3 Steps to Epiphany (aka, the 3-Day Cycle)

At the start of the term, we were handed over big 'case packs' for each of the 6 subjects that we are covering this term. Each of these case packs contains *all* the material that you need to tackle that subject during that term. Now, for most subjects, the *all* implies that you don't even need a subject-matter text book for the year. However, for a couple of subjects, a supplementary text book is also needed. For this year, I had to buy a book for Accounting and will likely borrow or buy a book for Operations.


Term 1 Case Packs

These case packs contain various reading material including case studies (hence the name 'case' packs). All learning at Cranfield is done at 3 levels over a period of 3 days and this is known as the 3-day cycle.

On day one, you go through the material in your case packs on your own. You reach an understanding of the subject matter and are now ready to discuss the topic with a larger group and this group is your learning team.

So, on day two you discuss the topic with your team members each of whom is also expected to have gone through the case material. The discussions take place either in the morning or in the afternoon depending on when the classes are scheduled. The learning team is fixed for each term and in my case the team consists of 5 members. The typical team size is 6. There is an unwritten policy when it comes to the team composition and that is with respect to the number of women in the team. The team will either have zero female members or two. I guess the reason is to prevent any kind of dominance by the male members over a single woman in the team.
During the learning team discussions wider perspectives over the topic or the case study may emerge and this is quite likely to happen since team members will have different professional and cultural backgrounds. My team has members from the UK, Russia, Pakistan, India and Germany and with professional experiences ranging from 6 to 12 years. So the discussions in the learning team are an absolute value addition.

Day three is when you will have your class session on the topic and are completely ready to explore all aspects of the topic with your stream. The professor leads the discussion and the entire class is expected to participate. Inputs from over 50 students across 8 or 9 teams makes the discussions absolutely lively and interesting. There are in some cases post-reading sessions but they are almost always optional since at the end of the class session i.e., at the end of the day three you are expected to have a very good grasp of the topic on hand.

That's it. That forms the 3-day cycle - learning on your own, then in your learning team and then in your stream. And if you didn't already grasp this by now, each day will typically be a day one for some subjects plus it will be day two for few other subjects plus day three for few more topics. That is, on any given day, I am studying a few topics on my own, discussing a couple of topics with my learning team and in addition sitting through the classes. Fun, isn't it?

My first four weeks at Cranfield

Its been exactly a month since I arrived here at Cranfield. On the one hand it feels like I did the last post only days ago. On the other hand so much has happened since I arrived that it feels like I have been here all the while.

I arrived here on the 22nd of September 2010. My initial idea was to attend the pre-mba maths programme, but I was told on the 21st that I wasn't eligible for the course since I had a fairly decent GMAT score. I had already booked the flight from Karlsruhe-Baden airport to London Stansted, so I decided to nevertheless fly on the 22nd itself. In a way, this turned out to be for the good since it gave me a couple of days to get to know the campus, the surroundings and interact with many others who had already landed arrived on campus.

And what a great time has it been until now! Life at Cranfield started off with the Orientation Week. This is probably the best time one will experience as a complete cohort. As the name indicates, the week was about orienting us in our new environment and was an excellent opportunity to get to know the rest of the cohort. The week is packed with activities and might sometimes even seem a bit overwhelming, but suffice it to say that this is one great week that will stay on my mind forever. It is just amazing how much we managed to get to know each other and how much we achieved as a group in such a short time. And the people who made this so amazing are the students from the last cohort. There are no classes and no professors during this week. Its just us, the newbies, with our guides i.e., the ones who have just undergone the Cranfield experience and who can best explain it to us.
Kudos to Cranfield for devising the orientation week or the O-week, as it is more commonly known. One needs to truly experience the O-week to understand how the mantle of the Cranfield MBA is passed from generation to generation.

There was no time to recover from the O-week. The second week started off bang at 08:45 on Monday morning, the 4th of October (the 'official' start of the academic year), with the lectures. Its just been 3 weeks of lectures but we have covered a great amount of ground in just these 3 weeks. So much so, that the first report submission deadline is already looming close and so is our first WAC (Written Assessment of a Case - more about it once I have personally experienced one).

It had been close to 12 years since I sat in a classroom and one of the fears that I had was whether the lectures would put me to sleep! I couldn't have been more wrong. Each of the lectures, backed with great case studies, has made the class environment absolutely dynamic. I cannot think of any one person in the class who hasn't participated in the discussions so far. And it is also not possible to hide away in the class. Most lecturers cold call on the students and take the pains to ensure that there is a fair balance in the class discussion contributions. No single person is allowed to dominate these discussions.

There is a lot happening already beyond the lectures. Competitions like the AT Kearney Global prize competition, career counselling, workshops for tailoring CVs, applying for jobs (yes, already!), guest speakers and lots more. Different student clubs have already been formed including the consultancy club, the entrepreneurship club and various sports-related groups. But there is one club for which we all automatically become an 'associate member' and that is the 'Social Club'. This is one place which is frequented religiously by the MBAs and as the weeks get tougher, it goes without saying that this will be one club that will rule over all the others - the one club that will bring us and bind us all together.

Cheers!