focuses on equipping you with the skills to lead a team in the future. The course often falls back on to the notion that ‘my world is not your world’ – a relatively simple phrase but one which is useful to remember in most situations, especially those of conflict. Remembering that different people perceive and feel things very, very differently is as important in management as it is in your personal life. Trying to approach problems and teams with empathy and understanding can transform your approach. Simple but true and, as someone who tends to jump to conclusions and solutions a bit too fast, something I’m trying to get better at. I stand by my stance on toad-in-the-hole, however.

I had the chance to put my new found empathy into practice as a couple of weeks ago I received my first MBA application rejections from Google and Amazon, both of whom were near the top of my list for post-MBA employment.

Prior to starting we were told to expect a lot of unexplained rejections when applying for jobs and it had proven true. Expected or not, it’s still difficult not to take it to heart. The purpose of the MBA is to find your next job so not being invited to interview is hard to take, but it’s a good wake-up call to remember that sometimes your profile may not be the right fit or that you simply might not be experienced enough for that position. It’s also important to keep in mind that there are 200 people from my own business school as well as another 300 at Oxford and 400 at London Business School all of whom are competition. That doesn’t include the thousands of others from Paris’s INSEAD & HEC, Madrid’s IE, Barcelona’s ESADE & IESE, Switzerland’s St. Gallen or Milan’s Bocconi. Remembering the viewpoint of the employer is important and standing out from the crowd is a real challenge.

The Careers team here are fantastic and deserve a lot of credit for the support they provide us. Since week one, we’ve had employers coming in to visit almost every day to give recruitment presentations on the hiring schemes they run for MBA grads. As well as Google and Amazon we've also had the liked of AB InBev, McKinsey, American Express, Pimco and Johnson & Johnson. Each presentation is well marketed and usually quite tempting but each will also inevitably have someone tell you that ‘there is no typical day here’ which is quite annoying when you’re trying to understand what the day-to-day of a job is like*.

As soon as you have an interview booked in, we’re provided all the guidance you could need for interview prep from coaches and alumni at those companies. The team have also been great in supporting us to work through what jobs we want to do, articulating why we want to do them and then focusing on building our skillset and CV towards said jobs. Although I sent off a couple of applications, I'm trying to resist entering full job-hunting mode. We have only just chosen our elective modules for next term - I'm following the Marketing concentration with a digital/data focus - so I'd like to start learning something completely new to me before I get too far down the applications line.

*this is one of pet hates from the MBA alongside any mentions of Steve Jobs or Elon Musk which happened almost hourly when we started but has now reduced to daily.

Along with rejections, I was also pre-warned of how busy you are on the MBA, which is very different to my undergrad. Monday to Thursday we have 2 x 3.5hr classes a day: a morning class from 9am - 12.30pm and an afternoon class from 2pm – 5.30pm. Classes are typically very interactive and each one usually requires pre-reading of journal articles, the course text or a case study which is the basis for learning/applying the theory. When I’ve done the reading the classes are quite enjoyable as they’re essentially just a big debate amongst the stream (our cohort is split into 3 streams of 70 people for class). Hearing everyone's take and experience on the case studies means I actually do learn something new every day.

With employer events every evening, rugby training 3 times a week and matches under the floodlights every Wednesday, I often find myself fairly tired by the weekends, not aided by the fact that I've twice forgotten that I'm no longer 21 and end up celebrating a win late on a Wednesday night in Cindies (Cambridge's answer to Infernos). My highlight from last week was on Saturday when my college brought in a dog therapy group so we could book half an hour to play with a puppy. One of the best things I’ve come across since being at Cambridge but sadly not a regular feature of my timetable.

For the first term we’re split up into groups of 5 to do project work on our core modules. My project group, Group 38, is ace. A hotch-potch of personalities made up of (l-r in the candid photo below) Sophia from the US, Ekansh from India, myself, Severin from Germany and Vugar from Azerbaijan.

We’ve had our first hand-ins last week: a group project entailing a valuation and 2,000 word equity research report on Alibaba (recommend a strong buy if you’re wondering); and an individual 3,000-word essay assessing 3 ventures for potential investment. In two weeks we’ll be presenting our Cambridge Venture Project, an assessment of how modular/pre-fabricated housing will affect residential development finance – a lot more interesting than it sounds and a great case study in tech potentially revolutionising an industry.

Ekansh has kept us all going with his homemade chai and he's promised he’ll cook up a curry for our next group session which I cannot wait for.

After my job rejections, I felt like that there was a re-balancing of the cosmos as I received the fantastic news that I've been selected to play in the Varsity Match at Twickenham next Thursday. In one of Cambridge's odd traditions, the club captain cycled round to every squad member starting at 6.30am while dressed in his light blue blazer, a light blue scarf and a light blue cap and informed them whether or not they'd made the squad.

It's not the match it used to be but it still attracts 20,000 people and, to me and the other squad members, it’s the pinnacle of our university career. I’m hugely proud to have been selected and it’ll be a real experience to play in such a famous fixture in front of my friends and family. My dad first took me to Twickenham when I was 13 and I’ve since been going as often as I could get my hands on tickets. Entering via the players’ entrance for the first and last time in my life is going to be memorable to say the least. We’re going into the match off the back of 5 wins and I reckon we’ll give O*ford a run for their money on the day. Fingers crossed we’ll be bringing the trophy back from the dark (blue) side.

Otherwise, I’m enjoying life in Cambridge where the air is a little more tranquil, the parks are open and the cows roam free. I’ve got a world class little Raleigh bike from the 80s which I thought I’d sell at the end of the year but I’m already feeling quite attached to. I turned 31 in November and spent my birthday with a group of mates at a formal dinner in Sidney Sussex college and I’m starting to get round to seeing the incredible places around town. I must admit I’ve been neglecting my duties as a Harry Potter society member and haven’t made it to a single event yet but I’ll get there next term.

After Varsity we have 4 exams to round off what has been a pretty good first term. I hope to see some of you on December 12th but if not you can catch it on ITV4! Enjoy December and have a great Christmas. And remember – GDBO.