Last year, KV was the first to post that London Business School had won the MBAT trophy. This year, I will be even faster and I'm posting this before the tournament is even over.
I'm confident we're bringing home the trophy because this is what we have won so far:
1. 7k cross country run
2. Cricket
3. Salsa
4. Swimming
5. Women's Rugby
6. Tug of War :-)
7. Squash
We're also in the finals for tennis, basket ball and volleyball, and men's rugby tomorrow. Then we won several glorious 2nd places which are tough psychologically but still bring in points, such as in Chess, table tennis, women's football (my team -we gave our best but were beaten in the end by the IESE), mountain biking ...
So I will confirm tomorrow, but believe me, London Business School students fought hard and absolutely ROCKED this weekend!! Our favourite word these days was "amazing". All the teams are amazing and giving their best. Another word was "civilians", but I will explain this later. We had fun!
Admits of 2009, start training hard, because we want to win again next year!
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Monday, May 14, 2007
Just another weekend in London
Recently, I have often posted on specific topics (career, applications etc.), that I feel admits or applicants may not actually get a good feel for what life is like here. I do not intend to use this blog as a diary, as this would become quite repetitive, but it might be helpful to give an update on what life is like here in London once in a while. What have I been up to this weekend?
SATURDAY
Saturday started off with our Cost Accounting midterm exam. They like to schedule our exams for Saturdays, apparently because there are not enough lecture theatres available during the week to accommodate all of us at once. The exam was hard and there was a lot of time pressure. I was happy though, because I find when exams are easy the results are much more unfair, because then professors subtract points for every little deviation from the ideal solution. On the other hand, in hard exams the normal distribution kicks in automatically and the professors do not need to force it onto the results. So I think it went well. Usually, I would head over to the Windsor, our closest pub, straight after the exam, but this time I had different plans.
MBAT is next week, and I realized that I need to buy new sports shoes! Some time last week, I started thinking about how old my Adidas running shoes actually were, and it hit me that I had bought them some time in 2001! It was shocking. Then I took a closer look at the shoes and was embarrassed I have been wearing them all the time, they were dirty and falling apart. Anyway, so I went with two classmates to a huge sports department store in the South of London, and bought new running shoes as well as football shoes, since I'm playing women's football at MBAT. I also helped my friend pick roller blades so we can go roller blading in Hyde Park together as soon as the weather gets better again. Then the other two checked out climbing equipment, since they are planning to climb Mont Blanc in June. We spent 2 or 3 hours there and only came back around 4pm.
Then, I went for a birthday party of a Croatian classmate. He lives with another Indian and one Turkish classmates of mine, and I hadn't spoken to them properly in months, since times have been hectic and we are in different streams, so I decided to go there and make sure I get to talk to catch up with some people, finally! They had nice Sangria and very good music - I even heard Rachid Taha at some point :-).
In the evening, most people headed over to school for the "SANZA (South Africa New Zealand Australia) - Party" hosted in the school, but I decided not to go. Instead, some of us went out for pizza close to Baker Street. After that , my day was still not over, instead I watched "the Goodfellas" on DVD with my husband. The film is okay, but I don't know why people (or should I say guys? ;-) ) rave about it. The guy seemed utterly stupid to me from the start and I was not surprised by how he ended. I think it would help some people to ask "why?" once in a while instead of being at awe about people who seem to have money that came from nowhere. Anyway, then I fell asleep :-).
SUNDAY
I had to get up early today because my parents paid me a short visit. They came back from holiday in the US via London Heathrow and had about 6 hours between their flights, so they came into Paddington with the Heathrow Express and we met up. We walked towards Westbourne Grove in Notting Hill/Bayswater in the cold rain - welcome to London! We went to a nice Lebanese cafe - I think it is called Al fresco - and had hot tea to warm up and lovely hot mashed aubergine with chick peas and pita bread. Then we went for coffee and I brought them back to Paddington station. It was cold and rainy the whole time, but that was okay because I knew I had a lot of work to do for school. I'll be away for MBAT next week so I need to get everything done before we go to Paris.
