INSEAD MBA - One year will change your life forever

INSEAD gets a new Dean

2005-12-18T09:43:00.000+01:00

http://news.insead.edu/press_releases.cfm

INSEAD APPOINTS J. FRANK BROWN DEAN
December 16, 2005

Global Business Executive to Head Leading International School of Management

INSEAD has appointed J. Frank Brown as its next Dean. Brown, currently the Global Leader of Advisory Services for PricewaterhouseCoopers, will bring to INSEAD over 26 years of experience working in international markets, building leadership programs and heading client service-oriented businesses. Brown will serve as the school’s second American Dean since its creation 45 years ago, succeeding Gabriel Hawawini, the Dean since 2000. The appointment of an external business executive as Dean marks a major change for INSEAD which has traditionally filled the position internally, from its own faculty.

“Taking advantage of the worldwide market is no longer a luxury for companies, it is a necessity,” said Brown. “I have spent the better part of my career working with business units, colleagues and clients based in Europe, Asia and beyond, where the paradigms for doing business differ dramatically from one region to the next. INSEAD’s international perspective and multicultural environment is what first attracted me to become involved in the school. The fact that it has so fully and uniquely embraced the needs of a diverse and global marketplace is why I am so excited to be INSEAD’s next Dean.” Brown has been a part of the broader INSEAD community since 2000, serving most recently as a member of the INSEAD Board and as Chairman of the school’s U.S. Council. As Dean, he will be charged with leading an institution with a rapidly expanding global footprint. Under the tenure of Gabriel Hawawini, the school expanded beyond its European roots developing a comprehensive, fully connected campus in Asia in 2000. In addition to the dual-campus model, the school’s alliance with Wharton, formed in 2001, has enabled faculty to conduct research, and students to take courses, across three continents.

“Dean Hawawini made the concept of a business school for the world a reality,” continued Brown. “As Dean, I will continue to champion that vision and the unique value it provides to organisations that recognize the importance of developing the world’s next generation of leaders: skilled transcultural executives.”

Brown’s tenure as Dean will begin in July 2006. He retires at the end of June from PricewaterhouseCoopers where, during his 26 year career, he led the firm’s Assurance and Business Advisory Services, Transactions Services and Corporate Development practices. Most recently, he headed the firm’s $3.5 billion Advisory Services operating unit.

“We chose Frank Brown to lead INSEAD because he embodies the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of this school,” said Cees J.A. van Lede, Chairman, INSEAD Board of Directors. "Frank’s long career is indicative of someone willing to take risks and pioneer initiatives that span many geographies. His tenure at PricewaterhouseCoopers is also a testament to his fundamental belief in the value of developing the next generation of world business leaders. He will be a great advocate for our model, a critical bridge to the business community and, like Dean Hawawini, a strong visionary for our future.”

“INSEAD is the one true business school for the world,” said Gabriel Hawawini, Dean of INSEAD. "That belief is as much shaped by our student body and faculty as by our global locations. Our vision is a school with no dominant culture - where students and faculty contribute different perspectives to help shape the kind of dialogue sparked only by true diversity. Having worked with Frank over the last few years, I know that he will add yet another important perspective to that dialogue.”

Brown is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut State Societies of Certified Public Accountants. He is Chairman Emeritus of the Multiple Sclerosis Society of New York and member of both the Iona College Board of Trustees and Bucknell University Business Advisory Board. Brown received his B.S.B.A. from Bucknell University and attended the Wharton Business School's Advanced Management Program.

Olay Daily Facial Cleansing Cloth

2005-12-17T16:35:00.000+01:00

The first three exams are over. Thursday we started with Corporate Financial Policy with lots of questions about raising equity, share repurchases, convertible bonds and option pricing. I like theses topics and think I did pretty well in the exam.
That afternoon we had a 4 hour group exam in Organizational Behavior. Oh man, I was really not looking forward to that. In retrospect, it wasn't even that bad. Group work went fine (looks like we actually learnt something) and we delivered a pretty ok report. It's always a bit of a lottery when you get your grade back from courses like this, but I feel much better about it then in P1.
Yesterday: Marketing. I enjoyed the course and the cases, but the exam was a bit different. Not question like, but very much when it came to the topic. We had to write a marketing plan for Olay Daily Cleansing Cloth. You of course know that this products are dry textured, soap-free cloths that combine lathering cleansers and conditioners to remove dirt and makeup and at the same time exfoliate and smooth the skin's texture. Also, it was quite obvious that 28.4% uses toners or astringents in their total facial routine and that the overall fragrance and if lather rinses from the cloth easily are important features of these products. No idea what I'm talking about? You're not alone, so didn't 80% of the people that did the exam... After having done all kinds of cases about televisions, cars, camera's or cokes, this subject was kind of a surprise. You could hear the whole class thinking: "what the f*** is this case all about???". Anyway, it's sometimes a good thing that INSEAD uses the z-curve to grade. Talking about one hell of a lottery...

This is again a weekend full of studying. I was planning to start at about 10 this morning, but since I yesterday left the bar with more alcohol inside me and less cash on me than I had in mind at the beginning of the evening, I actually woke up at 1pm. That's a nice start. At about 2pm I staggered into INSEAD, had a liter of coffee and began studying my Strategy. I'm really wondering if I will make my exam the way it should (=the way it works in real life) or in the crappy, impractical, nonsense way the professor taught us. Do you hear the slightly cynical undertone there? Most courses at INSEAD really are excellent, but unfortunately you'll always have some exceptions. Since I actually happen to know what I'm talking about when it comes to strategy and I cannot control the urge to correct every error that I hear the professor making, I'll probably will get screwed over big time anyway. We'll see how this works out.
Good thing we also have some fun stuff going on. I just came back from a nice BBQ with about 100 other students. It was already some sort of goodbye party, as we will spread out over the world in the next 6 months; some go to Fonty for 1 or more periods, some do the exchange with Wharton (US) and some stay in Singapore. It's really strange when you think about it. One the one hand it feels like we just started, but on the other hand we already experienced so much that it feels like ages.

Anyway, since I didn't really do enough today, I'll have to get back to studying Process & Operations...

So simple even an MBA can do it

2005-12-12T17:39:00.000+01:00

Still studying, so nothing really interesting happens all day. In order to post at least something, here's a link to a funny video about MBA's a fellow classmate sent me.

http://www.fedex.com/us/about/unitedstates/advertising/tvads/mbawm.html

Another classmate also thinks studying all day is no fun, so this afternoon he sent out this email to all students:

**********************
Topic: ... to everyone in the library right now...

What about a communitarian break? …

…let’s awfully “break the rules” and let some music play in here for 5 minutes…

… in this sacred place of studying and meditation

… I can’t stand this silence any more ;-p

What do you think?
Who dares?

Ahahahahahhahahah

N.
*************************

Bleh, my life is so boring at the moment, that they only way to post something about what's happening is to copy stuff from other people...

The Break-Out Room (a.k.a. BOR)

2005-12-10T08:35:00.000+01:00

It's weekend and very sunny outside. Still, INSEAD is packed with people studying for the exams next week. It's not the most fun way to spend your 'free' Saturday, but there's not much choice. So I decided to take a little break and share this with all you blog-readers. On the picture you see the break-out room where I'm currently working in. I took it with my phone, so I'm afraid it's not the best picture ever.

Ok, enough talk, back to work :(

What a week!

2005-12-07T17:10:00.000+01:00

It’s been a week since my last post and what a week this was! Extremely busy with all kind of stuff, both serious and fun. Since this will be a long post so I will put it in 3 parts:

1. Fun stuff
2. Serious stuff
3. More fun stuff (what I heard in class)

1. Fun stuff

Lots of activities. It all began last Thursday with a band formed by INSEAD students: “Sing ‘n Pour”. They arranged a performance in a bar downtown. About 100 students showed up, making a bar a crowded, damp, but oh so good place to be. The band played about 15 songs and did a very good job. A few of the highlights: Hey Jude (everybody singing along) and Smells Like Teen Spirit (the crowd went nuts). The owner of the bar stopped by and sent a message to the band leader the next day. His exact words: "When I looked around and saw the crowd going nuts, I remember why it was that I wanted to be in this business; absolutely amazing!" The fact that the liquor consumption was probably at an all time high at that bar, might had something to do with it as well :) And yes, it was on a Thursday so we had class the next morning at 8.30. It was not a pretty sight, and then I don’t even mention the smell…

Next event: Sinterklaas! The Dutch (including me as I am also from the flattest country in the world) organized a traditional festivity on Friday after class. Once a year Sinterklaas (comparable to Santa Claus) to The Netherlands with his assistants, Black Petes, to give presents to the children. It’s a bit of a long story to really explain how this works in Holland, but anyway, it was a lot of fun. All students could ‘put their shoe’ the evening before and they received a nice present from the Sint. For the day itself Sinterklaas and 3 Black Petes showed up to reward the good students and punish the bad. We prepared a presentation about 16 people that had to come to the Sint to explain why they did what they did. Fun stuff and we had some good reviews about it as well.

This week: the German/Swiss week. Each couple of weeks the students one or two countries organize a whole week with all kinds of traditional activities. Some examples of those activities: Monday was the Swiss cheese night (cheese fondue), yesterday there were 2 movies, tomorrow there is beer tasting, and this Friday will be the final party with free and unlimited German beer. As can be expected, the whole week is organized very well.

I’ll try to post some pictures about these events soon.

2. Serious stuff

Exams will start in 8 days and we definitely feel it. Everyone is working their butt off and you can see people looking like zombies all over the place. To make it even worse, last week was also the deadline for a number of group assignments. Working in a team should be more efficient that doing things on your own, but it practice it usually is a big, tiresome struggle. The next week will certainly only be worse when it comes to workload. The INSEAD library will be packed at 11pm each night. That’s what you get when you put a two-year program in just one year.
But there is light at the end of the tunnel: after the exams we will have our first real break (two and a half week!) and I’m sure ready for one. After that: Fonty!

And now, the periodically ranking of classes.
1. Management Accounting (amazing prof and interesting, practical topics)
2. Finance (remember the comments of the finance prof of the first part of the course?)
3. Marketing (lot’s of funny commercials)
4. Process and Operations Management (the best of the ‘not so good’)
5. Organizational Behavior (do I actually learn anything here?)
6. Strategy (I strongly disagree with the concepts discussed and the way the course is taught. The prof is fully aware of that, so I guess I can kiss my class participation grade goodbye on this one)

3. More fun stuff (what I heard in class)

Management Accounting 1
Prof: “You just answered the question I was going to ask? How did you read my mind? Well, I guess that is outside the scope of this course…”

Management Accounting 2
Prof: “In competitive markets you are automatically protected to extreme stupidity in pricing issues.”

Process and Operations Management (POM)
Students are talking in class when prof wants to say something. Some other students make the ‘Shhhhh’ sound.
Prof: “I can yell even louder, don’t worry”

Organizational Behavior
Prof: “If you can’t here me, that’s probably because you all went deaf again after your POM class”

Welcome to INSEAD 'Le Optimiste'!

2005-11-29T10:46:00.000+01:00

One of the long-time readers of this blog is going to INSEAD as well. A very good choice I must say. Welcome 'Le Optimiste'!!!

Check out his blog at:
http://leoptimistemusings.blogspot.com/

Winter Ball in hot Singapore

2005-11-28T19:06:00.000+01:00

Semi-annually, each campus organizes a major party (ball). Despite the lack of winter in Singapore, this ball was named 'The Winter Ball' as it is the season for cold weather on the other side of the globe (like Fonty). About 300-350 people (students, alumni, faculty and staff) put themselves in their best suit or tuxedo (dress for women of course) and headed for the most luxurious hotel in Singapore: The Fullerton. And I can tell you something: it was one hell of a party!

Free champagne (or other drink) all evening sure has it's effect. When we were all ready for dinner, there were some people around that might have had enough to drink already. Some short speeches during dinner (Accounting prof:"Good stuff", P&M prof:"I'll take care of the jackets tonight", Dean:"So where's that winter anyway?", P5 student:"I feel all emotional now"), some crazy slideshows and it was time to hit the dance floor. In no-time the floor was packed by a huge mob of party-people. Ties came of, shirts were unbuttoned and we were ready to roll. Nobody really seems to remember when and how the party ended, so it must have been good :)

Thanks a lot to all of you who made this great and memorable (at least parts of it) event possible! I can't wait till the Summer Ball in Fonty in half a year.

Some more facts

2005-11-23T17:55:00.000+01:00

Some quick answers to the questions in the comment to my last post.

Q: How;s the M:F ratio in Singapore? If you can't generalise, then your batch? What would you say about the diversity of the people in Singapore vs. Fonty?

The people in Singapore and Fonty are the same. There are two campusses, but since almost everyone travels between them it is essentialy only one group of students. The diversity among them is huge. The students in our current intake of 450 come from 71 nationalities. Futhermore, there is no dominant nationality in the program. From the top of my head: I think the largest group are the Indians with about 13% of total, followed by the French with about 10%. This diversity in people is the same in Fonty as in Singapore (by the way, it is also not true that there are relatively more people from Asian countries in Singapore than in Fonty).
As for the M:F ratio, the student body normally consists for about 20-25% of female students. This is somewhat lower than most of the US schools (they have about 30%). The probable explanation for this is the diversity of the students with respect to nationality; pursueing an MBA is not equally normal for women as for men in some countries. As a result INSEAD receives less applications from women than it wants. The US schools generally have about 80-90% American students (some students are called international, but they might only be born outside the US) and since it is more normal for women from the US to apply, they have a higher percentage of women.

Q: What would you say are your favourite subjects?

Favourite subject depends greatly on the professor that teaches them. Some of the professor are absolutely awesome and are able to even make accounting a very dynamic topic, and some of them are less awesome. In that respect, my favourite subjects so far:
P1: Prices & Markets, Financial Accounting
P2: Corporate Financial Policy, Managerial Accounting (and maybe also Marketing)

Facts about my life at INSEAD in Singapore

2005-11-22T17:23:00.000+01:00

Some facts about my life at INSEAD in Singapore:

Academic structure:

5 periods of approximately 2 months each (P1-P5)
2 intakes per year (September and January)
Appr. 150 students in the Singapore intake and 300 at the Fontainebleau one (900 per year)
Total students at Singapore campus is about 300 ('fresh' intake and 'seniors' combined)
13.5 core courses (P1=5, P2=6, P3=2.5)
Minimum 10 and maximum 12 elective courses (advised: P3=3, P4=4, P5=3)
Core courses: classes with 75 students in an amphi (=lecture room)
Elective courses: classes with maximum 48 students in an amphi
Average percentage of grade determined by participation in class: core=20%, elective=20% to 50%
About 80 electives to chose from

Study

Weekdays: 8-16 hours per day (including classes)
Weekends: 3-6 hours per day
Average of 3 different courses taught per day
Duration of 1 course is 1.5 hours; 15 minutes break between courses

Housing

Heritage View apartment complex or Dover Parkview apartment complex
2 or 3 bedroom apartments
Costs (furnished): S$2000 per month for 2 bedroom apartment (=appr EUR 1000), S$2500 per month for 3 bedroom apartment
Almost all apartments hired a maid for cleaning and ironing (appr S$40 per week)
Available at complex (Heritage View): 4 swimming pools, 2 BBQ spots, 1 gym, tennis courts

Travel

From apartment to INSEAD: 7 minutes walk
All other: taxi (a taxi ride to the city center lasts about 15 minutes and will cost you S$6)
Trips made by students in last 3 months: Indonesia (Bali, Bintang), Thailand (Bangkok, Phuket, Ciang Mai), Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Melakka, several islands for diving), Cambodia, Vietnam, Phillipines, Japan

Food

Food court (S$4 per meal)
INSEAD: lunch and diner (S$5 per meal)
Restaurants (S$15-25 per meal)
Home cooking: hardly

Weather

30-33 degrees Celsius every day
It rains on average 30 minutes a day (some days more)

Party and relaxation

Average of 3 night per week of having drinks and going out
3 official parties organized per period
1 major party per half year (Winter Ball is happening at 26th of November)
2 national weeks per period (week full of activities organized by students from that country)
2 national days per period (same as weeks, but shorter (duh))
organized sports: basketball, soccer, rugby, tennis, dance classes (Latin American / Ballroom, Salsa, Belly dancing) and plenty of individual sports

Career

Average of 3 evening lectures per week (presentations by companies, presentations about industries, presentations by global leaders and entrepreneurs)
Organized by Career Management Services: cv sessions, self-assessment, industry seminars, etc

That should do it for now. If anyone wants to know some other / more specific stuff, just drop me a comment. I like comments :)

Short movie about INSEAD's Asia campus

2005-11-21T19:44:00.000+01:00

If you want to see a short movie about INSEAD's Asia campus, check out the following link

http://www.insead.edu/campuses/video/asia/Stamp.mov

For all of you in Fonty at the moment: pay close attention to the outside shots and the nice weather (don't worry, I will join you guys in P3).

Paintball and the ultimate losers

2005-11-21T17:42:00.000+01:00

Last Saturday: paintball! 26 MBA student decided they had enough of each other and it was time to do some serious slaughtering. In teams of 4 or 5 persons we managed to trash each other good. Yellow paint all over the place. Good fun! I managed to keep my clothes pretty clean as I was mainly shot in the face. This sounds way worse than it was actually; we had some good masks.

The British team managed to take home the first place and earned themselves eternal glory. This, however, only strengthens my suspicion that they actually are part of the British special forces and were hired by the London Business School to infiltrate INSEAD. Damn you, Brits!

For those who are interested, I am on the photo :)

About the losers mentioned in the post title, this has nothing to do with paintball. Last Friday I went out for some drinks with some fellow students (who would have thought that??) and we ended up in a bar full of expats. You can encounter the losers I will talk about in most South-east Asian countries, but in Singapore they are kind of rare. However, this place was crowded with them. As you might have guessed, I'm talking about the guys that think they can just buy a girl because they have an average amount of money or just because they are white males. They are to ugly and/or to stupid to find a girlfriend on their own and will lower themselves to become the biggest losers on this planet. The girls were very obviously not having fun and these assholes probably didn't even notice it. One more time: you are the ultimate loser! I always have the unstoppable urge to tell them how I think about them so I managed to almost get into a fight (which I would have enjoyed greatly, and yes, I am the biggest guy on the photo), but then again, that might not be the best thing to do in a place like Singapore. It really pisses me off.

The deadline for putting your CV in INSEAD's system (for the CV book) is this week. This means that everyone is very busy with writing, rewriting, rewriting again and proofreading CV's for dozens of other students. It is amazing how much time you can put into just 1 piece of paper. It's pretty hard to convince everyone that these INSEAD students in Singapore are the most promising business men and women that ever set foot on this world :)

Grades of P1 exams and some fun stuff

2005-11-14T16:26:00.000+01:00

Today we got our grades of the exams of the P1 courses. In the last few weeks the general consensus was "I don't care about the grades; it's the learning and the whole MBA experience that counts". Oh, how different it was this afternoon - the campus looked like the aftermath of a major battle with casualties and seriously wounded bodies all of the place. It was not a pretty sight...

The vast majority of the MBA students are used to be at the top of their class and take home the honors in each course. When you are scaled relatively to each other there will be by definition people at the bottom of the distribution. I'm told the response was quite typical for when you receive your first grades. I guess most people will just have to get used to it.

I'm quite happy with my results (as if you were interested). 4 out of 5 above average and they only one below it was Organizational Behavior. Maybe I was a bit too honest to the prof when I spoke to him (didn't like his way of teaching at all) and he retaliated. Anyway, stupid course...

And now, by popular demand, "what I heard in class". Of course starring the Finance professor. Too bad this was his last class and the remainder of the course will be taught be someone else (although I heard he is also really good).

Finance II

Prof: "We have these strategy guys of INSEAD interfering with Finance all the time. They've gotten on our turf with their elective course 'Corporate Governance'. But we are retaliating it with our own new elective 'Financial aspects of corporate governance'. The Empire strikes back!"

Prof: (further pissing off other academic sections) "Finance is the only area that has strong theory and strong practical applications. Other areas either have strong theories and no applications or a lot of applications and no theory at all."

Prof: "We have another elective in Finance where you do a lot of cases to value companies. In the beginning the students' solutions widely vary, but later on in the course they always converge. Why? Because people find the solutions on the intranet. The second possibility is that they actually learn something.

Marketing

Prof: "The relevant segment for viagra, for example, are mainly older men."
Student: "Doesn't only have to be older, you can also take it for other reasons."
Prof: "Can you elaborate on that?"
Student: "... eh..."
Prof: "Well, I know you are not in their segment ...... eh..."

Student 1: "In Germany there is a village that is supposed to have the exact composition of inhabitants as the whole of Germany and therefore is often used as test market for new products."
Student 2: "Is it a zoo?"

Finally, a big thumbs up for our Managerial Accounting professor (I've now learned that sucking up to a prof is sometimes beneficial for your grade). I've just read the case for tomorrow's class. This case is written by the prof himself and is a real refreshing experience. Just simple, to the point and without all those useless added 'stories' most of the Harvard cases have (Harvard seems to almost have a global monopoly on writing cases). Most of the other ones start something like this: "Gaby Sommerset (35), the newly appointed plant manager and -insert school here- MBA, was sipping a refreshing ice-blended coffee in her kitchen and wandered why her period was late this month .... bla bla bla etc." For all writers of MBA cases: cut the unnecessary b***shit and give me the facts. These cases are long enough anyway and it's not like we don't have enough to read around here.

That's it for today :)

PS. I've recuperated from my hangover (ouch ouch ouch) and corrected the massive amount of spelling and grammatical errors in my last post (at least I hope).

Kareoke rules (bare with me, I'm drunk)

2005-11-12T21:04:00.000+01:00

First of all, please don't mind the spelling errors and such (I'm really drunk right now and I really should go sleep).

We had a Kareoke night this evening; it was awesome. In asia they really take Kareoke serious so we we had a nice room were we could all sit and sing real nice. Not INSEAD though, we were all standing and shouting from the top of our lung while consuming one pitcher of beer after the other. Some really knew to sing, but the majority of the people were just trying to keep up with the speed the words on the screen came by. I never knew I could sing a nice duet 'back street boys style' with one of the German guys. When our time ended (2am) we just kept on staying in the room and ordered some half more hours of singing (you know 'de Amsterdamse grachten'?). In the end we finished at 4am totally wasted and no voice at all left (none of us will be able to talk tomorrow). Also, we started some drinking games (who can down the beer fastest). Really childish when you think of it, but I'm still happy I won :)

In short: good fun, great times, and all wasted. We all agreed on thing though: we are going to show Fonty how to party the hardcore style for sure when we get there and take over the place.

INSEAD rocks, go Sing and Pour!

Things I heard in class...

2005-11-09T18:15:00.000+01:00

Marketing

1. The professor's (he's from Korea) first part of his name means 'bright' and the last part means 'helpful'; this should be a good class then :)

2. Prof: "with product innovations you don't want to listen to people that continuously complain"
student: "... French people?"

Management Accounting

Prof: If you really haven't prepared the case, don't tell me but just try to bullshit me"

Finance 2

This class is absolutely hilarious (also very good by the way). If I really write down all the funny stuff that comes by I wouldn't be able to do anything else in class. So here are a few that I did write down.

1. Prof: "The deadweight loss to society: the legal profession"

2. Prof: "If I shop, I do that in my underwear so people can see I cannot steal anything and give me discounts"

3. Student says something about 'corporate social responsibility'
Prof (interrupts the student when he hears those words): "Ooooi...... bad word"
Prof (later): "If you go to a barber, what do you want the haircutter to do? Cut your hair or maximize social responsibility?"

4. Professors explains that if you are punished in advanced because people expect you to sin, the best option is to actually sin.
Prof: "Each time I come home at 5am, my wife beats me up; happens to me all the time. So what should I do? .... sin"

5. Prof: "Never exercise an option before maturity. So don't get married to fast...... unless the underlying asset is decreasing in value."

6. Prof: "I'm sure it's not social responsible. But frankly, I don't give a damn."

7. Prof: "The fundamental purpose of life is to spend money and consume"

8. Prof: "In Finance 1 you learned that you should always trust the market. Today I'm going to destroy that believe"
Student: "Why did we have Finance 1 then?"
Prof: "Well, you have to create jobs..."

9. Prof: "So who's going to solve your problems?"
Student (laughing): "social responsible investment banks"
Prof: "That's a contradictio in terminus, it's like social responsible mass murder"

10. Prof: "So, what happened in the eighties?"
Student: "Madonna?"
Prof: "Well, we ARE talking about a tender offer..."

11. Prof: "So I invested in this company (e-bay for porn). It's a great company if you want to get rid of your used whips and chains"

That's it for this time, but I'm sure there is a lot more to come :)

"new" INSEAD blogger spotted

2005-11-08T19:23:00.000+01:00

Since a few months Google has the option to search for blogs. I tried it today and found a new interesting blog of an INSEAD MBA'er (an MBA'er I know by the way, but I didn't knew he also blogged). It is a very interesting read with a lot of pictures about his travels. Check it out at http://oliviermineau.blogspot.com/

Olivier, I hope you don't mind me adding you to the link list (actually, I don't even know if you read this blog).

I've got a home in Fonty!

2005-11-08T18:22:00.000+01:00

I found a place to live for P3 & P4 in Fontainebleau! I know, I will also be in Fonty in P5, but I guess I'll be able to find a place when I'm there. Otherwise I can always live under a bridge or in a scorched car in Paris...

The place of choice is Chateau Montmelian. This is a very beautiful chateau (see pictures) and also well known for it's massive parties (see http://www.montmelian.org/ to see what I mean. make sure you don't skip the introduction and turn on your sound). From what I've heard this is one of the best places to stay. It is not in Fonty though, but about 15 minutes by car away (which is not that bad; there are quite a few chateaus even further away from Fonty). I'm really looking forward to it. The difference in temperature I'll just have to ignore.

On a different note: group work is not always easy. 6 people in a group that all think they are always right sometimes poses some problems. We had a nice feedback session yesterday. We brought out the baseball bats and other weapons and started pounding on each other for 2 hours long. At some point the general consensus was to stop the session and continue today so we all had some time to cool down. Today it only took 15 minutes. After that we played some games of table soccer in the cafeteria and had a beer together. We are all happy campers again now :) As a matter of fact, we are actually doing quite well as a group; there are a lot of groups out there that work way worse together.

Review on P1 and the first week of P2

2005-11-07T17:23:00.000+01:00

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).

First day of exams is over...

2005-10-24T16:54:00.000+02:00

First day of exams. This morning we had Financial Accounting. Almost everybody thought it was going to be a piece of cake and looking at the previous exams I sure couldn't figure out why the average score shouldn't be at least 80-90%. Not this exam. We had 80 multiple choice questions (exam lasts 3 hours) and there were quite a lot of tricky ones. My prediction: all that found it easy made a lot of errors, all that found it difficult saw the tricky questions and did fine. Let's see where I fit in.

Something about the grade system. The grades go from four (highest) to zero (or lower) with a mean of 2,5. All the grades are relative, so that means that if you did very well but the class did better on average, you will get a lower than average grade. For the people that know stats: the grading system is based on the normal distribution.

The afternoon consisted of a group exam in Organizational Behavior. We had to analyze a case by using concept of the course and advice an action plan. We did a short trial run before and developed an almost flawless procedure to get to a correct answer the most efficient way.... almost flawless....
Theory was great, but this is what happened in real life (don't you just hate real life?). Obviously not everyone wanted to stick to the procedure and lots of arguments arised. Quality of the produced material went down, blood pressure went up. Couple of harsh comment flew over the table and the show was now really on the road. In the end we handed in something, but definitely not in line with the quality standards I'd like to keep up. I sure needed some cigarettes and beers after the exam.
Next time I'll bring a baseball bat to group exams. Or maybe I would enjoy strangling people with my bare hands better....

On a happier note: the expected time when I see my girlfriend again is 55 hours, 4 minutes and 37 seconds (let's hope for a small standard deviation).

Tomorrow: Prices & Markets and Statistics.

What exams do to people...

2005-10-22T19:28:00.000+02:00

We have exams this Monday till Wednesday. Everyone is studying hard and the library and break-out rooms at INSEAD are overflowing. Last night we saw the results of when people release that tension.

We had a barbecue last night and, as tradition prescribes, the person that had his birthday was thrown into the pool. Also, the person that won the Assassin Game (a.k.a. the top-killer) was thrown into the pool. These two decided that another person should also become soaked and from then on it became an exponential game: after about 15 minutes there were at least 30 people thrown into the pool. The guards at our apartment complex didn't like it, but we had a lot of fun :)

Also, we received the following mail from our Prices & Markets (Game Theory and such) professor. I think it is funny.

**************************

Hi everyone:

I forgot to mention one thing in the final session. Some of you may miss the final in which case you are entitled to a make-up exam. Of course that opens up possibilities of strategic considerations.

For instance some may think: "Let me take P&M and OB and I'll postpone Finance & Accounting. That way I can spread out the exams over 2 weeks giving me more time to prepare. That way I can jump to the top of the distribution." Evil laugh here!

Of course, this beats the purpose of the z-score and this would be very unfair to the rest of your classmates who show up on the allotted exam day. To discourage this behavior I always set much harder make-up exams. And I mean harder by leaps and bounds. Of course, this would punish those who are genuinely ill on that day which is again unfair - a double whammy so as to speak. Here is the signal I use to see if you faking: there are 2 exams everyday. If you miss one but make a remarkable recovery to show up for the next one I take this as a sure sign of faking. