Current INSEAD students taking questions

inseadsh

I've been thinking of initiating this column to CD europe for some time. The purpose is simple: help more applicants get to know about the school, students life here and of course very important to all of us, the job placement for Chinese students. The Qs can be as diverse as the student group is, ranging from student life to vacation in Europe.

As everybody knows, INSEAD has 2 campuses: Europe and Asia campus. I'm now at Fontainebleau Europe campus and nnm is now in Asia Singapore campus, so if you have any specific questions related to different campuses, one of us will be able to reply.  

nnm, I and many other INSEADers will try to answer your Qs about the school regularly. However, please do bear in mind that we are facing a very tough and tight curriculum and extra-curriculum schedule now, therefore, please allow us maximum 2-3 days to update your Qs.

Let me try to wrap up some rough impression about the study life here first before immersing myself into the pre-readings again. The past week was extremely hectic. On the registration day, we each received some introduction materials and a pile of readings that was almost 0.5m high. We started clubbing, career search and networking immediately after day 1. Each INSEAD student was allocated into a study group, which is typically composed of 5-6 people (all men or 2 girls) from different country and different background. My group is perfect. Each worked in different industry (Mck, Merrill&Lynch, J&J, Economist and General management) before joining the program. All of them are cooperative, open-minded and willing to share, which I believe will be important factors to ensure a productive study group. The company On-Campus-Recruitment start from this week. Quite some big names will be here to give speeches. Obviously, no time to take a break but as I said, every day is a new start and the fun of INSEAD is to push yourself to the extreme and still enjoy. Besides all the serious job hunting and classes, INSEAD is mostly well-known for its students' creativity and party skills. Last Sat we had a big party in a fancy Chateau sponsored by Bain&Company. Talking to the peers was fun, but the funnier part was seeing those students who were serious in class turned out to be a party king/queen.

I have to stop here. Again, any question about the school is mostly welcomed. Wish all of you a success in your application.   

inseadsh

I just got home. It's almost 22:30pm here. As usual, it was a long day but still full of excitement. The class started from 9am with Ethics. To us Chinese people, Ethics will always be kind of tricky topic but I do agree with one thing the professor highlighted: Ethics may not pay but defintely matters. Typical class in INSEAD usually varies from 1.5 hrs to 3 hrs, so we finished the Ethics around 12:30.Thinking about lunch? Nope, because I had to take a look at the club fair. I ended up signing up for consulting, IB, bridge and media club without knowing a pc of what the hell bridge is. After a very quick lunch and a light chat with other students, I had to hurry to 2 core courses: Uncertainty, Data & Judgement and Prices & Markets. There were a lot of pre-readings and exercises before the class but fortunately, I did my homework last night. 17:30 sharp, we sat in an alumni meeting, in which we were told that 2 of our alumni each donated 5MM euros and there are supposed to be more donations coming in soon. Good news to the future applicants! More scholarship available! Ok, I was starving but no time for a decent dinner. Merrill Lynch and Bain's presentation would start from 19:15. I joined the Merrill Lynch one because this would be the only choice for Jul intake to land a full time job in IB. Their presentation was kind of dry but the latter cocktail chat was fun. I talked with different people from the firm and got a general idea of how ML differentiated itself from GS and MS.

This is basically a typical day in INSEAD. You will be challenged, both intellectually and physically, but you are still happy and completely turned on. I think this is the charm of INSEAD, and may be universal for any top school in the world.

inseadsh

以下是引用simbasl在2007-9-6 10:42:00的发言：
Hey, inseadsh, just curious: what differentiate ML from GS and MS?

According to what they say, the key differentiating points for ML vs. GS and MS are:

1) ML can be your long term ambitions.

2) ML really has the initiatives of helping people achieve work-life balance, which I dont really understand how they can make it.

Hope it helps

inseadsh

以下是引用redwavezheng在2007-9-7 1:24:00的发言：

Inseadsh:

Do you think it is critical to master french to be able to communicate freely in Insead France?