First I had to do the Cost Accounting assignment on customer profitability due tomorrow morning. Despite the exam, we still have an assigment due Monday morning 9am. Luckily it was one of the easier ones, so it didn't take me too long. The previous ones have been a nightmare requiring a couple of hours of effort on a Sunday night, but this time luckily it was short. But that was offset by the nightmare that is our current Macroeconomics assignment. Because I missed one class and didn't do my reading at the beginning of the term, I missed all of the theory and formulas on capital accumulation, growth accounting, labour productivity and so on. Of course, the assignment covers exactly the topics I missed and consists of 8 questions requiring calculations, theory, application, everything. So I had to read a few chapters in our Macroeconomics book and did all the calculations, since this was the most straightforward part. I haven't answered the qualitative questions yet though, these will require some more thinking on my part.
Then I was hungry and went to Brick Lane in the East End with my husband. There was some Bangladeshi celebration going on and the streets were full of people and food stalls. We still decided to eat at our favourite place though - the Sweet and Spicy. We always order the same - Pilaw Rice, Karahi Gosht, Tarka Dal, Peshawari Nan (try this coconut bread if you haven't!!). Then we were stuffed and decided to walk to Moorgate instead of taking the tube at Aldgate East, thereby enjoying the stroll through the City.
Once home, I decided to do some more work, this time preparation for my internship though. I started reading "Options, Futures and other Derivatives" by John Hull. It is very well written and detailed, and I have high expectations to finally understand more than I currently understand in our Finance 2 class. I really need to prepare a little, because I believe I am one of the few people going into trading/structuring without any finance background and without any kind of quantitative background, so I have realized in recent weeks that it would help to get up to speed before I start.
(btw I have updated the post on impressions from the ibanking/finance job market, since the finance club has sent out and overview of who's going where. Not everyone filled it in, so again these are minimum estimates, but we have a great group of people going to the top ibanks and even quite a few people who landed jobs on the buy side, so things look great).
As you see now, after a few pages of the book I decided to call it a day though and thought I should write something here, because I probably won't till after the MBAT. I must say, living in London is very nice, and despite having to do some work for school on the weekends, it turns out there is still a lot of opportunity to explore London and socialize in between.
SATURDAY
Saturday started off with our Cost Accounting midterm exam. They like to schedule our exams for Saturdays, apparently because there are not enough lecture theatres available during the week to accommodate all of us at once. The exam was hard and there was a lot of time pressure. I was happy though, because I find when exams are easy the results are much more unfair, because then professors subtract points for every little deviation from the ideal solution. On the other hand, in hard exams the normal distribution kicks in automatically and the professors do not need to force it onto the results. So I think it went well. Usually, I would head over to the Windsor, our closest pub, straight after the exam, but this time I had different plans.
MBAT is next week, and I realized that I need to buy new sports shoes! Some time last week, I started thinking about how old my Adidas running shoes actually were, and it hit me that I had bought them some time in 2001! It was shocking. Then I took a closer look at the shoes and was embarrassed I have been wearing them all the time, they were dirty and falling apart. Anyway, so I went with two classmates to a huge sports department store in the South of London, and bought new running shoes as well as football shoes, since I'm playing women's football at MBAT. I also helped my friend pick roller blades so we can go roller blading in Hyde Park together as soon as the weather gets better again. Then the other two checked out climbing equipment, since they are planning to climb Mont Blanc in June. We spent 2 or 3 hours there and only came back around 4pm.
Then, I went for a birthday party of a Croatian classmate. He lives with another Indian and one Turkish classmates of mine, and I hadn't spoken to them properly in months, since times have been hectic and we are in different streams, so I decided to go there and make sure I get to talk to catch up with some people, finally! They had nice Sangria and very good music - I even heard Rachid Taha at some point :-).
