After taking a few weeks to get acclimated here in Cambridge, I wanted to take a moment to share some unique experiences I have had over just the last week.
First, my friend and classmate Bassam Al-Bassam graciously organised and hosted a “Night in Arabia” dinner late last week. In conjunction with this event, he created a brief presentation where he talked us through the history of the Gulf Cooperation Council and explained how the economies and customs of each of the GCC countries differ from one another. At the conclusion of the presentation, we embarked on an immersive Arabian dining experience in which the attendees sat together on the floor eating four different preparations of lamb while the hosts served us Arabian soft drinks and tea. This was such a fun night, and I am beginning to brainstorm how to introduce my new friends to my culture – perhaps a Super Bowl party showcasing the delicacy we call the buffalo chicken wing?
Next, my MBA Study Group made a site visit to our Cambridge Venture Project client’s facilities earlier this week. Over the next six weeks, we will be helping the Arthur Rank Hospice Charity with a special project. During the visit, we got a chance to meet with our point of contact in person and tour the grounds with her. In the prayer room, there is a ‘memories journal’ for the patients and their families to write anything they choose. Reading what was written on the open page was a centering experience, and although a few tears were shed, it was a good reminder that there is a whole lot more to life than CVs, transcripts, and elevator pitches. We are all looking forward to attempting to make a valuable impact for such an essential service organisation in the Cambridgeshire community over the next six weeks.
The last experience I want to highlight happens to be the first speaker event I attended at the Cambridge Union. Members had the opportunity to hear Columbia Professor, Jeffrey Sachs, speak and field numerous questions on topics related to the current geopolitical moment. While all of the content covered was thought-provoking and fascinating, I found one portion of the dialogue serendipitously coincided with our MBA microeconomics lecture from the same day, wherein we walked through some game theory simulations and discussed the expected payoff scenarios for cooperation versus non-cooperation when the terminal round of the simulation is known versus unknown. Professor Sachs’s loosely paraphrased central thesis is that our current crop of world leaders are inching us closer towards a nuclear exchange, and that the modelled outcome of a nuclear exchange between global powers is negative infinity, therefore it is unacceptable for there to be any finite probability of such exchange occurring. I am looking forward to attending more events at the Cambridge Union over the course of the rest of my year in Cambridge and beyond.
