There’s only one week of lectures left for Hilary Term. After that, it’s one week for revision and then, it’s exams week again. I can’t believe that the second term is already almost over. It seems that it just started. Last Friday, I submitted an assignment for Operations Management. It was about Zara, a multinational clothing retailer. I don’t think I have ever been in one of these shops. Anyways, the case study was about its IT infrastructure. We had to decide whether to keep the old system or to replace it with a new system. If we wanted to replace it which functionalities should we build into the new system? It was an individual assignment which is rather unusual because most of our practical work is done in groups. For example, for Operations Management, there were already two group assignments before the individual one. There’s one exception though. As one of the electives for this term, I chose Marketing, Culture & Society. That’s probably not such a typical MBA course. The amount of reading we have to do for this course is really immense. I’m not saying that there’s not much reading for all the other courses, but for that course, it’s definitely even more. We draw from anthropology and question some of the economic theories we are taught in other courses. It’s quite interesting but it definitely is a lot of work, not only because of the readings but also because of the assignments. It’s three of them and they are all individual. The last one – which is due a week from now – has a word limit between 4,500 and 5,500 words. I really have to get started on it. Yet, the good thing about this course is it doesn’t have an exam.

Also nice about the course is that we get to hear many guest speakers, e.g. Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones from L’Oreal and Paul Temporal who gave an interesting presentation on Nation Branding. In general, there was a really great variety of guest speakers at the business school this term. I can’t even remember all of them. But I will probably never forget John Bird’s presentation. He’s the founder of “The Big Issue” and drank a bottle of wine faster during his presentation than I would usually do at a party. Speaking of parties, that reminds me of the vibrant social life here in Oxford. One of the highlights was the Burns Night. At my college, Mansfield, we had a bagpipe player, some whisky and lots of really delicious haggis. There were several other nice dinners as well, e.g. the New Year Dinner at the Oxford and Cambridge Club in London or all the Exchange Dinners that my MCR (Middle Common Room) had organised with other college’s MCRs. I could probably go on writing about dinners forever. I just do love all these dinners. Another thing Oxford is famous for are the College Bops. Unfortunately, I only managed to go to one this term, the Hollywood Bop at Linacre College, but that was definitely a lot of fun. It’s almost sad that Hilary Term is nearly over. I just wished all the exams were already over, too!