In the evening, most people headed over to school for the "SANZA (South Africa New Zealand Australia) - Party" hosted in the school, but I decided not to go. Instead, some of us went out for pizza close to Baker Street. After that , my day was still not over, instead I watched "the Goodfellas" on DVD with my husband. The film is okay, but I don't know why people (or should I say guys? ;-) ) rave about it. The guy seemed utterly stupid to me from the start and I was not surprised by how he ended. I think it would help some people to ask "why?" once in a while instead of being at awe about people who seem to have money that came from nowhere. Anyway, then I fell asleep :-).
SUNDAY
I had to get up early today because my parents paid me a short visit. They came back from holiday in the US via London Heathrow and had about 6 hours between their flights, so they came into Paddington with the Heathrow Express and we met up. We walked towards Westbourne Grove in Notting Hill/Bayswater in the cold rain - welcome to London! We went to a nice Lebanese cafe - I think it is called Al fresco - and had hot tea to warm up and lovely hot mashed aubergine with chick peas and pita bread. Then we went for coffee and I brought them back to Paddington station. It was cold and rainy the whole time, but that was okay because I knew I had a lot of work to do for school. I'll be away for MBAT next week so I need to get everything done before we go to Paris.
First I had to do the Cost Accounting assignment on customer profitability due tomorrow morning. Despite the exam, we still have an assigment due Monday morning 9am. Luckily it was one of the easier ones, so it didn't take me too long. The previous ones have been a nightmare requiring a couple of hours of effort on a Sunday night, but this time luckily it was short. But that was offset by the nightmare that is our current Macroeconomics assignment. Because I missed one class and didn't do my reading at the beginning of the term, I missed all of the theory and formulas on capital accumulation, growth accounting, labour productivity and so on. Of course, the assignment covers exactly the topics I missed and consists of 8 questions requiring calculations, theory, application, everything. So I had to read a few chapters in our Macroeconomics book and did all the calculations, since this was the most straightforward part. I haven't answered the qualitative questions yet though, these will require some more thinking on my part.
Then I was hungry and went to Brick Lane in the East End with my husband. There was some Bangladeshi celebration going on and the streets were full of people and food stalls. We still decided to eat at our favourite place though - the Sweet and Spicy. We always order the same - Pilaw Rice, Karahi Gosht, Tarka Dal, Peshawari Nan (try this coconut bread if you haven't!!). Then we were stuffed and decided to walk to Moorgate instead of taking the tube at Aldgate East, thereby enjoying the stroll through the City.
Once home, I decided to do some more work, this time preparation for my internship though. I started reading "Options, Futures and other Derivatives" by John Hull. It is very well written and detailed, and I have high expectations to finally understand more than I currently understand in our Finance 2 class. I really need to prepare a little, because I believe I am one of the few people going into trading/structuring without any finance background and without any kind of quantitative background, so I have realized in recent weeks that it would help to get up to speed before I start.
(btw I have updated the post on impressions from the ibanking/finance job market, since the finance club has sent out and overview of who's going where. Not everyone filled it in, so again these are minimum estimates, but we have a great group of people going to the top ibanks and even quite a few people who landed jobs on the buy side, so things look great).
As you see now, after a few pages of the book I decided to call it a day though and thought I should write something here, because I probably won't till after the MBAT. I must say, living in London is very nice, and despite having to do some work for school on the weekends, it turns out there is still a lot of opportunity to explore London and socialize in between.
Friday, May 11, 2007
I resigned from my job today
Obviously, you and I knew what was coming, but now it is official and my company knows, too. I sent in my letter of resignation today. It's about time, because I'm starting my summer job with another company in London in 5 weeks already. Now I'm getting lots of administrative emails (I have to hand back my Blackberry, Laptop, mobile...) and also requests for meetings from some partners. I will go to Germany for a a few days at the beginning of June to sort everything out.
I am relieved now, because I can speak openly to everyone and start saying goodbye to people. Now that I'm thinking about whom I need to call, I realize just how many friends I made over the two years of the analyst program. I think I will dedicate a whole day just calling everyone, catching up and saying good bye. I have also received the invitation to join the alumni network already. The alumni network is big and powerful, the best ever, but it is weird to be "on the other side" now.
