MiFFT2007 diary entry 3

Name Malvika Agarwal MiFFT2007 Nationality Indian Job before London Business School Associate, JP Morgan Chase, Mumbai

Electives and the MiF Project:
Last term I wanted a few extra days to catch up with some work or just to go out and get to know London. This term, make that an order for a couple of extra weeks, with a home-cooked meal on the side. The second term is so much quicker than the first and the level of education and learning has definitely been raised since last term. Foundation of Finance (the 4th core class) is great educationally, but also since I get to see several MiFs who aren't in my elective classes.

Electives are fast-paced and rest on several fundamentals we studied in our core classes. They are a good opportunity for interacting with part-time MiFs, MBAs and students from other programmes. I enjoy that most assignments are group-based but what this demands is better time management across group members where each person has a different schedule. Working with several different people really adds value to your own working style – it's great to learn a quick new shortcut in excel or see a different approach to solving a problem since your team member has learnt it differently in another elective.

We're just coming out of what was an intense week for many MiFs. We submitted our detailed project proposals and presented our ideas to each other. We're assigned project coordinators and therefore are broken up into smaller groups based on project themes/topics. The project isn't due until end of May but when I was penning down my proposed timeline of milestones to be achieved, I knew the upcoming few weeks will be challenging. I would only recommend that you pick a topic you're really interested in, have some history in or want to learn about – I suspect it will make the process easier and more engaging.

Besides classes…
Santa pub crawl (end-December) is a great London Business School event. It's in my top 3 so far and I would say that it's a 'must-do' even though last year it was pretty close to finals.

Coming back to school after the winter break and seeing everyone again was great. Of course, at the time we didn't know how the term would be!

We're more than half-way there and the end seems to be getting closer too fast. I'm really looking forward to next few months and hopefully with the much awaited 'sunny' days, we will be out and about some more.

Name Ana Escobedo Conover MiF FT2007 Nationality  Mexican Job before London Business School  Project Finance, San Paolo Imi, London

It has been already three months since the last time I wrote about my experience at London Business School. As you might imagine lots of things have being happening lately.

The exams
To follow with the subjects I previously wrote, I consider it important to first mention my experience during last term's exams. To be honest during those two weeks for most of the MiFs the only thing we were worried about was to study a lot, even though there were lot of things happening around the school. With Christmas approaching, the big event was the "Santa Pub Crawl" (around 90 London Business School students dressed up as Santa and run from one pub to the other from 7:00 pm until 2:00 am), but as this event happened the Saturday before our Corporate Finance exam afraid to say that there were not many full-time MiFs involved in this procession. Once the last exam was over, we had our own Pub crawl, just before the MiF Christmas Party.

I can still remember the faces of all my classmates after finishing the last exam, I think we were exhausted, and we well deserved a month of holidays.  Many of us went back home to visit our families, but others wisely used this time to travel around England and Europe.  We did not receive the first term exam results until one month later, so we couldn't forget to the School during our holidays.

A new term
So, back to school full of energy and enthusiasm, looking forward to finding out how everybody else spent their holidays, and obviously to discover the new adventures that were waiting for us. Luckily for me, I decided not to take Fixed Income or Options and Futures in this term, I preferred to go for Mergers & MBOs, and Venture Capital & PE; much more focused in corporate finance. For me, it resulted in a good balance between these two courses and our last core course: Foundations of Finance (FoF), a real adventure. During the first two classes of FoF I was a little worried (panicking in fact!) that it was like going to a class were all the financial structure, that I was convinced I understood, was being translated into a language I did not know; but with time I have been able to understand every class a little more, by now (class 7) I can follow 2/3 of everything that is said.
  
I cannot say that this term is less busy than the first one, although we are less stressed; maybe because now we know what it is all about, we still are working as hard as before. Beside the core course (FoF), the two electives and the FoF tutorial, we are starting to work in our Individual project. I think it is a great opportunity to be involved in something that I like, and to research in the financial areas I am interested at. It is also becoming part of my job hunting strategy as it is a great excuse to contact people or companies that I am interested in meeting.

Job search
This is an extra pressure on the job hunt, I need to be really careful now, as nobody is going to bring the recruiters to me, I have to figure out how I am going to design my job search strategy. The offers presented on the Careers area of Portal can be interesting, but there are so many others in the market that I really need to make an extra effort to look for what I want which obviously requires a lot of time. The people from Career Services have been very helpful; they are trying to make us understand that it is the normal process that most of us will get a job from March onwards. 

