A Year in Cambridge: Oxford MBAs vs Cambridge MBAs

Saturday was Oxford MBA vs Cambridge MBA day. Judge students travelled by car and coach (our mode of transport) to Oxford to participate in friendly competitions of football, touch rugby, cricket, squash, badminton, volleyball, rowing and dodgeball. M* and the rest of the football team played a strong game, but somehow Oxford got one goal in. That first match was an indicator of who was going to win the rest of the day's competitions. The rowing team bucked the trend and became the only Cambridge team to win a match. As last year's Cambridge MBA team did not win at all, Cambridge's performance this year was an improvement.

There was actually another competition where Cambridge held its own—the drinking relay. After the sporting matches, we made our way to the Said Business School for dinner and entertainment. The Oxford program is larger than Cambridge's (250 vs 110 students) and is comprised of a larger portion of Americans (50 vs 10 students). The very American Oxford MC of the evening awards ceremony announced that before the dj and dancing was to begin both schools should put their seven best drinkers forward. There were enough volunteers that the teams were enlarged to 11. Cambridge won the first relay; Oxford clamored for a rematch. Oxford won the second match by a gulp, and Cambridge suggested best of three. The final round should have gone to Cambridge but was deemed too close to call.

The last 1 1/2 hours of the evening found Judge-ites monopolizing the dance floor. The Oxford student who was djing read the crowd well and played a mix of old school ("White Lines" and "Vanilla Ice"), new pop-dance ("Sexy Back", "Promiscuous Girl") and enough high-energy Indian songs to make one student comment that he felt like he was in a disco in Bangalore. It was great fun with a tangible poignancy, in my view, as students realize that the number of opportunities for such moments are dwindling.