Day One - Orientation begins

Monday was my first official day for my MBA. 167 new students decended on the Melbourne Business School in Carlton. To the sounds of Men At Work's classic Down Under we gathered in the school's main lecture hall, the Coles Theatre, for the opening address from the Director of the School, Professor Paul Rizzo. Paul assured us that the school had been making recent substantial investments in faculty, ensuring diversity in experience and cultural background. The school has also relaunched its careers services program, an area that has been troubled in recent years. Both of these were positive signs that our hefty fees (AUD $42,000 each) were being spent well.

A few interesting stats were revealed concerning my new classmates... Of the 167 first year students in the full-time program,

• 24.8% are female / 75.2% are male
  
• 26.1% are of Australian citizens / 73.9% are from overseas
  
• 45.5% are Australian permanent residents
  
• 43 students are from Australia, 18 from India, 16 from China, and 11 from Singapore (roughly 20 countries are represented in total)
  
• the average GMAT was 627, with a range of 530 - 740

My classmates are an incredibly diverse set of people, and I'm absolutely certain that we're all going to learn a great deal from each other over the coming 16 months. There are people from all six continents (and I wouldn't be surprised if some of them had also spent time in Antarctica), and pretty much every major industry. I've met big time project managers, product marketers, bankers, accountants, military intelligence personnel, pilots, engineers, police officers, doctors and pharmacists. I've even met a gentleman who has spent time clearing land mines in Afghanistan.

On Monday afternoon, the School threw a scare tactic on us, and tried to convince us that we'd have very little time for anything else besides the MBA. Each subject has three contact hours a week, and we were advised to allocate at least nine hours of time per subject per week of our own time to study and prepare assignments. This doesn't leave much time for friends and family and other leisure pursuits, but I'm going to make a big effort to maintain a reasonably active social life outside the school, and ensure that I'm always in good physical shape. Morpheus reminded us in The Matrix that "the body cannot survive without the mind." My theory is that the reverse is also true.

All up, it was a very overwhelming day. New faces. A new intensity. And a tough journey ahead of us.