Imay not have a job, I may not have money, but I bet you I can add up all the change in your purse, real fast!" The words are by Kanye West, from his debut album, The College Dropout, berating the middle-class obsession with degrees - and they are also a pretty accurate description of most MBA students.

Following my first term at Cambridge University Judge Business School, I can now add a few other number-crunching skills, such as producing a discounted cash flow model, interpreting a set of financial statements and creating a spreadsheet model of a demand-based pricing strategy. I could also entertain Mr West with a few ideas on developing talent for his record label or designing a marketing strategy.

It is extraordinary how much you can learn in a short space of time in the right environment. Our first term was packed with core courses on economics, corporate finance and accountancy, organisational behaviour, marketing and quantitative methods - the bread and butter of any MBA course. The pace was frenetic, with classes most days from 9am to 5.30pm and readings, preparation, group work and guest speakers on top of that.

More unusually, we also had a course on management practice - known as the "couch sessions" - which focused on the more touchy-feely aspects of how we interact and how we bring different assumptions to bear on any given situation, based on nationality, culture and background.

The diversity of the Cambridge MBA provides particularly fertile ground for this, with 150 students representing 46 nationalities, and it was remarkable to experience the honesty with which people were willing to share their views and expose their own prejudices and stereotypesin class discussions. These classes often took the form of games, inevitably involving competitive elements combined with restricted communication, to illuminate how we often allow our assumptions to fill in the blanks.

As an MBA student in Cambridge, you are a member of a college in addition to being part of the business school. The college forms the social hub of Cambridge life for most undergraduates, but the intensity of the MBA programme and the many hours spent in classes and group work mean the business school quickly takes centre stage. Throw a young family into the mix as well and it becomes really tricky to find time to enjoy college.

But such experience is a deeply enriching part of studying in Cambridge, so I was determined to make some time for it. A night of dining at high table with the college fellows turned out to be rich in ritual and was a great opportunity to mix with people outside the business school who work on entirely different subjects: the research interest of my companions that evening spanned Shakespeare, sex trafficking and integration issues in primary education.

The college matriculation dinner was a high point of the term. We were treated to some of the delights of the college wine cellars and a feast for all the senses. My college, Jesus, is one of Cambridge's largest and was founded on the site of a 12th-century Benedictine nunnery. After dinner, a candle-lit prayer was held in the chapel, part of the original buildings. Sitting in the semi-darkness, listening to the all-male choir in red cassocks, it was hard not to feel transported back in time.

Back at business school, Michaelmas term culminated in a consulting project for a Cambridge-based new venture, providing an opportunity to put our new-found business skills into practice. My team worked with a biotech start-up to develop a business model to fund further proof-of-concept studies of their fruit fly technology.

It was a huge challenge to move from textbook examples and classroom case discussions to the real world, to develop a plan not for a global corporation with lots of resources but for a tiny start-up with lots of ideas, few customers and no cash. Our team of five represented five different nationalities and professional backgrounds, having to deliver results in a very short time.

Working on the project in parallel with our classes took careful juggling and quite a few late nights as we got to grips with the ins and outs of services in the world of fruit fly research. As the deadline arrived, it was with real pride that we could present our work, confident that we had not just achieved what we set out to but had also gone substantially beyond our brief to help the company get off the ground. It was satisfying to feel we had made a real contribution despite being in the early stages of the MBA.

After Christmas we came back to the full flow of Lent term, having to tackle our new core courses of strategy, international business, innovation and operations as well as planning the next consulting project. This time we shall work with a global firm, in my case Cisco.

So, as I add up the change from my first term in Cambridge, I realise that the most important changes have taken place in the non-cash transactions despite the negative cash flows incurred by a year without a salary. The skills I have mastered so far, coupled with the practical experience of the consulting projects, have already provided a return on my investment and my decision to do an MBA feels like a good one.

