First day of class

I can't really say that was a stressful day ... All 22 exchange students were invited for an orientation day. The vast majority of exchange students are from North America's universities, such as Cornell, Duke, NYU, Schulich and Rotman. Thanks god, we also had a bunch of Korean and one Swiss students that made the student body a bit more diverse. Our orientation day was pretty relaxed, it started with a welcome speech by the Dean followed by an afternoon at ... the Melbourne ZOO !!! Yes, we spent 4 hours bonding with each other at the Zoo. I can't say I remember many of the animals I saw but for sure, I had a fantastic time getting to know the other students in such an awkward environment. By the way, here are a few quotes from the Dean's speech in the morning ... ''Mots of you are here on a Pass or Fail basis, please take advantage of that'', ''There is more of the exchange than studying in the library''. Did I already say my first day here was relaxed ?



This is the entrance of Melbourne Business School, a few minutes away from Melbourne University. MBS ranks in the 50s in the FT 2007 ranking, it is the second largest MBA in Australia and has a great reputation for its marketing program (this is great news, I had no idea really when I applied for the school!). Classes are pretty small (100 students) but students are very much looked after. There is a bunch of acclaimed profs (yes, those HBS MBA/PHD grad who write books and teach at Kellogg or Stanford), lots of career resources and administrative staff. For instance, as exchange student, we have a full time person that only looks after us. All of this is pretty impressive even though it comes at a cost. To join the MBA program, students pay AUS $ 50,000 a year.