Oxford smashed Cambridge

Oxford had smashed Cambridge on the MBA sports day (atleast in the cricket we literally smashed them) on saturday. Takashi had grabbed some of the pictures and here are they:

http://picasaweb.google.com/takashi.forester/2007_04_28MBASportsDay?authkey=Ssfip6AKZTM

I umpired the cricket match (on the field for 40 overs!! huh!!). We batted first and scored 240 in 20 overs. It was a treat to watch Murtaza being on the field, who scored 149 with 8 sixes, very similar to what Gilchrist did on the same day with Srilanka :-) Cambridge were all out for some 70 odd, thanks to Aditya who had taken 4 wickets. Yesterday, I played for Oxford India Society against University club and we had a wonderful wonderful match. We managed to get 218 and were all out before 40 overs. It was so easy ride for us till 20 overs when the score of Univ club read 75/8. And then 9th wicket partnership of 100+ had taken the match so close and finally we were able to wrap it up on the last ball of the match with 3 runs. I was on the field for close to 100 overs in both the matches on week end and will be for another possible 150 overs in these 3 days as I am playing for Linacre on the trot on today, tomorrow and the day after.

Really this is a fantastic Oxford experience and I must say, the college grounds and facilities are world class (after all, I am also diving in the field) and its so good to play. Incoming Oxonians, dont forget to plan for this season (plan now with some cricket wear and plan for your electives to not clash with matches).

On the other hand, I had couple of interviews with couple of firms, and our team lost Infineon SCP. I applied for Intel now and need to see gow it goes. Wipro presented on the campus last friday and I must say the presenter is really good and one can easily make out why Infy, Wipro and Tata are top class companies in the world.

Consolidation of Semi Conductor Industry

Yesterday I attended a speach by Dr Ek Thorsten Heyen, VP of Strategy and M & A at Infineon on consolidation happening at the semi conductore industry. It was a good one to understand the drivers of semi conductor industry and the changing landscape. The Asian domination in gathering this pie of the business is clearly visible from his speach as well as the direction towards which industry is moving. On the other side, our bid has been shortlisted by Infineon and we will have an interview today regarding SCP. Dell did a presentation yesterday and it looks promising too.

The first match of the season was awry with Linacre losing to St. Catz by 110 runs. Batted first, st. Catz score 185 or so and we were all out for 75. My contribution was meagre as well as I was unable to field for entire 40 0vers of the game due to fitness problems. I have given away some 25 runs in 4 overs and scored 8 runs before being out LBW :( Probably my first LBW of my career. Now concentration is on Cuppers first match that will be played on Monday.

British Summer - Other side of Oxford

Oxford is so wonderful since couple of weeks as I am able to roam around in my sandals rather than shoes. Its so good to see sun setting at 9 PM and the temperatures hitting 20 degrees. Walk around port meadow and you can see an altogether different place, thanks to summer. I have been to a park from port meadow (forgotten the name of the park), which is like a small forest with dense shrubs and trees and what not!!!

And not to forget the Cricket season beginning. Linacre had so many games lined up and we had our first practise session last week. I have been playing cricket at SBS, thats more of a kids game with tennis ball practise. Its tiring last week to have practised with cricket ball. And we have nets today!!!!

Trinity's classes are starting from this friday for me. This will be another busy term with SCP presentations and assignments and importantly job search. I am already missing first match of Linacre next wednesday because of Infineon presentation. And to clarify a few, the situation of placements is no different in other leading schools such as Insead and LBS, as being informed by students of respective schools to SBS students, at a recently concluded competition at Insead.

Summer Consulting Projects

The busy times started again with the listing of consulting projects. So far around 30 projects were listed and 22 more are supposed to be listed soon. Though the description of projects cannot be revealed for the confidentiality issues, I guess I can discuss about the names of the firms which offered projects. EBay has listed 2 projects which are based at Germany, Intel has got one based at US, Infineon has got one at Germany, Infosys has one at Bangalore, Cognizant has got one at London etc., These are the ones that I focused on as they are IT firms. Others which looks impressive were Volkswagen, Nokia, Walt Disney, NY City, China mobile etc.,

Dell and Cisco are underway as far as I know, which means we might not run short of projects in IT sector. Trinity is going to start in a week and it promises to be another busy term with so many SCP presentations and assignments.

On the other side, I have been to London couple of days back and visited London eye, London tower and Aquarium. London tower is the one that I will suggest any visitor to visit first (atleast we have our own kohinoor there to watch). And its easy to make out from my trip on why London and UK, in general are why referred as costly places to be in.

My previous post on Placements

hmm!! I am not sure if I have sounded that negative with my post that lot of people pinged me to find out if the post is REAL NEGATIVE. I have just checked a thread in BW forums to compare between Ox and Cam job offers after MBA, based on my previous post. My intention was to just to inform incoming students about how they are going to get job offers rather than whether they are going to get job offers or not!!!!!

In a nutshell, my previous post means that you need to do good amount of networking to get your dream job rather than relying on careers services. And people comparing US schools and Insead to mention things are great there. Keeping all the hype aside, I am very curious if people who are mentioning this enquired about Indian nationals or foreign nationals in those US schools or Insead. Particularly, I am very curios to know how many Indians in US are sponsored H1s by companies to stay back or how many people in Insead are sponsored work permits by any firms. The REAL TRUTH is that very few people would have been sponsored visas to work with them. Infact I have been rejected by 3 firms so far though they liked my profile because they want to take it forward only after I get my HSMP.

And again, the quality of education, the brand, the networking opportunities etc., take a front seat for me than job offers. Ofcourse careers data is important but not to an extent to override others. And my experience just means that you need to work hard to grab that dream job rather than just selling on school's brand. Think of it: Do you wanna sell yourself or do you want school to sell you?, do you just wanted to contact HRs with the help of careers service or do you want to contact the REAL PERSON whom you will be working with, with the help of a networking opportunity??

And there are no free riders....Either its US B School or UK B School or IIMs or ISB or what ever, your experience is very important and your one year's MBA will not change what you are in the past.

Hope I am clear now as I complete my century (100 posts)