I had my first case interview today. Four of us (3 exchange students
and one LBS MBA grad) sat together and tried giving each other cases.
It's an excellent learning experience. Had I gone in for a case interview
without this preparation, I'd have flunked.
Our class on Financial Analysis was good fun -- and an exposure
to yet another illustration of internationalism. Prof. Higson (in his
perfect British accent) mentioned that he was part of a programme on
TV for some society of animals. (Not as a caged animal that looked sorry,
he assured us. He was talking about stocks -- no idea why.)
We were discussing the 'Body Shop' company (the one that sells
natural cosmetics), and apparantly this company was blacklisted
by the programme, for failing to be 'animal-friendly'. Prof. Higson
was mentioning that one of the reasons for Body Shop's success was the
British obsession with being kind to animals. He suggested that, therefore,
Body Shop may not have been as successful elsewhere.
That was a leading question, naturally, and someone disagreed.
So Prof. Higson quietly murmurs, "Perhaps there's someone from France
in this class?"
Prompt comes the response from the back row.
"Yeah. And we don't give a f*** about animals."