Giving marks for class participation is inefficient, unfair and offers an excuse for poor teaching. It is not allowed on the Cambridge MFin. * The majority of business schools include class participation in grading of students, typically 20-30% of the … Continued
Feeling guilty about the way that working on the first draft of my book about nuclear power in the UK is squeezing out blogging at present, here’s a quick one on a new cafe that recently opened and which brings … Continued
A group of us from Cambridge visited the resort of Sanya in China’s Hainan province, to take part in the annual Sanya Forum and launch our China Advisory Council * The Sanya Forum can be loosely thought of as a sort … Continued
In mid-June 2014 the Financial Times (FT) will publish its latest rankings for Masters in Finance degree programmes. The Cambridge MFin may be included for the first time. The FT rankings are divided into exclusively post-experience programmes (where prior work … Continued
In recent weeks I have taken part in meetings to discuss: student feedback on MFin teachers; teaching procedures across all programmes at Cambridge Judge Business School; the selection of winners of annual teaching prizes; and the results of a Cambridge University teaching … Continued
I have at last visited Shenzhen, one of China’s four first tier cities (along with Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen’s neighbour Guangzhou), as part of the Cambridge EMBA International Business Study Trip. It’s a likeable and impressive city, much greener and … Continued
Every self respecting computer system has its own magazine and now it seems the Cambridge-grown Raspberry Pi has one too. The photo shows a segment of the crowded magazine shelf in Barnes and Noble’s shop in Union Square, New York, … Continued
Perhaps only in Cambridge and Oxford would you observe the Vice-Chancellor of the University, dressed in full academical regalia in the fine surroundings of the Senate House, discussing advances in biomedical research, graphene and materials science. Today being the first … Continued
Yesterday I went to Oxford to attend the third TEDx Oxbridge event, out of curiosity, a desire to learn how to be a better speaker and to hear some interesting stuff – and to just get out of Cambridge for … Continued
Undergraduates at Cambridge do their final exams in late May and early June. No matter how well they have done in the rest of their three years at Cambridge, their degree class (*) will depend entirely on their performance during … Continued
Despite the mostly friendly rivalry and healthy competitiveness between them, the universities of Cambridge and Oxford are far more alike than different. A neutral visitor to both would be struck by their similarities, the differences largely consisting in geography (Oxford … Continued
About 20 years ago I was invited by the High Mistress of St Paul’s Girl’s School to give a talk to the sixth form. St Paul’s Girls is an academically selective and expensive school in the posh enclave of Brook … Continued
Experiments are the normal way in which science advances. You investigate whether A causes B and by how much, controlling for all of the other things that might make B happen. In the laboratory this is relatively easy. But in … Continued
One advantage of being an academic is that although you have no less work to do than people in “normal’ jobs, you have more choice of when to do it. So, after a long Sunday afternoon of marking, reviewing an … Continued
In August 2012 the University of Cambridge got planning permission for its £1 billion expansion in the area known as North West Cambridge, which is a roughly triangular shaped area of land bounded by the M11 motorway to the west, … Continued