october already...

Well, it has been a very busy few days since the last post. Lots more wandering town, lots more errands run, and time spent making my room cozier! Though we still don't have heat and much of the rest of the house is in pretty bad shape, I'm starting to feel pretty comfortable in my room, which is a nice feeling. It is hard to believe that it is already October and our actual classes still don't start for another week.

We had a few careers sessions at the school already (yes, even in the week before orientation starts - they are serious about getting us ready!). There were workshops on both management consulting and also finance and banking; and I think I can say that I never really had much interesting in working in Investment Banking or any other area of finance after finishing here, but after the session on Friday, I am even more convinced that it's not the area for me. At least it is nice to cross one sector off of the list, so that I can focus my energy on all of the other sessions that come along.

Saturday we had our first gathering of the new MBA class. There are 227 of us, from at least 49 different countries, which is quite impressive. The head of the program also mentioned that applications to business schools across the world have been decreasing on average 30%over the past few years, but Oxford is actually the only major program that has actually increased in both applications and in size. That's nice to hear! After that brief intro, we were split into groups of six and sent off on a scavenger hunt around Oxford. It took a few hours to track down all of the information, and while our team thought that we had a fairly decent chance of doing well, we didn't finish in the top three. All in all a pretty fun day (ended at the pub, or course), and as with every day here lots of new faces and names to learn! I think about 10-15 names a day is my brain's limit for retention, so I think I maybe know about 100 new people since I've arrived. Not bad, but there are many more to go!

Today two of my housemates, Brooke and Bonnie (my fellow MBA student in the house) and I took a field trip out of Oxford to Blenheim Palace, which is located in Woodstock about 8-10 miles north of the city. Here is a photo of the three of us near the entrance gate:

The palace is the ancestoral home of the Duke of Marlborough (I think they are up to the 11th or so at this point), and is the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill (he was one of the Dukes). The palace was really huge and was pretty opulent inside as well. People still live there, so there were only certain areas available for tours. Also there were exhibits about Churchill, covering his whole life including some interesting photos, stories and letters from his childhood, as also about the first Duke of Marlborough, who led a big army to victory in Germany in the 1700's and received the funds to build the palace (as well as the title) as a result.

In addition to the palace itself, the grounds were absolutely immense. We spent a good two hours walking around, and covered maybe a third of what there was to see. There was a lake, lots of walking trails, amazing gardens (many of them), waterfalls, play areas for children (including a maze and giant chess games and the like), a butterfly house and much more. I had heard it was a big place, but it was even much larger than I had imagined. All three of us agreed that it was great to get out of Oxford for an afternoon and to get some fresh clean air for a change. We stopped for some tea and scones in the village of Woodstock before catching the bus back to Oxford. A lovely afternoon!