Just thought I'd share this with you.
I am relieved now, because I can speak openly to everyone and start saying goodbye to people. Now that I'm thinking about whom I need to call, I realize just how many friends I made over the two years of the analyst program. I think I will dedicate a whole day just calling everyone, catching up and saying good bye. I have also received the invitation to join the alumni network already. The alumni network is big and powerful, the best ever, but it is weird to be "on the other side" now.
Just thought I'd share this with you.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
The fatal combination of happiness and heavy workload
Patxi and the Divine Miss have complained about it - and now it has hit me, too. I have lost my inspiration. I don't feel like writing much anymore. Yes, the sun is shining for most parts, and MBAT is coming up - I need to practice tennis and football, plus I recently joined the Softball team as well. Also, workload right now is a bit crazy. This has been the busiest term so far, against all expectations.
But I think there is more to it. Lucy Kellaway pointed to it in a recent FT column. The name of the column was "Worry, don't be Happy". Her point was that unhappy workers are more productive. I think she is wrong for most professions, but concerning journalists and writers I think it is very true that the happier you are, the less time you want to spend writing.
The peak of my creative powers was probably the first 6 months of this blog, when I was working 16h days and feeling exploited. Then, I started an exciting new life in London while still agonizing about my future path. Right now, it is probably one of the first times in my adult life that everything seems to be going great. I am living where I've always wanted to live with the person I've wanted to live with, doing what I want, looking forward to a summer job that was my first choice, followed by an exchange term at the school I wanted to go to. Things are going great and life is beautiful.
The only topic I am pondering a lot these days, and which kind of keeps me inspired, but about which I haven't reached a conclusion yet, is how this all happened. Why is it that I was in the wrong place doing a job I didn't like before, and now everything is great? Is it just luck? My interpretation is a mixture of becoming "older and wiser" :-), and what Patxi has described in his beautiful post about persistence. I think lots of people when they are young and insecure, they give up very easily and are discouraged very fast. Any adult tells you scary stories, any peer tries to put you down, and you take their word at face value and lower your expectations. After some year, you realize you just have to try harder and harder and things work out.
It may be my lack of inspiration that I need to shamelessly copy paste Patxi's quote here :-), but I just loved this sentence:
A lot of unhappiness in life comes from low aspirations and not trying to aim for something better. A lot of my previous unhappiness at university and my first job came from aiming low. I was too afraid of rejection to apply to top universities abroad, and then I was constantly unhappy about being at mediocre universities, and afterwards I really didn't try hard to get a job in something I liked and just took the first offer I had, which I knew from a previous internship I wouldn't like. And then I spent two years feeling sorry for myself. Not exactly a recipe for success! This really the first time in my adult life that I am doing what I wanted to do. On the one hand it is a bit sad that it took me so long to figure it out, but then lots of people never do, so I am grateful to be where I am now. Let's hope and pray that things stay this way, even if it means less inspiration for my blog :-).
But I think there is more to it. Lucy Kellaway pointed to it in a recent FT column. The name of the column was "Worry, don't be Happy". Her point was that unhappy workers are more productive. I think she is wrong for most professions, but concerning journalists and writers I think it is very true that the happier you are, the less time you want to spend writing.
The peak of my creative powers was probably the first 6 months of this blog, when I was working 16h days and feeling exploited. Then, I started an exciting new life in London while still agonizing about my future path. Right now, it is probably one of the first times in my adult life that everything seems to be going great. I am living where I've always wanted to live with the person I've wanted to live with, doing what I want, looking forward to a summer job that was my first choice, followed by an exchange term at the school I wanted to go to. Things are going great and life is beautiful.
The only topic I am pondering a lot these days, and which kind of keeps me inspired, but about which I haven't reached a conclusion yet, is how this all happened. Why is it that I was in the wrong place doing a job I didn't like before, and now everything is great? Is it just luck? My interpretation is a mixture of becoming "older and wiser" :-), and what Patxi has described in his beautiful post about persistence. I think lots of people when they are young and insecure, they give up very easily and are discouraged very fast. Any adult tells you scary stories, any peer tries to put you down, and you take their word at face value and lower your expectations. After some year, you realize you just have to try harder and harder and things work out.
