As a continuation to my last post, I thought it might be useful to share my opinion on the electives that I took in the Hilary term. MBA’s take three core classes and two core electives in the Hilary term.
Macroeconomics: The course content is self explanatory. Topics covered include national accounting, growth, taxes, currency, inflation etc. I’m someone who reads a lot of economics blogs and I consider myself well versed on macro and microeconomics. I found a lot of microeconomic lectures to be quite basic and was thus hesitant about taking this course. However, I decided to take it after receiving strong recommendations from several alumni. The course was at just the right level for me and I learned a lot from it. Even areas that I thought I understood well, my understanding deepened after completing this course. Conversely, if you are someone who does not already understand the basics, you will find this course challenging (which may or may not be a good thing). The professor is excellent and the lectures are quite entertaining. You may not directly apply the concepts learned in this course in your career, but I think that every MBA student should be familiar with the material covered in this course. Note that as part of the upcoming MBA revamp, this course is being merged with Microeconomics (into a new course called Firms & Markets) and hence this elective may not be offered in the future. Highly recommended.
Strategy & Innovation: Strategy & Innovation (S&I) focuses on nascent markets, organisational capabilities for innovation, and the strategic management of emerging technologies. As a software engineer who is looking to transition into product management, this course was great. There is a lot of reading and advance prep required for this course (case + required readings) and if you show up to class without any preparation, you will not get much out of it. Additionally there are three assignments and one formal coursework and an exam. After completing this course I gained an understanding of how innovation occurs and why technology companies have adopted some of the policies that they have (open layouts, flat management structures, restrictions on working from home). I did not find every lecture interesting, but the ones that were relevant were invaluable and if you want to work for a technology company post MBA, you should take this course. For a taste of what this course covers, watch Steven Johnson’s TED talk on innovation. Highly recommended.
Finance 2 (Audited): I was torn between taking this course and S&I and finally settled on auditing Finance 2 because I knew that it would be hard to do the three S&I assignments and formal coursework and readings without the incentive of being graded. Finance 2 on the other hand only has one exam and hence you don’t really miss out by auditing. An alum recommended the course as an excellent intro to the finance electives that would be available in the Trinity term and I tend to agree with him on this. The lectures on IPO’s, and Private Equity were the most interesting while the lectures on trading, options, and bonds were quite dull (I’m referring here to the topics and not the professor who is excellent). Note that as part of the upcoming MBA revamp, this course is being merged with Finance 1 and hence this elective may not be offered in the future.
The week ended with the Digital Marketing exam. This was the only exam that I needed to take this term and hence was quite bearable. After completing the final exam, the tradition at Oxford is to get ‘trashed’. This involves being showered with flour, champagne, shaving cream and other materials by other students. As we walked home, we were congratulated by the local people and students who recognised that we had completed all our examinations. We also attracted many stares from the hordes of curious tourists who seem to have overtaken Oxford now that summer has arrived. And with that the third and final term at Oxford is now complete. I plan to stay back in Oxford for the summer to work on my SCP and get down to job hunting. I will keep this blog updated until Capstone week which will take place during the second week of September.
The Oxford MBA Comma 