Research On Colleges

I was looking through some files on my PC and came across one that I made prior to deciding which (out of a total of 39) college I should apply to.
I suppose that, like many people applying to Oxford for the first time, I had no idea which college I should choose. So as part of my 'research' I made this very basic summary.

Whilst it is by no means complete, it does give some insight into the 39 and their history. Besides, at the time it was an interesting way to spend a wet Saturday.

Mentors and Weddings

On Friday afternoon Namiko and I met with Igor and his wife Hada. Igor is a current MBA student and had volunteered to be a mentor... he got me. We agreed to meet at a local family restaurant/pub and then proceeded to spend a hour and a half discussing everything from Oxford parties to consulting.

It was great to meet a married couple who had lived the 'Oxford Experience' together. Prior to the meet, I was a little concerned that Namiko would not be able to join in with any of the university organised events. However, within the first few minutes of the discussion all of my fears were eliminated. It seems that they both had a great time and participated in most things together (except the studying that is).

I hope that I will be able to offer the same amount of advice when I am the mentor...

The Wedding

Seeing as the blog has now slightly deviated (in that it included some 'non MBA' content), I thought that I would write about a wedding party that Namiko and I attended on Saturday night.

The event was held at Homme House, which is a lovely setting and is still a family home which stands in 100 acres of parkland and 80 acres of woodlandand. It is situated in Much Marcle, near Ledbury.

The party went off 'swimmingly' and we had a great time.

Me with Liz and Paul

Namiko chilling on a step

To top the whole evening off, a rather large cow decided to stand in our path as we were leaving the venue (we eventually had to go off road as it decided that it was not going to move)


Said cow

Truffles

I have been writing this blog for a little while now and thought it high time that I published a photo of Truffles (you can also see the link on the right).

I know that this is meant to be a blog tracking my MBA, but seeing as Namiko and I have recently been; guest chef during a Japanese evening (Namiko, not me), wine waiter (skills learnt during my previous university time) and occasional 'emergency waiting staff shortfall countermeasure', I thought that I would give it a mention.

Truffles in fact belongs to (and is run by) my sister & her husband, and is a wonderful place (for customers) to relax. It has won many awards and even got a mention in the Telegraph newspaper food section recently.
Never-the-less, my fear is that if I do not mention it they may not feed us next time we go....
So here it is. A lovely restaurant in Somerset (England).

Mentor

What a great idea!
I just found out that I now have a mentor.
It seems that Said Business School allocate current MBA students as mentors to incomming students. It also seems that this is not some random allocation, but a scientific matching (industry, college, age etc) of the two people.
From all of the research that I did into the course, this was one thing that I was unaware of.
More to come soon....

The Fateful Day

Today was the day that I handed in my notice (of resignation from my current job).

A strange feeling really; When making the decision to do an MBA, I knew my employer's (that is to say Honda's) stance on external executive education was not favourable, and therefore knew that it would be impossible to both keep the job and do a full time MBA. So I suppose that I should not feel sad that the day has finally come to officially quit. Having said that, it is one thing to decide to leave and another to actually hand over a formal letter.

I have had a wonderful time at Honda, living in both the UK and Japan (sometimes concurrently), travelling and making friends at Honda's and our supplier's sites all over the world. As a company, it is an amazing global family. Unfortunately, once you leave, you leave for good.

I think that I will miss it tremendously.