It may be my lack of inspiration that I need to shamelessly copy paste Patxi's quote here :-), but I just loved this sentence:
And here comes the moral of the story: even though the final score will forever read:
Denials: 7
Acceptances: 1
I still win!
To all of you who keep trying, congratulations!
Denials: 7
Acceptances: 1
I still win!
To all of you who keep trying, congratulations!
A lot of unhappiness in life comes from low aspirations and not trying to aim for something better. A lot of my previous unhappiness at university and my first job came from aiming low. I was too afraid of rejection to apply to top universities abroad, and then I was constantly unhappy about being at mediocre universities, and afterwards I really didn't try hard to get a job in something I liked and just took the first offer I had, which I knew from a previous internship I wouldn't like. And then I spent two years feeling sorry for myself. Not exactly a recipe for success! This really the first time in my adult life that I am doing what I wanted to do. On the one hand it is a bit sad that it took me so long to figure it out, but then lots of people never do, so I am grateful to be where I am now. Let's hope and pray that things stay this way, even if it means less inspiration for my blog :-).
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Thank you for the ipod!
Thank you so much to clearadmit, all my readers and fellow nominees and winners for contributing to my blog and keeping me going! To be honest, blogging would have been no fun with few readers and what I enjoy most about my blog is the comments and e-mails I receive from fellow students and applicants. It has been a pleasure for me to write this blog and I am happy that this pleasant hobby of mine has also helped fellow students and applicants in the process.I am thrilled to receive a 30GB video ipod as a reward! My strategy of being a late adopter has paid off! I never actually bought an ipod since I was still waiting for prices to come down, and I had decided to purchase one next year during my exchange in Chicago. Now that won't be necessary anymore and I look forward to loading my hundreds and hundreds of CDs that I own onto my new ipod. Can't wait for it to arrive :-).
Congratulations also to winning applicant bloggers Rungee, Iday, Forrest Gump, and Rusgirl! Also, congratulations to the London Business School student bloggers The Divine Miss and Karlitos, as well as Benny from Tuck!! There is something to this room, I haven't told you guys but I'm actually living now in the same room that The Divine Miss lived in last year, so it seems to be the room, the view over London roofs must be inspiring. Let's see if Rusgirl can take over this room next year and uphold the tradition :-).
Thanks again and keep commenting and contributing :-).
Monday, April 23, 2007
Summer term courses
Summer term is busier than expected but I love all the courses so far, which is great. Going surfing over spring break might have energized me, but I also think the content and professors this term are better than last term, so I'm thrilled. Courses so far:
Marketing Strategy: this is a simulation game, Markstrat, that we are playing over several weeks. My study group is Firm E and we need to make decisions on product launches, R&D, advertising campaigns etc. over 5 periods or so. I like dynamic simulation games and am putting in more time than I should.
Management Accounting: this is a subject I thought would be quite boring, but it turns out it may be one of the more useful subjects they teach at business school. It goes under the header of cost accounting, which doesn't sounds fascinating at first, but it turns out it is essential if you ever have your own business - how do you allocate costs to your products? I do not only think that it will be useful to me at some point in the future when I have my own business - I also wish I had learnt about this before working as a consultant, I remember several instances where this could have been useful.
Managing Organisational Behaviour Company Audit: I had written earlier I didn't enjoy the class itself last term, though for the final exam I finally did the reading and loved the book, Reframing Organizations. So I did get a lot out of the course via the book in the end (perhaps I should have done the readings right away!). Over the last 4 days I went to Spain with my study group to do an "organizational audit" of a medium sized family business. We interviewed the president and all of the senior management on their motivation, relationships among the management, frictions etc., it was very exciting, time passed very quickly and we learnt a lot.
