Module 4 - yes, four weeks in.  So take about 50 executives, place them in a lecture theatre for nine hours a day for a week, cover marketing, strategy and organizational behaviour, amoung other things, and I can tell you a couple of things will happen.  First, the class has become very adept at analyzing case studies.  Second, we have figured out how to take disparate subjects and leverage them into one continuous stream of business management methods and ideas.  Third,  we really appreciate coffee breaks.

This course is intense;  we are completing the equivalent of one year’s work into 16 weeks of intense sessions, not counting all the work done in between modules.  However, being in Oxford surely makes it inspirational.  The School does a great job with our included accommodation near the Business School, the library at the School has its share of seats occupied by Executive MBA colleagues, you can always find students in local establishments debating capitalism and finally, working in small groups tries even the most experienced manager.  The key to this experience is the learning first — the rest, the friendships made, the debates (some won, some lost), the jokes, the dinners . . . you will leave here, if even after only four weeks, left with new techniques to implement at the office and the impression that you have been part of a tradition in the making (the Executive MBA programme is only in its fifth year) and an institution that you are now gaining an appreciation for (800 years I hear at this point).