Monday, November 07, 2005
Review on P1 and the first week of P2
I'm back. A lot of fun stuff and good stuff happened the last week(s), but now it's time to move on to P2. Things I'm gonna write about:
- review of the courses in P1
- the exams
- the break (and my girlfriend's visit!)
- start of P2
Courses in P1
In P1 we had 5 courses. From best to worst I rank them like this:
1. Prices & Markets
I just love Game Theory. Very good professor (very funny also) and a very interesting course. I (re)learned quite some things that I can sure use later on in my job.
2. Accounting
Huh, I like accounting? Yes, actually I do. This course clearly shows that an excellent professor can make a huge difference in how much you enjoy a course and how much you learn (also see number 5 for the opposite). In a short time everyone is now able to do quite some advanced accounting and we all know what not to do (otherwise you go to jail, as our professor regularly mentioned).
3. Statistics
The theory is of course not that exiting (at least not for most of us here), but the games we played surely were. It is now obvious how you can be manipulated by the way numbers are calculated and/or presented. You want me to prove something? Give me a random set of numbers and I'll make you a solid business case for anything you want. Cool :)
4. Finance
The contents of the course were interesting, but the way the course was taught not always optimal. Our finance professor was surely extremely bright, but unfortunately that doesn't mean that she also was a good teacher. The main problem was, in my opinion, experience. The course became better over time, but at a place like INSEAD I expected only to see the professors that are ready to shine and not learning themselves.
5. Organizational Behavior
Yup, dead last. At the start I liked the course, but over time that definitely changed. I strongly disagree with the way the course was taught. I was way to fuzzy and not structured enough. There is no way I will be able to look back into my notes in a few years and search for some potential solutions to OB problems at hand. The professor did add only very little to the course; it was mainly discussion among the students. Nothing wrong with some discussion, but I expect the professor to also add his opinion and structure the key learnings. One other thing that irritated me a lot: if you're not female, you will have a much lower chance to get some air time (I like air time). Could have been a great course, but it definitely wasn't.
The exams
All sunk costs by now. Almost all students were really active studying for them and talking about it, but now that it is over nobody speaks about it anymore. Quite relaxing actually. I think I did fairly well on the exams, but then again, you are not at an absolute scale, but a relative one. The results will probably be known somewhere in the next two weeks, so we'll see.
The Break
Oh yeah! That was some good old quality time indeed. The morning after the last exam my girlfriend arrived in Singapore. This meant picking her up at 6.20 am at the airport after leaving the after-exams party at 1 am totally hammered. Good thing I like my girlfriend a lot or else I wouldn't be able to get up that early.
We had a great weekend at Tioman, a Malaysian island. Luxurious resort, lots of sun, some diving, some playing golf (took us 3 hours to play 3 holes; I'm not a great golf player...) and ordering drinks at the bar from the pool. Good stuff!
She stayed here the whole first week of P2 as well, so that meant an absolute minimum of study outside classes (also a minimum of weblog writing as some might have noticed). Too bad I'm all alone now again (sob...) but at least we had a great time. I'm gonna see her again in 1.5 months when I go back to The Netherlands for Christmas and New Year and after that Fonty time.
Start of P2
And here we go again. Can you here that second waterfall you will crash down this period? 6 courses this time:
- Finance 2: cool professor with even cooler remarks (more about that in later posts)
- Process and Operation Management: "The screamer"
- Organization Behavior 2: let's give the course another chance. So far it went well.
- Strategy: in the first class we discussed if Don Vito Corleone "The Godfather" should go in the narcotics business with "The Turk" and a rival family
- Marketing: let's make products people actually want to buy
- Management Accounting: same as with accounting in P1 - cool prof
This week to come: What I heard in class (already have quite some fun stuff) and some pictures of the place I will live when in Fonty (the best chateau you can be - absolutely beautiful and notorious about it's parties).
- review of the courses in P1
- the exams
- the break (and my girlfriend's visit!)
- start of P2
Courses in P1
In P1 we had 5 courses. From best to worst I rank them like this:
1. Prices & Markets
I just love Game Theory. Very good professor (very funny also) and a very interesting course. I (re)learned quite some things that I can sure use later on in my job.
2. Accounting
Huh, I like accounting? Yes, actually I do. This course clearly shows that an excellent professor can make a huge difference in how much you enjoy a course and how much you learn (also see number 5 for the opposite). In a short time everyone is now able to do quite some advanced accounting and we all know what not to do (otherwise you go to jail, as our professor regularly mentioned).
3. Statistics
The theory is of course not that exiting (at least not for most of us here), but the games we played surely were. It is now obvious how you can be manipulated by the way numbers are calculated and/or presented. You want me to prove something? Give me a random set of numbers and I'll make you a solid business case for anything you want. Cool :)
4. Finance
The contents of the course were interesting, but the way the course was taught not always optimal. Our finance professor was surely extremely bright, but unfortunately that doesn't mean that she also was a good teacher. The main problem was, in my opinion, experience. The course became better over time, but at a place like INSEAD I expected only to see the professors that are ready to shine and not learning themselves.
5. Organizational Behavior
Yup, dead last. At the start I liked the course, but over time that definitely changed. I strongly disagree with the way the course was taught. I was way to fuzzy and not structured enough. There is no way I will be able to look back into my notes in a few years and search for some potential solutions to OB problems at hand. The professor did add only very little to the course; it was mainly discussion among the students. Nothing wrong with some discussion, but I expect the professor to also add his opinion and structure the key learnings. One other thing that irritated me a lot: if you're not female, you will have a much lower chance to get some air time (I like air time). Could have been a great course, but it definitely wasn't.
The exams
All sunk costs by now. Almost all students were really active studying for them and talking about it, but now that it is over nobody speaks about it anymore. Quite relaxing actually. I think I did fairly well on the exams, but then again, you are not at an absolute scale, but a relative one. The results will probably be known somewhere in the next two weeks, so we'll see.
The Break
Oh yeah! That was some good old quality time indeed. The morning after the last exam my girlfriend arrived in Singapore. This meant picking her up at 6.20 am at the airport after leaving the after-exams party at 1 am totally hammered. Good thing I like my girlfriend a lot or else I wouldn't be able to get up that early.
We had a great weekend at Tioman, a Malaysian island. Luxurious resort, lots of sun, some diving, some playing golf (took us 3 hours to play 3 holes; I'm not a great golf player...) and ordering drinks at the bar from the pool. Good stuff!
She stayed here the whole first week of P2 as well, so that meant an absolute minimum of study outside classes (also a minimum of weblog writing as some might have noticed). Too bad I'm all alone now again (sob...) but at least we had a great time. I'm gonna see her again in 1.5 months when I go back to The Netherlands for Christmas and New Year and after that Fonty time.
Start of P2
And here we go again. Can you here that second waterfall you will crash down this period? 6 courses this time:
- Finance 2: cool professor with even cooler remarks (more about that in later posts)
- Process and Operation Management: "The screamer"
- Organization Behavior 2: let's give the course another chance. So far it went well.
- Strategy: in the first class we discussed if Don Vito Corleone "The Godfather" should go in the narcotics business with "The Turk" and a rival family
- Marketing: let's make products people actually want to buy
- Management Accounting: same as with accounting in P1 - cool prof
This week to come: What I heard in class (already have quite some fun stuff) and some pictures of the place I will live when in Fonty (the best chateau you can be - absolutely beautiful and notorious about it's parties).
Comments:
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I must agree with your P1 comment about OB, even though it's coming from a different school. I think it's a common problem where OB is taught in such a manner. Unfortunate, but it happens. Keep us updated about the P2 version. (I can't imagine two sections of OB, so good luck with that!)
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