ATK….. so near yet so far.

A lot has happened in the last 15 days. There were so many submissions, assignments, reports and other tasks in the past 10 days that I could hardly get any spare time to write anything. In between there was another WAC (Accounting one).

Life is really very tough these days, and I am consistently reminded of my days in India when I used to have a lot of free time; but then this is the true face of the life of a MBA. You have to manage your time and Cranfield MBA is teaching us quite well- the time management. I may have been sounding boring as I have been emphasizing too much on hectic life and time management, but this is how the life is going on here.

Admissions at Cranfield for the next batch have begun, and I was reminded of the anxious times when I was applying to the global MBA institutes. I still remember the day when I got the mail from the Cranfield admin regarding my admission; I was so happy.

Well, that’s history now. Let’s get back to present. I think I mentioned here in some blog that I participated in AT Kearney Consultancy Challenge but could not make it to finals. On Sunday, I got the feedback regarding my submission and I was so sorry to find that our team missed the finals by just 1 point. Gutting… just a single point. I was not depressed when I found that I have not made it to the finals, but it was really disheartening that we lost by just 1 point. The evaluater said that our presentation was well recieved, but the winning teams had used more of the MBA jargons and more of the marketing analysis tools; that was where we lost the game. Our analysis was almost similar and presentation even better; but we did not use MBA tools as we were not aware of them, then. Its pertinent to mention here that the ATK Challenge was during the first month of our MBA. Other teams consulted faculty, who advised them to use techniques, which were taught to us later in the course. Had I been aware of them then, I would have incorporated all the analysis and jargons. At the end, its all about learning and performing, and I must say that I have learned a lot from ATK challenge. One learns from other teams, from self experiences and from the research required for such competitions.

Today, we just concluded our SMS (Strategic Marketing Success) Presentations. What a day it was! 8 presentations in total and all very creative, entertaining and showed the hard work put in by the teams. Our team researched on ‘Burberry’- British heritage fashion brand. The report writing was easy but the toughest part was presentation, which involved a labour of more than 10 hours. I am enjoying making presentations and am discovering a lot of new and creative styles of presentations. The best part is that my peers give a lot of attention to my peers as they are enthralled by the passion, energy and enthusiasm that I display during the presentations. These comments are not my creation, but the feedback from faculty and other MBAs.

Last week we went to London for Cranfield annual networking event. It was first such event for me, and it was good to meet a lot of alumni (especially the people who did their MBAs long time back) amid drinks and snacks.

Just 2 weeks are left for the first term to get over, as in the third and the last week we have our exams. Its hard to believe that term one is about to complete. Then, its hard to believe a lot more things like losing ATK by one point.