To be free for a moment from all our assignments, classes and worries, the Student Association organized the Winter Ball. It was a very interesting event, it is supposed to be a black tie party, but not required this time, although the food was not great this year, it was great fun, there was a good numbers of MiFs, (not saying that MBAs are not fun) but as we have been working pretty hard for the last weeks, it is nice to spend time together without stress.

It is amazing how time keeps flying, it is almost the end of the second term, three weeks more and we will be into exams again. I am glad that I have taken time to enjoy the company of the people from the programme, because this is what has been most rewarding for me from my experience here.

Name James Davidson MiFFT2007 Nationality British Job before London Business School Strategic Director, Continuity Planning, London

In a long overdue update to my life at London Business School I thought I would just touch on some of the topics filling my life right now.

Term 2 Highlights
One of the highlights from the last (spring) term was the Trading & Financial Market Structure course that I took with Professor Bruce Weber. Unlike many of the courses at LBS which concentrate on the fundamental theories of finance, this couse actually concentrated on the practical behaviour of financial markets and how to trade in them. I found the course an exceedingly welcome tonic and in particular enjoyed the fascinating trading simulations that allowed us to participate in a variety of market types and explore their varied behaviours. It was also my best exam result to date; a pleasant end to a fun and extremely useful elective.

MiF Individual Project
I suppose the 'homework' aspect of the lives of the entire MiF course is being filled by our individual projects, now fast approaching the deadline at the end of this month. It is a real test of self discipline trying to schedule enough time to work on the project whilst fulfilling the demands of our current electives and their own assignments. My project, on fish derivatives, continues to amuse and interest me and so (hopefully!) I will fulfill all my objectives for the project.

Term 3 Electives
I am really enjoying two of my electives this term: Topics in Asset Management with the legendary Elroy Dimson, and Behavioural Finance with the (one day to be legendary) Chris Malloy. The Topics in Asset Management course is very practical, involves a top level external speaker each week, and is delivered in a really passionate style by Elroy. All the speakers have got really involved with the class discussion which has been of an extremly high standard. I am particularly looking forward to the talk by Nicola Horlick who I am sure will have some fascinating insights to share with us all. The Behavioural Finance course with Chis Malloy really examines the reality of finance's core theories, and discusses the often irrational behaviour that we observe in practice. The Sports Betting fans amongst us also appreciate Chris' observations on the increasing sophistication of this market's participants and the correspondence with more 'pure' financial markets.

2007 Class Gift
I agreed last term to coordinate the MiF effort towards the 2007 Class Gift. For those unfamiliar with the concept, the idea is to encourage students to pledge a small amount of money over the next four years (commencing 12 months after graduation) so that the school can embark upon exciting new projects. Whilst the money itself is important, the wider goal is to encourage future participation and interest in the school after we all graduate. Hopefully when one of this year's MiFs becomes the next Warren Buffett (isn't he about to launch a competition for a new manager for Berkshire Hathaway?) they will remember where they came from! This year's class gift will be a significant portion of the funding for the London Business School expansion project, which will really increase our profile in the business community and offer many more facilities for students and alumni alike.

PA Trading
My sign-on bonus from my job has been burning a hole in my pocket, so to remove the temptation to buy the awfully attractive 50" TV I have transferred the cash into a brokerage account in the US and have been busy identifying exciting ways to (hopefully) grow my money. Having learnt a great deal recently from a couple of my electives I have decided not to stock pick and instead have plumped for a portfolio of Exchange Traded Funds. Being a loyal Barclays employee I have selected three of the iShares ETFs – so fingers crossed for the US Aerospace & Defence sectors, US Oil Equipment Services and the Global Materials Sector.

Summer Plans
I am fortunate to have some time off at the end of the course before my job at Barcap starts in mid-September (unlike some on the course who start work a week after finishing!). I've had some serious internal debates about what to do, and am determined to do something special that I can remember for a while. Having evolved from my plans to pretend I am 18 and slum it around the Antipodes, my current plan is to learn to fly in Florida and get my Private Pilot License. Hopefully it won't end in tears in an everglades swamp! If I apply my well honed cramming skills I should be able to crack it in 21 days, but we'll see…

Name Steven Reid MiF FT2007 Nationality Canadian Job before London Business School Analyst, CIBC World Markets, Toronto

The last few months have gone by extremely quickly. It's hard to believe the programme is already half over and that in just over 4 months I will be back at work again. At the same time, the MiF programme is managing to keep me very busy!

