Orientation Week

We've only just finished our orientation week and everyone's already exhausted. I didn't really believe all the alumni that told me just how big the workload was going to be but I believe them now! A group of last year's MBA students along with some of the faculty passed on how the Cranfield school of management operates and worked on quickly getting us to know the people in the groups we'll be working (VERY closely) with over the next year ie. our streams and learning teams.

There are 138 MBA students here this year and we've been broken up into three streams - red (me), blue and green. The learning team is the group that I'm likely to spend 3-4 hours a day with preparing for lectures, presentations and assignments. My team of 6 covers 5 continents. We've got an accountant from Nigeria, a scientist (biotech) from Ireland, an engineer from India, an engineer from Peru, a supply specialist from India and me. Our first group work assignment went fairly well and we all get alone well so far but the real test is when the pressure starts to mount.

Already we've got a healthy rivalry going between the streams. Red stream won the sports day on Wednesday and each stream put on a 30 minute caberat show on Thursday night. The links on the right will take you to web albums with lots of photos from this week. We've done all the serious necessary things around registration, sorting out computers and being sorted into learning teams. I can now find my way between buildings without getting lost, have tracked down my locker and can find the two pubs on site (yes, small university - two pubs!). We've got to know each other and a bit more about the countries that everyone comes from - Dad, I told your story of hitting a kangaroo in a VW beetle. Got a good laugh. We've also spent a lot of time having a lot of fun. We've done a lot of laughing, clapping, yelling, clapping, drinking and a bit more clapping.

This afternoon was a little less happy. I've spent most of this week telling people how Australia was going to flog the poms in the rugby. Sitting in the pub with only 1 other Aussie and a room full of poms made losing today a little bit more painful.