I’m very happy to announce that I’m off to Cambridge to get my MBA, starting in just a few short weeks. And not Cambridge, Massachusetts; I’m off to the original Cambridge, in the UK.
As a bit of background, the University of Cambridge is the second-oldest English speaking university in the world, having been founded shortly after Oxford in 1209. (Which means that next year is it’s 800th anniversary… wow!)
In October I will start the one-year Cambridge MBA programme. Clearly, fitting an MBA curriculum into just one year, with two consulting projects and an individual project means that I’m going to be really busy in the coming year. But from everything I’ve seen and everyone I’ve met there it’s going to be an invigorating experience.
I’m going back to school for a number of reasons, which I will explain in further posts. But when I chose a school, I wanted to stay in the UK, and I wanted to go to a school that would provide me the tools and connections to get me where I want to go in my career. Though it was only founded in the last 20 years or so, the Judge Business School already has a skyrocketing reputation. It’s ranked 10th in the world according to the Financial Times, though MBA rankings are of course highly subjective. Not only that, but it’s reputation in science and technology is unparalleled anywhere. (81 Nobel Prize winners, concentrated in Physics, Medicine and Chemistry) And who can forget Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Keynes, Alan Turing, and Hugh Laurie? (Well, maybe Hugh doesn’t quite fit in with the others…) I plan on getting back in touch with my engineering/tech roots as I prepare for my post-MBA career.
Each Cambridge student is also a member of one of Cambridge’s 31 colleges; I’ll be associated with Jesus College which was founded in 1496. The majority of sports happen on the college level, and I plan to continue my rowing with the Jesus College Boat Club, which has historical links back to Thames Rowing Club.
For anyone that’s interested, I plan on blogging about my MBA experience as much as I can in the coming year. If you’re interested in these posts specifically, I’ll be setting up a separate “feed”, which you can also subscribe to via e-mail.
It’s going to be an exciting twelve months!
Jed Christiansen 