Arrival at Cranfield

15th September 2007, 6:30 p.m. local London time: My flight was right on time even though it departed from New Delhi at 1:50 p.m. IST (late by 20 mins from the scheduled time). I was accompanied by Anil n Kunal. We went to the Immigration Counter at the Heathrow Airport and were surprised to see a v long queue of people mostly Asians. It took about 2 hours to go through immigration thanks to the Chest X-rays which we carried from India; otherwise it would have taken an additional 1 hour at the airport.
It was really disgusting to wait in the queue for hours just for immigration clearance; and the immigration checking officials were interviewing as if they were yet to grant visa- why have you come, how will you finance your studies blah blah….. When we have already completed all the formalities during visa application, why the hell do they ask further questions? The explanation for long queues was that the Government has applied stricter rules and checks in the wake of recent terrorist attacks.
I was worried that the University driver, who had arrived at the Heathrow airport at 730 p.m. (LST) may have left by then. Finally we came out of the airport at about 840 and to our relief, Dave (an employee of Cranfield) was standing with the board that said- CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY. Besides him was standing a smart lady, who I later came to know was our MBA colleague- Sepideh. She is from Iran and when we all boarded the mini bus the journey of learning started. First Dave welcomed all of us to Uk and after that we all got busy sharing our profiles, experiences and cultures. Sepideh told us that Iran is not the way it is projected by the Western media. The country has developed leaps n bounds and is doing well at all the fronts.
We stopped on the way at a petrol station to get some bread, milk etc. as it was already 930 n v knew that by the time we shall reach University we shall feel hungry and we wont get anything to eat in night.
Cranfield is situated about 8 miles from Milton Keynes and at about 60 miles from London. The location is a bit remote and its not v easy to access the University through Public Transport. That’s why personal cars are a necessity here. Milton Keynes is a major shopping centre for the University inhabitants, however all the items of daily use are easily available in campus itself.
We had a nice Sunday as we met all our fellow MBAs. Only a limited no. of people were there as for the first 2 weeks we have Pre MBA course, which is not open for everybody. The Pre MBA is meant for people from countries other than UK, Us n Europe. The purpose of Pre MBA is to make the international students aware with the socio-economic picture of UK and the course is purely optional. One may opt for not attending the course as well. Normal Full Time MBA starts from 1st October 2007.
We went around the campus of the Cranfield on Sunday evening. The facilities, especially in R&D really are very impressive. The University has a big air-space and I feel a fully functional airport can be built here. A no. of different types of planes, meant for training purpose, can be seen.
Next morning, on 17th September, we were asked to report at 845 a.m. So I went to sleep in time as I did not want to get reprimanded for being late on the v first day itself ;-)