Also, language adantage(at least basic knowledge in french) could help in application?

For me, I know nothing about Frence. A big disadvantage?both in application and adaptation?

Well, to be honest with you. I dont think mastering a third language such as French will equip you with any application advantage except that your life will be relatively easier here in France. In big cities like Paris, you can always find people who speak English and are very willing to give you a hand when you need help. 

To your question about adaptation, my point is to succeed in business world as a Chinese, it is a must for you to be able to embrace different culture and build up an international mind-set. I really do not think you will have a problem on that if you get accepted by INSEAD.

As for the photos, I took some but still not enough. Please wait for a while at this moment. Thanks for your patience.

[此贴子已经被作者于2007-9-8 6:31:41编辑过]

inseadsh

Thanks, Bolei. You're most welcomed.

How's your business going on in Shanghai? Hope everything is doing well. Havent seen you on msn for a while...

inseadsh

These several days are not easy for all of us. Classes, case studies, pre-readings, career counsellings, clubs, company presentations all bump into each other. I'm not sure about others but I feel tired, though still energetic.

Basically INSEAD separated its one year programme into 5 periods. We're now in P1, which covers 5 core courses, including Prices & Markets, Uncertainty Data & Judgement, Financial Market Valuation, Financial Accouting and Leading People & Groups. All the professors are very different in terms of style and accent. I'm sure one year later our listening comprehension will be significantly improved. In P1 and P2, all the students will be assigned a class (section) and a study group. To help students mingle with different culture and different background, the school usually group people with consideration of where they are from and what they did before. Today my group got together to talk about an NPV project. It was not difficult but I was very impressed with the banker and consultant's excel skills. The banker, when working on the excel sheet to calculate present value, did not use mouse at all. What i saw was that his dexterous fingers flew around keypad and couple of mins later, we got the IRR result.

I made a decision on my way home: practice, practice and practice...

[此贴子已经被作者于2007-9-14 7:02:16编辑过]

inseadsh

Oooops, sorry for bolei that you could not make the journey to London.

As opposed to your bad luck, we, all the P1 and P4 greater China students went to picnic in the fantastic Chateau besides Rue Grande this noon. We picked up a spot besides the branch of Seine river (we guessed so)and had so much fun together. Each of us brought food, drinks and even dessert. Karen (Jiang) brought her home-made sandwich that tasted so good that I could not eat polite any more. Obviously she knows more than financial valuation now. Lol. One thing I particularly like about INSEAD is the people. Everybody has dazzling academic record or work experience (except me) but nobody brags about it. Most of them are open-minded, highly mobile and adventurous. Of course the Chinese students I saw today are very much the same, or even more approachable. That's part of our gene.  

We discovered a kinda romantic story during the picnic. We found one Taiwanese student met his wife when they were both only 2 and the moment they held hands together got permanently recorded by a photo the student's mother took over 30 years ago. They did not know that they had such a sweet memory together until one day they went to see the guy's mother and his mother took out the magic photo. Now the romance is well preserved in the wife's perse and they bring it wherever they go.

inseadsh

He graduated from INSEAD in 2006 and is now working for a non-profit. Bolei, can I say it's non-profit? lol.

Check out the photos we took in the picnic.

P.S: All copyrights reserved.

[attachimg]60840[/attachimg]
[attachimg]60841[/attachimg]

[此贴子已经被作者于2007-9-17 5:40:34编辑过]

inseadsh

以下是引用cojazzh在2007-9-18 16:40:00的发言：
thanks for sharing, inseadsh. Seemed that lots of MM there


And bolei, did we meet on the World MBA Tour last week at Shanghai?

On the INSEAD booth, I talked with Ms Karla (pretty girl as well)
from the admissions group, and an alumni graduated from the Fonty
one year ago. Both very very nice people.

Yes, one thing funny is most of the Chinese guys here are married whereas most of the girls are still available.  If you are single and willing to explore other opportunities in your program, come here.

inseadsh

Thanks, man. We dont have moon cake here, but anyway, the Chinese students will have dinner together.