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The exams are all done.  It is possible that they are the last exams I will ever do.  An exam is a strange environment and a total intensive memory test.  In the past I have never performed at my best in them but this last set were the  best I have ever done. Results aside, I was very happy with my “exam performance” and did my best.

I took a different approach this time to before and although my nerves (and adrenaline!) were still high as I turned over the papers, I was able to recall much better and gave myself time to compose what I was going to say.

Exams are stressful but I kind of enjoyed it!  Also, I learnt a lot studying for them that will be very useful for me in future – the ultimate aim anyway.

The results will be out in a few months (after the marking and external marking and appeals and other admin …)

Yeserday was a great party.  Some of the guys put on a bash at their flat, with every colour alcoholic jelly, shotters and beers.  The weather was warm and sunny and it felt great letting off steam.

Tonight is the “Night at the Oscars” Ball and so final preparations are underway.  It will be a good night and everyone is making a big effort on the outfits.  Who has won the Oscars themselves is a closely guarded secret, with all to be revealed on stage later …

The exam week is upon us and even though I was well prepared today, the nerves are always there.

Those chilling words “and you may now turn over your papers and begin” echoed around the (different) basketball court (again) as a few hundred of us got our heads down and calculators out.

The exam format was such that there was a multiple choice, two long numerical questions and an essay question to answer in the time.  Counterintuitively, by far the most difficult section is always the multiple choice.  The reason for this are that you can only be right or wrong (no method marks!), there is little time (only 3mins on average) and because, the lecturers are super worried about people saying it is easy, I recon make it super tricky.

For example:

Which of the following statements is true?
a) The beta of a simple portfolio consisting of only two assets does not
depend on the correlation coefficient between the returns of the assets.
b) According to the CAPM, firms with the same beta will earn the same
expected return, irrespective of how large or small the firms are.
c) Other things being equal, the higher the covariance between the returns
of an asset and the returns of the market, the higher the asset’s beta.
d) All of the above.
e) None of the above.

or

The MacDonald family are considering the following retirement plan: for the next 30
years, they will pay a fixed amount each month into a fund. Thereafter, they will
withdraw £2,500 each month for the following 20 years. If the fund earns a return of
6% per annum, how much (approximately) must they pay into the fund each month
for the first 30 years to finance their withdrawals for the remaining 20 years?
a) £347
b) £363
c) £755
d) £935
e) None of the above.

It is those killer choices at the end ‘All/None of the above’ that make questions like this so tricky.  Rather like the GMAT for those reading this who have been through that boot camp of a test.

Happily I think the exam went well regardless so now have my head down for the next three, that are all in quick succession Wednesday through Thursday.

Next week we have (another round of) exams and where I have four, others have only 2.

Revision however is going well so far, after a fairly shaky start to Corporate Finance, everything is now much clearer.

The MBA definately gives back the more you put into it and you are not spoon fed.  This has come as an annoyance and shock to some at first but really what can you expect.  There is an interesting dycotomy however, as they are paying significantly for something that they may not actually get in the end i.e. the MBA ticket.  It is therefore interesting to see the different reactions to that, especially when exams, projects and jobs are being discussed, as they are all really tough.

The Ball organisation is coming together too, with one of my friends leveraging his girlfriends expertise in such matters – it is going to be great.  Doing different things like this really brings out talents in people you may never have happend upon – the discovery of mastery negotiation skills in one friend, for example, has been truely impressive!

We are going to take advantage of the garden this summer so went out and got some garden stuff this morning.  The highlight being (I hope!) the grow your own chilli’s … check back for chill growing progress!

Good luck to all those who are racing this weekend and to those of us left who are revising.

Quite a sad day today.  The core models for this years class have finished and that means that we will never all be in the same place again – and for some this can’t come too soon!

I was in reflective mood though, thinking how life has moved on from those awkward, getting to know you days, back in September.  The classes have always been good fun and I compare them to a fantastically intense shot in the arm.  Characters have come to the fore and love has blossomed for many …

Most people seem to have signed up for the ball, so I will get to see everyone, but the class dynamic will now always be a happy memory.

The end of last week finished well. Another presentation for Corp Finance was concluded and it was good that I had done something a little different for this than everyone else; 10 groups had the same case so there was some repetition as you would imagine, but no-one had the same results, thus showing how important assumptions are in calculating WACC (great name!)

Thoughts now move to revision and to the reports that I need to do the week after. My modelling team are ahead of schedule for this so hopefully I will only have two individual assignments to complete by this time; one for Corporate Finance on Ford and one for Marketing on the computer games console industry.

I am also organising an end of term bash for the class. We have found a local stately home and are having “a night at the Oscars” ball. The challenge has been to be as inclusive of the diversity within the group as possible, and I am enjoying it. The awards will be a highlight of the evening and catagory suggestions are flooding in!

It promises to be a great night and a good way to finish the term.  It will also be the last time that near everyone will be all together in the same place.  This terms seems to have flown past much quicker than last and I will be in reflective mood tomorrow when we meet in class, as a whole, for the last time.

It is a great day.  Not least because it is sunny again but I am really happy at the news that the organisation that once was Honda F1 will now exist as Brawn GP – another independant on the grid is great news.

This week is flying by again.  SSLC meeting on Monday, group meetings until late into Monday & Tuesday nights, Corporate Finance presentation tomorrow, Entrepreneurial Finance due in tomorrow, PoM due in tomorrow, Dissertation evening tomorrow night and exams coming over the horizon a week on Mon.

I was presenting for Modelling (statistics) on Tuesday and also Wednesday for the final Practise of Management session about how we got on for the last 6 months working at a local Age Concern charity.

With presentation fatigue setting in for the class, I took the plunge to dust off my movie making skills and put together something more stimulating than another bullet pointed PowerPoint slide.  It worked – with the Professor behind the Dragons Den table bursting into spontaneous applause afterwards!

A great few days at WBS and it is still sunny here!

A sunny picture to compliment the sunny day today.

To be honest it feels like week 8 hasn’t really finished and here we are, Monday again.

It is an intensely packed week ahead, with presentations for me today, tomorrow, Wednesday (the Dragons Den is back!) and on Friday.  With presentations of course comes preparation and this can take some time.  10 people have their own view on the best way to convey the hard work that we have done during the term; that anxiety being that as the presentations are the things that are graded, if they don’t convey things appropriately then all the team suffer in their grades.  It is also interesting to see peoples attitudes to risk on these exercises; no matter how many times we are advised the way NOT to create “death by powerpoint” presentations, people cling onto the infamous bullet point, like a safety blanket.

I have been able to dust off my movie making skills however and I hope the Dragons will like what I have put together; ultimately the client liked what we have done and the film(s) should convey this in a fun way.

The presentations will be good but stepping out of the comfort zone to produce something awesome will have to wait a little long; the great thing is that I now have the skills in the locker to do it in the future.