Imran's Kifli.net

Time really flies and now I’m at the end of Week 5. I’ll give you guys a quick review of what happened this month.

All our lectures are done in the Julian Hodge Building (photo above). It’s a dedicated building for the Business School with all the state-of-the-art facilities for students.

During our orientation week (the week before week 1), we had an election to select our MBA Representatives. Since our cohort is around 220, we  needed to select 11 representatives. Me, along with another 35 students, nominated our names for the election.We had a submit a photo along with a write up about ourselves for the voters.

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Early this year I accepted an offer from Cardiff University to study the MBA. On 21 September 2011, I left Malaysia, heading to the UK on Etihad. My journey started with a pleasant surprise when I was given a free upgrade to Business Class. It’s true what they say about UAE based airlines, they definitely know how to offer the best hospitality up in the air.

Note: click on images to enlarge and click on links for further info.

Etihad - Business Class

Image above: The interior of Etihad’s business class

Etihad - Reclining chairs

Apart from being able to recline the chair to become a full bed, it also provides a full back massage (similar to Osim‘s concept). Actually if I really think about it, it might just be an Osim chair built into the seat.

My flight had a 2 hour transit in Abu Dhabi. I was really amazed with the airport. It’s massive, modern, and they have all sorts of shops for shopping and dining. Very impressive.

Heathrow - Cardiff Uni pickup

I arrived in Heathrow around 7AM. There was a massive queue at Immigration, and they had a dedicated queue for first time students coming to the UK. I was stuck in the queue for nearly 30 minutes. Once I was out, the Cardiff  International Office was there to greet me and other international students that arrived that morning.

The bus ride from Heathrow to Cardiff took around 2 hours 30 minutes. They took us straight to a hall next to the business school where our accommodation is being sorted out. Since I took private accommodation, I got to skip the whole thing entirely.

I had chosen Victoria Hall, which is a private college hall. The hall is a mere 5 minutes walk from the Business School. Since I had done all the payments and paperwork online, all I did when the university took us there was sign some papers and collected my keys.

Victoria Hall

It took me a few days to settle in. Shopping for groceries, bedding and other miscellaneous items took a few trips to the city. Adjusting to student life after working for 4 years turns out not to be that easy after all.

In my flat, there are 5 rooms. My other flatmates are 1 Thai and 3 Chinese (mainland). The Thai guy is also doing MBA, so it feels nice to have a coursemate living nearby. The other 3 Chinese guys are undergrads.

I’ll try to post as frequent possible throughout my MBA.