Electives
The second term is quite different from the first because we have started taking elective classes which are more specialized. It's neat to learn about the new theories and studies that are taking place and how they interact with the traditional textbook theories that are common practice.

Another interesting change with the electives is that our classes are now mixed across other programmes at London Business School; including MBAs and part time MIFs. Having a class made up of students with such varied experiences helps to foster interesting class discussions and provides unique insights.

MiF project
As the term has progressed I have had begun spending more time on the individual project that is required for the Masters in Finance programme. After picking a topic and meeting with my coordinator I have finished my 2000 word outline and refined my project to a point where I have a clear idea of what I am going to achieve. The next few months will be busy as I work on the actual paper but it will be good opportunity to develop a significant piece of work.

Social life
Other than school work, the last few months have been a lot of fun. The weekly pub night on campus, "Sundowners", is a popular event among most students as well as visiting the different areas of London on weekends and the Winter Ball which took place in February. I have also managed to take various day trips to visit areas a little further away and get a better feel for life outside London.

Additionally, as the next semester break approaches there is lots of talk about the various trips that students are planning all over the world.  It's a unique opportunity to get to travel with classmates, some of which happen to be locals, and experience the local culture. I'm definitely going to try to take advantage of a trip here or there over the break!

Over all, I find that the longer that I stay in London the more I enjoy the city. There are so many unique aspects to it and there are always new and exciting things to explore. While the programme is passing by very quickly, I am going to make sure that I enjoy these last few months!

Name Ellen Zhu MiFFT2007 Nationality Chinese Job before London Business School Director, Structured Markets China Bayerische Hypo-und Vereinsbank, Hong Kong

Resolutions vs. Reality
Over a month into the spring term, I realized that, before London Business School, I basically had been using the phrase "time flies" without understanding its true meaning.  Determined to strike a better balance between study, social life, and job searching this term, I set out confidently with well-honed time management skills from last term (or so I thought)  to embrace the challenges brought on by allegedly the most difficult core course for MiFs—Foundations of Finance (FoF).   Soon I was glad that I had only chosen two electives this term instead of the original plan of taking on three.   Assignments poured in from the second week on from all the courses, and the deadline for our detailed project proposal fell on the same day as when one big FoF case was due, which happened to be Chinese New Year!
However, I was glad that while struggling to keep up with all the deadlines, juggling schedules for every group meetings, squeezing out time for club presentations and events, and preparing for interviews, I still made two trips to Paris and New York on weekends.  That was 2 versus 0 last term!    Having said that, there was a lot of other fun stuff that I missed out this term, such as the winter ball which was inconveniently on the same day as my flight to New York…

FoF and Electives
FOF was no wonder the essence of the MiF programme.  Admittedly it was abstract and hard to absorb at the outset, just as the rumour had it.  Yet the further into the course I was, the more surprised I became about how relevant it could be to the real financial world.  Hopefully, this could be the one thing that will "make a MiF stand out from the crowd" some day.  For anyone interested in the hot and mythical private equity world, my recommendation goes to  the Venture Financing and Private Equity elective, which was another eye-opener for me this term.  Besides having two senior industry practitioners as our lecturers, we had various opportunities to sit in on presentations given by people who were protagonists in our case studies and by those who had their own private equity firms.   Another big plus for the electives was that full-time MiFs got to mingle with part-time MiFs and MBAs that chose the same electives, couldn't think of a better way to socialise with fellow London Business School students via study groups for electives taking time constraints into consideration.

Project
I had a hard time deciding on which topic to focus on for my project, but as the deadline drew nearer I began to have a much clearer picture.  With the detailed proposal handed in on time, I thought I could relax a while only to find myself feeling like starting a journey into an unexplored field.    Fortunately, I was not alone on the trip.  During the project presentation chaired by our coordinator who had largely the similar research interest in the same field as our topic, all of the colleagues in the same group had a chance to orally comment on each other' s project.  In addition, after the presentation, each group member would provide written suggestion and comments on three of the colleagues.  I for one found the comments provided by my group mates very helpful and certainly introduced some great ideas from different angles.  As the project will be due in May, I had decided to start with the first draft immediately after the final exams this term in order to keep up the momentum.  Finishing the first draft before summer term started could possibly give me more leeway to add one more elective for next term.