Macroeconomics: I only attended the introductory class and it appears to be quite something. Our professor is a hardcore liberal economist French guy, which is a spectacular and unusual combination. The readings seem to be interesting (so far I enjoyed Paul Krugman's The Myth of the Asian Miracle), and now I just need to get over our Operations field trip next weekend till I can actually sit down and focus a bit more on Economics, since this was my goal at the beginning of the term.
Operations: so far nothing spectacular, we have started a factory simulation game outside of the classroom but I haven't been much involved yet since I was in Spain over the last week - luckily I have a good team that is running the game at the moment. Other than that, I look forward to our visit to the Porsche and BMW factories next week. To be honest, I have never liked Operations too much and simply will never like technical engineery stuff, I am trying to find it interesting but it seems to be against my nature. I promise to try hard to learn something useful though!
Finance 2: this will be tough. Our professor is a Russian mathematician specializing in interest rate derivatives, which tells you all you need to know. Right now we are reviewing capital structure though, which isn't one of my favourites - even though I know I have to learn it - but I can't wait till we move on to derivatives. Not that it will be easy, but I definitely need it for my internships, so I will work hard for this course.
So you may see, things are busy and there is more than enough to do. Especially since I enjoy the classes I do more than last term. I was going to study Russian on the side and also work on my financial modelling skills, but so far it doesn't look like this is going to happen any time soon! But the important thing is that I'm enjoying the academics again, which was important to me.
Marketing Strategy: this is a simulation game, Markstrat, that we are playing over several weeks. My study group is Firm E and we need to make decisions on product launches, R&D, advertising campaigns etc. over 5 periods or so. I like dynamic simulation games and am putting in more time than I should.
Management Accounting: this is a subject I thought would be quite boring, but it turns out it may be one of the more useful subjects they teach at business school. It goes under the header of cost accounting, which doesn't sounds fascinating at first, but it turns out it is essential if you ever have your own business - how do you allocate costs to your products? I do not only think that it will be useful to me at some point in the future when I have my own business - I also wish I had learnt about this before working as a consultant, I remember several instances where this could have been useful.
Managing Organisational Behaviour Company Audit: I had written earlier I didn't enjoy the class itself last term, though for the final exam I finally did the reading and loved the book, Reframing Organizations. So I did get a lot out of the course via the book in the end (perhaps I should have done the readings right away!). Over the last 4 days I went to Spain with my study group to do an "organizational audit" of a medium sized family business. We interviewed the president and all of the senior management on their motivation, relationships among the management, frictions etc., it was very exciting, time passed very quickly and we learnt a lot.
Macroeconomics: I only attended the introductory class and it appears to be quite something. Our professor is a hardcore liberal economist French guy, which is a spectacular and unusual combination. The readings seem to be interesting (so far I enjoyed Paul Krugman's The Myth of the Asian Miracle), and now I just need to get over our Operations field trip next weekend till I can actually sit down and focus a bit more on Economics, since this was my goal at the beginning of the term.
Operations: so far nothing spectacular, we have started a factory simulation game outside of the classroom but I haven't been much involved yet since I was in Spain over the last week - luckily I have a good team that is running the game at the moment. Other than that, I look forward to our visit to the Porsche and BMW factories next week. To be honest, I have never liked Operations too much and simply will never like technical engineery stuff, I am trying to find it interesting but it seems to be against my nature. I promise to try hard to learn something useful though!
Finance 2: this will be tough. Our professor is a Russian mathematician specializing in interest rate derivatives, which tells you all you need to know. Right now we are reviewing capital structure though, which isn't one of my favourites - even though I know I have to learn it - but I can't wait till we move on to derivatives. Not that it will be easy, but I definitely need it for my internships, so I will work hard for this course.
So you may see, things are busy and there is more than enough to do. Especially since I enjoy the classes I do more than last term. I was going to study Russian on the side and also work on my financial modelling skills, but so far it doesn't look like this is going to happen any time soon! But the important thing is that I'm enjoying the academics again, which was important to me.
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