15.02.07 trip to cambridge

Today we went to Cambridge University for a job fair. Cambridge is the second oldest English speaking University in the world, after Oxford. It's modelled to a large extent on the Oxford collegiate system, and is about as close to Oxford as you're going to get, though I hear that St Andrews is kind of similar. The story goes something like this...

"Two Oxford scholars were convicted of the murder or manslaughter of a woman and were hanged by the town authorities with the assent of the King. In protest at the hanging, the University of Oxford went into voluntary suspension, and scholars migrated to a number of other locations, including the pre-existing school at Cambridge (Cambridge had been recorded as a "school" rather than University when John Grim held the office of Master there in 1201). These post-graduate researchers from Oxford started Cambridge's life as a University in 1209..."

- "Cambridge University" Wikipedia, 19 February 2007

Rivalry

There has been a rivalry of some sort ever since this time, and there's a million stories about how the Oxford guy messed with the Cambridge guy, and vice versa. Like all school rivalries, it's really kind of stupid, but you can't help thinking about the differences and that you'd like for your school to be the better one. The fact that the Financial Times MBA rankings had Cambridge beating Oxford by a few ranks this year certainly added fuel to the fire. Honestly, from my perspective: given that no international programs are even listed alongside US schools in US b-school rankings, and these are the two non-US schools that anyone in the US is ever going to have heard of... if you're going overseas and coming back, they are really the only two choices. I could spend the rest of my life explaining why "City University" means something different in England than it does in the States, why LBS is really better than Yale or Dartmouth, how IE and IMD outrank MIT, or even worse, explaining what "INSEAD" is and why the French would know anything about business... and get nowhere. Or I could just go to a school that every American automatically thinks is a big deal, even though they probably aren't basing their opinion on the FT, Businessweek, personal experience, or any other substantive source. This is just what you get going to Oxford or Cambridge, that's how it is, and I'm happy to take all the freebies I can get. :) Bla bla bla school rivalries, Ean-relativism, etc., Ok.

On the Road

So, at 9AM on Thursday February 15th, we went to the Judge Institute (the Cambridge MBA school) for a job fair. The list of participating companies was fairly impressive: Accenture, Altran, Amazon, Atkins Global, BearingPoint, Capgemini, Cognizant, Convergys, Deloitte & Touche, Essent Trading, Fidelity International, Fitch Ratings, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, KPMG, London Asia Capital, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Ocado, PA Consulting, Parson Consulting, Proudfoot Consulting, PRTM, Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, and Tech Mahindra Ltd. And they are fairly impressive IF you're an aspiring management consultant. Other than a few non consulting shops like Amazon and J&J, there actually weren't a ton of options though. MBA school recruiting seems to follow this pattern in general, the world breaks up into 3 groups: Investment Bankers, Management Consultants, and "everything else anyone ever did for a job" ...something our careers office often refers to as "consolidated industries". I think that term is funny. But, we all knew this going out to Cambridge, and basically planned to check out some employers, hang out in the opposing camp, see the town, and GET LOADED. We do that last bit rather well, I might add. So, the day began with dark suits, ties, laptops, and a 3 hour bus ride through the countryside.

Cambridge and The Judge

I finished up my International Business and Global Governance paper on the ride over, treating myself to a Led Zeppelin rock out session after I got done. The first thing that strikes you about Cambridge upon pulling into town is that it really is mostly uni buildings without a very big town around it. Oxford is pretty huge and sprawling, even though we never make it out of the central square mile. Cambridge is a tiny little medieval city without much more going on than the university. It's way more laid back too... the intense press of crowds in central Oxford are simply not there in Cambridge... this is actually quite nice. The Judge itself looks pretty cool from the outside, very urban and almost sort of Frenchy. Maybe it's the iron gate out front?

However, inside is a freaking mess. Besides sharing a color scheme with McDonald-lands across the US, the architecture was just pointedly weird and jarring. Crazy angles, sky bridges and multi floor catwalks sort of conjured up a freaked out Gaudí prison vibe. It had lots of open space but somehow still felt claustrophobic. I knew right away that I didn't fit in here, just because of the room vibe. Maybe I'm just prejudiced because my school is so nice... huge tall ceilings, lots of open space, chilled out light earthy tones, silent library-vault, a deep feeling of tranquillity and cool calmness, huge inner courtyard... sort of like if Princess Leia had a summer home in a caliph's palace? Anyway, I didn't dig the Judge's space.

The job fair was fine, I talked to a girl who works at Amazon in Bedfordshire, but lived in Ravenna in Seattle, right by my high school. Funny. IBM, and a couple of other booths were cool too, but nothing earth shattering. I may seriously give the Amazon gig a shot... it's an MBA rotation through management of some European fulfillment centres, call centres, etc., and then puts you in a good position for a high level gig in Seattle at some point. This would fit with Reebs and my plans well. So, maybe. In any case, after a few hours, we split from the fair and went for some lunch. Note that very few Judge students actually attended the fair... an indication of something?

This was fun, and we all seemed to have a heightened sense of camaraderie... I guess this is because we spend so much time together and were in a strange place. After lunch and some beers, we checked out some of the Cambridge colleges... pretty amazing. King's college is completely off the hook. It's less like a college and more like Parliament Square. The chapel is the size of a cathedral. I have a video that I'll post later. I walked around in a self imposed headphones isolation but with the whole gang and felt really weirdly close to them. This may confirm how weird I'm becoming here. 69 Love Songs is a great soundtrack to walk around Cambridge to, if you ever get the chance. :)

Niall and King's College

King's College

funny funny English stuff

The Viking Raiding Party Effect

Finally, we met the Judge students at a reception, where things took a typical turn. First, we finally got to talk to a few Judge MBAs (very nice and cool folks), and then we had some snacks and drinks. A funny thing tends to happen with our class of MBAs and I'm not sure why, but I just call it the "viking raiding party" effect. Basically, we end up at these nice catered events, chit chat for a while, have a few drinks, and then: we eat all their food. Then we drink all their booze. Then the gratuitous hitting-on of girls starts, followed by singing and rough-housing. Then, having exhausted all resources and overwhelmed our hosts, we empty forth into the streets and mayhem ensues. This has happened at various SBS and other events. Now it has happened in Cambridge too. We went to a bar where the members of Pink Floyd first met (I think?), sort of ran out of options there, and went to another.

me with some Judge folks at bar#1

The second bar was a very quaint place with heated outdoor seating and lots of nice people eating healthy looking food with their pints and nice conversation. The 50 odd SBS MBAs still out at this point pushed into the heated outdoor seating area, and started up with all the usual rough-house, beer spilling, loud singing, and gratuitous hitting-on behaviour*. The pub owners kept threatening to throw us out, but didn't for whatever reason. The Judge folks seemed to slowly disappear... either we were tiring them out or they just didn't want their local proprietors to know that they were friend with us! Can't blame them really. :) At 11pm, we all had to get back on the buses and ride home to Oxford. Walking home from the bus stop at 3am, Andrew and I talked about how we were really glad that we picked Oxford.

* note about hitting-on: not everybody does this. For example, nice married people like ME don't do it. We just watch the other MBAs do it and laugh at them. All other bad behaviour applies however.

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