Living on campus

There is just one word to describe the campus right now during the winter holiday season - dead. There is nothing happening here. The school is closed. So are the stores. And to top it all, the snow, the cloudy weather and the cold makes it all the more depressing.

But I wouldn't want to stay anywhere else if I was studying at Cranfield. The campus is definitely the place to be. I think this is where Cranfield scores high above all the other business schools in terms of providing a great campus, a decent on-campus accommodation and a very family-friendly atmosphere.

Accommodations
The Cranfield website provides a great deal of information regarding the on-campus accommodations. Singles can choose between Mitchell Hall, Stringfellow Hall, Lanchester Hall and Chilver Hall. I have personally been to the rooms in Stringfellow Hall and Lanchester Hall and both are reasonably good. Stringfellow Hall is one of the newest and most students I spoke to say they are quite happy about it. A lot of people complain about the en suite toilets in Chilver Hall and compare them to toilets on airplanes. Stringfellow, Lanchester and Chilver are self-catered which means that there is a common kitchen, typically shared amongst 6 residents. Mitchell Hall has no kitchen and students get food coupons for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The rooms in Mitchell Hall are also supposedly small (somebody referred to them as bunkers).

Families don't get to choose the type of accommodation they want. It is allocated based on the size of the family. Couples without children get accommodation in the Fedden house. These are studio apartments and I am yet to hear anything good about Fedden house. General feedback indicates that the apartments are too small, not well maintained and not warm enough in the winter.

Families with children are allocated so-called "family houses" - two bedroom houses for those with a single child and three bedroom houses for families with two kids. We are residing in a two bedroom house. My first impression was that the house was quite small and also old. But comparing the house to the other accommodations around Cranfield, I came to the conclusion that the accommodation is actually fairly decent.

Here are a couple of snaps of the two bedroom family house accommodation.

The rooms are reasonably sized. There is free internet connection - the university LAN connection connects you directly to the university intranet as well as the internet. The speed is comparable to broadband and I have had no issues with it so far. Heating and electricity has to be paid for separately i.e., in addition to the rent, which is unlike the other accommodations on campus. Heating costs around £50 per month and electricity is about the same. If you need a landline telephone connection, you can get it through BT. We just have mobile phones and opted not to have a separate landline. Free-to-air TV is available in all houses. There is a TV cable connection and all you need is a DVB-T receiver or a DVB-T enabled TV. We get about 50 free-to-air channels which is fairly good (given that we students will not have any time for TV). Don't forget that you need to get a TV license in case you own a TV or watch any kind of live-streaming entertainment on the internet. Having your own satellite dish antennas and satellite TV is largely discouraged but I don't see anyone following the rules around here as every street is lined up with satellite dishes.

The family houses are not without their caveats. The houses are not well insulated. Cold draft seeps in through the doors and heating costs are bound to increase. There is just one LAN port in the entire house and that is located in the main bedroom. I was expecting additional LAN ports in the house, at least one in the living area. How do you expect family members to sleep and their student spouses to work in the same room?
It is also not possible to have wireless access in the on-campus accommodations. Every device needs to be centrally registered and Cranfield IT does not allow so-called managed wireless/wired routers due to security reasons.
There is just about sufficient space for a dish washer or a washing machine in the kitchen but its quite difficult to fit them both in. I had to struggle a lot to have both these devices in the kitchen and had to do some extra plumbing myself to share the water inlets and outlets between the devices. There are laundromats nearby on campus, so all you need is just the dishwasher, but with a kid around it is so much more convenient to have a washing machine in house.

Campus facilities
Even if the accommodation is a bit of a let down from some, there are still many good reasons to live on campus. For one, the feeling of living on a campus surrounded by other students and their families is simply great. It is not one student family amidst the 'others'. We are all in the same boat, so there is a good deal of understanding and cooperation amongst the families.

The school building is a few minutes walk from any of the accommodations. There is never a rush as you don't have to plan for any traffic jams, etc., to be at the school on time. It also means an MBA with a smaller carbon footprint! The short distance from the school gives me the opportunity to just pop-by and spend some quality time with my family during breaks.

There is a nursery and a pre-school right on campus. There is also a medical center on campus which is again quite convenient if you have a child. Basic grocery shopping can be done at the Costcutter store on campus. A post office is also located within the Costcutter store. Closeby is the NatWest bank as well as a couple of ATMs.
In addition to the sports hall where one can play badminton, basketball, football, tennis and table-tennis, Mitchell and Lanchester halls also have squash courts. I personally have done more sports in the last couple of months than ever before and I think its due to the fact that these facilities are accessible (and over the weekends too). Incidentally, the partners/spouses get their own access cards (at least if you are a School of Management student) which means that the partners also have access to all these facilities.

There are many places to eat on campus. Again the Cranfield website provides a comprehensive list of eateries in the vicinity. Some of these are open over the weekends too, so if you are not in a mood to cook, you can get some good food for a few bucks.

I think more than anything what makes living on campus so interesting for us is the family friendly atmosphere here. The partners/spouses have many opportunities to get together and share some activities as we students are holed up in our syndicate rooms or are being WACed out. During Christmas, the Cranfield Students' Association had arranged a Christmas party for kids which my family thoroughly enjoyed. The Community Centre is extremely helpful and go out of the way to find any kind of information you may be seeking. They also arrange day trips to nearby locations like Oxford, Cambridge and London.

I believe living on campus truly completes the student life experience - just taking a walk through the campus and looking at all the school buildings and the Cranfield logo everywhere is a constant reminder that this year is a special year of being a student all over again.

E.O.T

End of Term. Yes, unbelievable but true. The first term lasted just 11 weeks - 10 weeks of classes and a week of exams. This is how the one-year MBA works - before you know it, it's done.

But it's been a fun-filled 10 weeks. It's unimaginable how much we got things done together as individuals, as a team and as a stream. 1 individual report, 2 WAC reports, 4 group reports, a simulation exercise and 2 group presentations. Plus the sports, socializing, listening to guest speakers, representative the stream for the entrepreneurship activities and a bit of career-planning. And in between doing some justice to your loved ones who have joined you on this roller-coaster ride.

It doesn't come as a surprise, of course. Many of my friends who had already experienced this had told me that it is going to be just one hectic year and that the year is going to fly by even before you notice it. Hectic it was, but what truly shocked me is the pace at which the first term got over. At this rate, it won't be long before its 9th of September 2011, the day my MBA year ends at Cranfield!

The learning has been excellent until now. It felt wonderful studying certain subjects which I always had a liking for but which I could not pursue in my career so far. On that note, the subjects next term are even more exciting.
The team work wasn't all that easy - a bunch of 5 strangers put together and expected to work 5-6 hours together on a daily basis. It's rather different in a professional environment where there is generally more time to build bonds (except in consulting where the team lifetime is rather short) or the option to keep things purely at a professional level. The Organizational Behavior (OB) exercises forces you to be very open to your team whether you like it or not. But at the end of the day this is all learning at its best. Every exercise teaches you to see through and interpret all the subtleties that make or break a team.

Personally, I think the one-year MBA boils down to one single fact - the more you put in, the more you get out of it. (Isn't it true for life in general??) I must admit that in this regard I could have done a lot more in the first term. But I hope to concentrate on a couple of important things in the second term. I plan to focus more on the entrepreneurship front, start exploring ideas and participate in the planned competitions. Focus on career planning will definitely take the lead from now on. I am also interested in pursuing an external project but I need to see how practical it is. In any case, I need to start planning for my 3rd term project. It is also the time to start putting together the electives to take in the 3rd and 4th term and select those that are best aligned with my career goals.

Well, the winter vacation starts today but it's not going to last long. School reopens on 10th of Jan and will again last just 10 weeks. The case packs for the second term are already being issued!

But it's still a good 3 weeks of vacation and I plan to make the most of it (in spite of the expected cold and snow) with my family here at Cranfield.