trinity [week 10]: wimbledon

Every academic term at Oxford culminates with final exams during Week 10. During Michaelmas we sat for 6 exams over the course of just four days. Hilary lightened up, only in the sense that some courses required final papers rather than exams. But Trinity, as heavy as the work load was, consisted of very few final exams, depending on which electives you chose. Having only one final exam to take, Financial Risk Management, I was free to write my papers during Weeks 9 & 10, and also enjoy the rare bright sunshine in England!

One of the best ways to enjoy British life is to go to Wimbledon, which this year lasted from June 21st to July 4th. Tickets can potentially get very expensive. I remember reading advertisements in the Financial Times newspaper back in May that offered Centre Court tickets for the whole tournament for several thousand pounds. Individual tickets seemed to cost at least £300. The goods news is that Wimbledon sets aside over 1,000 tickets for each day of the tournament. All you need to do is to wait in line. Queueing for Wimbledon tickets for the same day has become a sort of sport in its own right. People camp over the night before, and cook BBQ, so that they can be the first in line to get Centre Court, or Court 1 tickets (second best).

To give you an example, I went on Wednesday for the quarter-finals men's matches. The top four men were all playing: Federer, Nadal, Djokavic, and Murray. We took the earliest possible Oxford Tube bus to London (Victoria Station), which left Gloucester Green at 4:10am. We arrived in London at about 5:30am, which was the exact time that the London Tube starts running. We took the green District Line toward Earl's Court, and got off at the Southfields stop, whose platform was made to look just like a tennis court! From there you can walk about a half-mile to the field where you queue, or just take a taxi for about £11.

We were on line at 6am, despite that the grounds don't open until 10:30am, and the first match wasn't played until 12pm. Nonetheless, we were #1,500 in the queue. You're only allowed to buy one ticket per person. We just barely managed to get tickets to Court 2, which means that all we got to watch were doubles matches. But the tickets were only £32, and we were just happy to be there. Plus, if you're a HSBC customer, you get free strawberries & cream! If you were interested in waiting in line to get Centre Court or Court 1 tickets, then my advice would be either to go earlier in the tournament when more matches are being played, or stay in a hotel in London the night before, and then take a 2am taxi to Wimbledon.

trinity [week 9]: scp bonding

Every year, Oxford MBAs have three options during the summer to satisfy their academic requirements: Strategic Consulting Project (SCP), elective courses, or Master's thesis (10,000 words). Next year, SBS will start counting internships for credit for the first time, too. Traditionally, most students opt for the SCP. The b-school has staff solely dedicated for sourcing, and administering SCPs for you. They're very helpful, and approachable. This year there were approximately 60 SCPs to bid for, some with big names such as Citigroup or De Beers, and some with decent packages, such as a salary, or free travel and accommodation. MBAs compete as teams of four for these more desirable SCPs. You can, of course, just circumvent the entire process by "sourcing" a SCP all on your own, which is what I did.

Back in April, I organized a student-led Trek to New York and Boston. During one of the company visits, with SecondMarket, I could sense that they had a lot of projects that they wanted to follow-through on, but since they were still relatively new and short-staffed they just didn't have the man-power they needed. So, during the Q&A portion of the presentation, I asked our host if he was interested in having a small group of Oxford MBAs come back during the summer to help. And happily, he agreed. I remember Donald Trump once writing, "It never hurts to ask, because the worse that can happen is that they say no."

Since April, I've been in contact with the New York office to iron-out the details. I had to draft a proposal for SBS to receive approval for academic credit, and I had to find a team of four MBAs in total. This was all difficult, considering that during this time I was still running the Finance Club, and taking 6 elective course, such as Corporate Valuation, Entrepreneurial Finance, and Financial Risk Management. Now that all the administrative work is out of the way, though, I thought that it would be a great time for the team to bond. And what better way to bond, then to spend a sunny weekend afternoon in Trinity term punting on the Cherwill with Pimms? Good friends, and good times. We learned a lot about each other, and spent time discussing the fast-approaching SCP with SecondMarket. I'm very proud of our team, too. After I tell people who's on our team, they usually raise an eyebrow, and simply say "Wow. That's a good team." Both Platt and myself were nominated for the "John Nash: MBA who can crunch numbers like kit kat bars" award, so that's when you know you've got the cream of the crop, or at least a tasty candy bar.

trinity [week 8]: royal ascot

This was my last week of classes. Some people measure their investment in an Oxford MBA by the price per class, which in this case would be approximately £242 per class [ £31,000 tuition / (16 courses x 8 classes each) ]. It's interesting how so much comes down to valuations, and how equally good rational can be used to support any number of valuations.

For example, on the first day of orientation our MBA Director told us something like "Welcome to Oxford...you have 30,000 days left to live...better make them count." Based on this definition of time-horizon, I calculate the MBA to cost me about £1 per day for the rest of my life. I like my definition best, because it allowed me to skip my last MBA class EVER on Thursday without moral reservation, so that I could dress in my "morning suit" replete with English gentry grey top hat, and attend the Royal Ascot.

What makes it so Royal? Well, the Queen leaves her estate in Windsor, and makes the ride in a horse-drawn carriage to Ascot where she then parades around the race track. The British love their queen. On the way home from the Royal Ascot, someone was actually more concerned with the Queen than the horse race, they asked me, "Oh...so did you see the Queen, how was she, did she look, well?"

If you come to Oxford, then you simply must attend the Royal Ascot. Women love it the most, because they can wear the most gaudy hats. This year the race was held from June 15 through June 19. We went on the Thursday, because that was when the Queen was coming. Tickets to the Grandstand cost £66, and I rented my morning suit at "Walter's on Turl Street" for just £55. The morning suit rental included the grey top hat, black jacket with tails, grey vest, and grey pants with black stripes. I supplied my own white dress shirt, black shoes, and tie. Beware that Moss' on the High Street tried charging me £89, so it's definitely worth shopping around, or at least go to Walter's - it's like stepping into the magic wand shop in Harry Potter.