Oct 132007
 

I am now an official matriculated member of the University of Oxford, and no one can take that away from me. It was said so in Latin and explained to me in much further detail in English just what sort of rite of passage this is, and it was, actually, pretty cool.

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Me about to become an official Oxonian.

I’ve spent the last week (except for a quick 90 minutes on Thurs night at the Beer Festival) actually, finally going to classes. The beginning of the culmination of all my work the last 2 years, from deciding that I was going to do an MBA, to getting interrupted by my dad’s accident car wreck during Hurricane Katrina, to my mad GMAT prep, my dropping everything to run off to ID my dad’s body in DC after he died suddenly at Cirque du Soleil a year later, my return and deciding that I was going to go for a top school and not an EMBA program, to finally arriving here, losing my passport, motorcycling around and settling in and dropping an enormous amount of money on everything including my books. The classes are very good, and move very, very quickly. I’m glad I took a Finance and an Accounting class last year though I think this week pretty much covered half of that work. And there are four more classes.

I’m very impressed with my lecturers. They seem to have the right amount of speed and patience and very dry senses of humor. I’ve got four countries represented in six classes, so that’s good.

I’ll be brushing up some of my tech skills shortly as I was elected director of communication for the Social Entrepreneurs Oxford Business Network. There are about as many people interested in Social Entrepreneurship at SBS as there are into any other particular thing. Which is very cool. I’ll be responsible for working with the team that runs the OBN in making contacts within and outside of the School, the University, the alumni network, outside companies (please drop me a comment or a line if you are or know someone who might be interested in working with top MBAs), etc. I’ll be working on setting us up as a Net Impact chapter shortly (thanks to Savina for taking point on this already…), seeing what other initiatives are out there, and hopefully working to reduce the plastic cup and bottled water usage at SBS (to be fair, they’re pretty good, but we compete against perfection, not against other business schools or each other).

So, big plans.

Not to mention passing all my classes.

Big week, very impressive, lots of great networking with for- and non-profits, trying to remember everyone’s name, putting my foot in it at the Beer Festival by mixing up the names of 2 of my classmates, drinking way too much great locally made beer and not being able to sleep properly, getting about 80% of the reading in but feeling like my head’s actually mostly above water, boozing it up at Oxford’s Zeitgeist, the Turf Tavern until they closed last night. This place is great. Good local/handmade/cask ales (they’re doing part 92 of the Beer Festival in a couple of weeks), THREE outdoor gardens, non-surly staff, plus you have to know where it is to get there. The biggest secret that everyone knows. And I mean everyone.

I ended up there after Matriculation this morning, again. My MCR had us up for a Champagne brunch in our subfusc. We got tipsy, ate, drank coffee, and then had our names checked off of a list (Matriculation is a very big deal– you actually cannot graduate unless you matriculate, even if your dog died).

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Champagne for breakfast, and afterwards…

Afterwards we all had a beautiful walk through Christ Church AKA Harry Potter college over to the Sheldonian theatre. Hundreds of people in subfusc hungover and going to be a member of the University.

There’s a big of pomp and circumstance and a quick back and forth in Latin which basically says “Can we make these people who are all dressed alike here members of the University of Oxford” followed by “Yes, I accept you all into the University”.

You may (must?) now us the Oxford Comma.

(I made that last part up. But here are some more photos of us in the street to make up for it)

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Myself and Adam dressy

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Ed and Naa Aku

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That’s a lot of subfusc. This is the next crew: 39 colleges, lots of matriculations.

Afterwards we went off back to the Turf and had some more beers. I left around 1 to head back and get some homework done, which I am now taking a break from.

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Geetha at the Turf. I love this photo. She hasn’t seen it yet.

One of my MBA-mates, Abhijit made this, which I thought was very cool.

That’s all for now. Sorry it’s so fractious but I’m saving my editing for the case that’s due tomorrow.

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 Posted by at 10:01

  2 Responses to “One down, 51 to go”

  1. Nice bow tie.

    But that alone won’t get you into the Nation of Islam, my friend.

  2. I am jealous. You are going to have a great time. Lots of hard work, but working on the right stuff. Good luck Glenny!! Miss you!

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