"我可能没有工作，我可能没有钱，但我可以和你打赌，我可以飞快地将你钱包中所有的零钱算出来。"肯伊•威斯特(Kanye West)在自己的首张专辑《远离校园》(College Dropout)中调侃着中产阶级对学位的痴迷--这也是对大多数工商管理硕士(MBA)学员相当准确的描述。

在剑桥大学(University of Cambridge)的佳奇管理学院(Judge Business School)上了一个学期之后，我也补充了几个其它的算术技能，如制作一个贴现现金流模型，解读一系列财务报表，以及创建一个需求导向定价策略的电子数据表模型。我还能向威斯特先生提供一些为他自己的唱片公司开发新人或设计营销策略的想法。

在适当的环境中，一个人能在短时间学到多少东西是相当惊人的。我们的第一学期挤满了核心科目：经济学、公司财务与会计学、组织行为学、营销学及计量方法学（MBA课程的基础）。课程进度非常之快，在大多数时候，每天的上课时间是从早上9点到下午5：30，此外还有阅读、预习、分组作业及客座教授的讲座。

更为不同寻常的是，我们还有一门关于管理实践的科目（被大家称为"沙发时段"），专注于我们互动中一些更情感化的方面，以及我们如何基于国籍、文化及背景在任何一种特定情况下进行不同的设想。

剑桥MBA的多样性为这一科目提供了异常肥沃的土壤，这里有代表着46个国家的150名学生，值得一提的是，同学们都非常坦诚地在班级讨论中分享着自己的意见，并将自己的偏见与陈旧观点公诸于众。这些课程往往是以游戏的方式进行的，不可避免地牵涉到竞争性因素与受限制沟通相结合的情况，以说明我们多么经常会让自己的猜测去填补那些空缺。

作为一个剑桥的MBA学生，你不仅仅是商学院的一员，也是大学的一员。对于大多数本科生而言，大学构成了剑桥生活的社交中心，但MBA课程的强度及课堂与分组作业所消耗的时间，意味着商学院很快就占据了中心舞台。如果再加上一个组建不久的家庭，那么找时间去享受大学生活就变得确实非常困难了。

但这类经历是剑桥学习生活中多彩多姿的一部分，所以我决心要为它拨出一部分时间。在高大的餐桌上与同学们一起渡过的晚餐之夜充斥着礼节，这是一个与商学院以外人士交往的良机，这些人研究着截然不同的学科：我那晚同伴的研究领域跨越了莎士比亚、妇女拐卖及初级教育的整合问题。

学院的入学晚宴是学期的一个亮点。学院为我们提供了一些学院酒窖的好酒，这是一场为所有感官准备的盛宴。我们耶稣学院(Jesus College)是剑桥最大的学院之一，建立在一座12世纪的本笃会修女院原址之上。在晚餐之后，教堂（原建筑的一部分）里举办了一个烛光祈祷仪式。坐在昏黄的烛光中，听着身穿红袍的男士唱诗班的吟唱，人们难免萌生时空错换的感觉。

回到商学院，一个咨询项目为米迦勒学期画上了句号，在项目中，学员要为一家剑桥的新公司提供咨询服务，这为我们新学到的商业技能提供了一个实战机会。我的小组是和一个生物技术新创公司合作开发一种商业模型，以为该公司的果蝇科技进一步的理论证明研究提供资金来源。

从教科书的范例与课堂中的案例讨论转向现实世界，不是为一个资源丰富的全球性企业，而是为一家想法很多、顾客很少且没有钱的小型创业企业制定计划是一个巨大挑战。我们组的五个成员来自五个国家和不同的专业背景，我们不得不在很短的时间内有所作为。

在上课的同时进行这个项目，意味着做出仔细的安排，并且在相当多的时候工作到深夜，而我们也逐渐了解果蝇研究界服务方面的门道。随着最终期限的到来，我们非常自豪自己能够向大家介绍自己的工作成果，我们自信地认为，自己不仅达到了我们的初始目标，而且比项目要求更好地帮助了该公司起步。尽管自己仍处于MBA的初期阶段，能够做出真正的贡献令我们感觉非常满足。

在圣诞节之后，我们回到了春季学期的正常节奏当中，必须学习战略、国际商务、创新与营运等新的核心科目，以及为下一个咨询项目做好计划。我们这次将为一家全球公司效力，我的公司是思科(Cisco)。

所以，当我把自己在剑桥的第一学期中的变化加在一起的时候，我意识到，最重要的变化发生在非现金交易领域，尽管一年没拿工资导致我当年的现金流变为负值。我学习到的技能，与咨询项目的实践经验结合在一起，已经为我的投资提供了回报，我感觉，攻读MBA是一个明智的决定。
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