‘Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.’

This is extremely useful advice to the potential EMBA student, if you are even thinking about an MBA; it is likely that you have the motivation. Just do it, as one famous sports brand once declared.

In my first months at Oxford, it is again motivation that I have found to be king – make sure you bring plenty with you. The EMBA is tough, especially if your day job demands a lot from you – which, chances are, it does. However, the rewards are extremely rich – as a young professional I have already found myself using much of the course content back at the ranch, I have even handed one essay directly to my boss as a recommendation for future investment.

For me, coming from a creative industry my ambition was to get better at the business side of things. Whilst the assessment criteria (GMAT, Essays, and Interview) defines whether you have the latent ability, the classroom at Oxford provides you with frameworks that begin to piece together all the small parts of acumen that you had, and your overall business knowledge become much more complete and useable as a result.

The school is immaculate, the resources plentiful, the faculty members quite brilliant…even lunch is passable. Where I have found most inspiration is from my course mates. I am the youngest on the EMBA currently, and I have learnt so much from the group work, general conversations, class interaction, and very occasional social excursions. Discussing businesses, and how people make decisions in the real world has been equally as valuable as the teaching itself.

The last 8 months have been quite challenging but also extremely rewarding. I remember the first time we all got together for dinner – 6 January 2007, the Sunday before we started lectures – when we were told to look around us and remember what it felt like to be in a room with 49 other people on the same journey, whom we did not know yet. We were promised (threatened?) that – once we had worked with each other through the night – we would soon know each other well. That was not an exaggeration.  

I am one of those people who like to use every minute leading up to the deadline for finalising an assignment – so more often than not, I burn the midnight-oil, my only companion being Skype, through which I touch-base with my EMBA colleagues across the world. Especially during assignment crisis.  

From the outset I assumed that this would be a very competitive experience – I had heard stories from friends who described Business
School as one long competition to beat the person in front of you. Here in Oxford – in my experience – nothing could be further from the truth.

Of course, almost everybody on this course is competitive – it is part of why we are here. Since January, however, I have rediscovered a different type of competitiveness which focuses on competing for more knowledge, better skills, better ideas whilst working with others. I have experienced true and frank exchanges of ideas and opinions, have discussed at least a dozen business ideas, and have exchanged assignments and criticisms of each other’s work with other colleagues. I have not only learned about the things on the curriculum, I have learned how awesome it feels when parts produce more than their mere sum.

The immediacy of applying what one experiences and learns on the course is one of the crucial advantages of studying part time, whilst holding down a full time job. I no longer simply focus on the tasks at hand, but remind myself that I am working with people, who need to be empowered, encouraged and respected for their own approaches to their work. I have also learnt to step away from the detail, and let those who excel at it, do their job. I have learned that I can step back and trust my team – things will not fall apart at the office. To some this must sound trivial – to me, it has been one of the key revelations of the past 8 months. 

Of course, I have also learned a lot on the course – that goes without saying. But as all the classes, readings and assignments perculate, I am starting to see things differently. I am not only able to hold a (short!) conversation with our accountants on principles of depreciation – I constantly put what I do in a longer term perspective.  

The most exciting element of the EMBA course for me so far, however, is the fact that this is essentially still a start-up programme. I will not claim that everything is perfect. But it feels terrific to be part of something new and special, something that we can still help to shape. As one of the two class representatives I hope that I have been able to contribute a tiny bit already – as a class, we still have many ambitions for the future, including establishing a scholarship for EMBA students from developing countries and initiating a fully electronic submission system for assignments. I am sure that as a class, we will achieve that, and much more.  

Looking into the future, my focus will turn – in the first instance – onto the next assignments (Financial Reporting, International Business) and the Entrepreneurial Project, which we will present to a panel of investors in December. It will be great to see everybody here in Oxford again – celebrating our first week as the Senior EMBA class – seven modules away from graduation! Time truly flies by when you are having fun.

This past Monday was our first Oxford exam experience and was our first time together in sub-fusc since Matriculation. The exam was quite challenging and a few of us are glad that we’ll have the opportunity do do resits in December should the results not match our expectations. After the exam, about half the class went down to the Turf for a traditional post-exam drink, complete with a toast to “the Bishop of Bath and Wells”. The whole thing was pretty nerve-wracking at times, but definitely part of the whole “Oxford experience”.

The rest of the week went by in a blur due to a finance assigment that needed to be handed in first thing on Friday morning. Working with my study group was great and I’m glad that my group members all tend to be fairly level-headed. We ended up submitting our assignment at around 11:30 PM on Thursday, or basically when security kicked us out of the building. I know some of the other groups worked well into the wee hours of the morning!

This module wasn’t all work though. We were treated to a great dinner at Worcester college on Wednesday with drinks in the college bar (and several others…) afterward. A few of us even found time during the week to enjoy the sunny weather and go punting out on the river for an hour or so. Once it was all over on Friday afternoon, about half the class got together for an Indian meal and a few drinks down at the Kings Arms.

I’m glad that the module is over as it was pretty much non-stop. Back in my office, a pile of work has been accumulating in my absence… best go to it.