Creating value from doIng the Oxford Brookes University Research and Analysis Project (RAP)

For those students who might want to undertake the RAProject on behalf of the OBU Degree award, I wish to share my views with you on this. I have completed my RAP recently and my conclusion is that our attitude determines everything, including whether or not we feel happy when doing it.

I believe many students face some problems when deciding the topic of their projects even though they should have a mentor. I am lucky as I have a strong interest in studying and analysing the annual reports of such listed companies. Therefore, I chose the topic "Business and financial performance of a company" instantly. Then I had to decide which company to work on. This is a tough decision to make, as I really wanted to learn something useful from doing the project in general. In the end, I decided to analyse a Bank (Wells Fargo & Co.), despite the fact that I didn't have any ideas of the Banking industry and my lecturer advised me against doing a report on this industry.

When deciding the topic and the company, my opinion was that we should follow our heart and intuition! We should always remember that we will have to spend hours and hours on our choice, so we must choose the one which we have a strong interest in. We should also choose a company which have some valuable things to learn from rather than just choosing the easiest one available. Some students may just want to get a pass, and therefore try to minimise their effort. However, just remember that we are going to spend many hours on this project no matter what. So I think that we ought to create some value for the numerous hours we would have to spend on the project.

Our attitude from the beginning determines whether or not we would enjoy such a process. I have come across friends who have appeared to be under huge amounts of pressure when writing the OXB RAP. I think that since we decide to do it, why can't we allow the process to bring happiness?

Our attitude also determines the result. Some students might not be able to complete the project on time and decide to postpone it to the next round. In my humble opinion, for everything we want to achieve, we must make a resolution from the outset. My resolution is simply "I am going to complete it on time no matter what, or how long it takes."

As a student who has never studied in a University before, the process of writing the RAP is indeed a real challenge. I did it in a way which I thought would be the most useful to an Investor. I don't know if my project is a good one, or a bad one as yet but that doesn't bother me because I have learned many useful things credentials the banking industry and I have confidence in my work.

Comments

[Irshad A Qureshi]

Hi Se Chai,
I have just stated OBU project and selected a most common topic for my project, i.e. Topic 8, ‘The business and financial performance of an organisation of your choice’. I was wondering if it is possible to get some sample projects for reference. If you can forward me some projects, it will be highly appreciated. (irshad39@yahoo.com)
Thanks
Irshad

[Ushavanee Pyduthalli]

Hello SeChai

I found that you did your RAP on the banking industry. Do you really need a contact at the bank you did your research on or are the annual reports of the bank enough for the project?

Do you have any website which provide guides to the project work?

Thank you

[Chakshusha]

Indeed, Its a challenge. My biggest problem is that I cant decide on a topic, and then narrow it down to an objective.. Please would anyone be able to guide me on selection of the project topic..
Besides selecting the topic, how would I be able to create an objective?