Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Facebook

If you don’t know facebook, it is just another networking tool like Hi5 and so many others. I didn’t know facebook until I was told it was almost mandatory to join it while in Cambridge. So, instead of waiting, I just joined it a couple of weeks ago.

And I’m glad I did so. There are already some groups formed, like the Cambridge 2008 MBA group or the Judge Business School incoming class of 2007 and they have been growing as time passes by. The cool thing is that I have been reached by many future students from many different parts of the world who also seem to be very excited with the coming year. And not only MBAs, but students that will read other courses at Judge. I must confess I didn’t even think about all the other interesting courses Judge has to offer. That just means the Judge community is much larger than the MBA community and will allow me to get to know much more people that I expected.

I think it will be a great year!

Monday, August 27, 2007

The two sides of packing

Less than two weeks to go, it is time for packing. I packed bags many times in my life, but never before in this type of situation. This time, I am going to be away from my home country for quite some time. I’ll be living in a different country for some time and I must be prepared. So these last days have been spent shopping for things I want to take with me, mainly I’m talking about nice warm clothes.

I now have officially begun the hard task of packing. Right now I’m putting all the stuff I’ll need in boxes so it can be shipped to me. Stuff like books, clothes, bedding stuff, shoes and even suits. I know I’ll need one or two suits for interviews, formal halls and, of course, parties. Of course, there are many things I’ll buy once I get there because they just aren’t worth sending.

Packing is never easy. But this time packing has two sides. One side of excitement for all that will happen in the next year. All the new people I’ll meet, the new experiences, the knowledge and even all the opportunities that may arise. That’s really fantastic.

But there is also another part. I’m referring to all the things I’m leaving behind. For the first time in my life I’m leaving my country for a long period of time, which means I’m leaving all the things I’ve always known my entire life….family, friends, places. I must say it is a weird feeling.

So…with these mixed feelings I’ll just keep on packing and hopefully in the next couple of days I’ll have almost everything ready!

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

A thousand times

It has passed five months since I started this blog. In it I tried to describe some of the phases I went through in the whole process of being admitted to Cambridge. Today this blog has registered its 1000th visit which means it has been visited, on average, around 200 times each month. Although I don’t get many comments on the blog it seems like there are many people out here visiting my blog and hopefully getting some relevant information.
In these five months I got visits from all over the World. From places like Georgia to Korea, or from Malaysia to Peru. It seems however that most visitors are from the United Kingdom, the United States, India, Japan and the Netherlands.

The most popular post is the one explaining why I decided to take an MBA. I guess there are many of you out there still thinking whether it is a good option or not. I hope my view is helping somebody out there.

Now that this pre MBA phase is coming to an end I would guess the blog will become more interesting as I’ll be able to post the actual experience of being there. I just hope I have the time and availability to keep posting.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Career Leader

As stated before, one of the reasons that made me choose Cambridge over other options was the feeling of being unique and having a very personnel approach due to its lower class number.
I haven’t started the program but it feels like it has already started. After connecting future students through Camtools Portal, enabling us to access an enormous career database and giving some reading suggestions for the summer, we have been recently given a new task: completing a set of tests which are part of a Harvard developed tool known as Career Leader. Its goal is to highlight our main motivators, strengths, weaknesses and awareness of ourselves and try and match our personalities with the most suitable careers for us. The results are given to us and to Cambridge’s careers team so that they can meet with us on arrival and discuss the possible paths and best strategies. It just gives me the feeling they are all working very professionally and that comforting.

As for the test, it seems pretty reliable and its results were no surprise to me. They just reinforce what I know and what I want.

Interestingly enough, as time passes by and I’m more aware of what each career means and implies instead of being surer, I’m having even more doubts. I guess I’m realizing this year will be so intense I shouldn’t even have any predefined ideas. I should keep an open mind and try to seize the opportunities and make the best out of this year.

I’m hoping things will just come naturally.

Thursday, August 2, 2007

Private accommodation

After giving a lot of thought about the accommodation issue, I decided to go for private accommodation. The reasons for this can be seen in my previous posts on this matter.
Instead of going for college accommodation, I decided I wanted to share a house with some MBA mates. And I’m very happy with my decision as the house we will be living in is awesome and really seems comfortable.

It is very important when being in a foreign country to be well settled. It is important to have a nice place where you can relax, study or even give parties. And I’ll be able to do some stuff otherwise I couldn’t, like cooking whenever I feel like it or doing the laundry without having to leave the building.

So I guess I won’t have to keep my promise of posting pictures of college accommodation here!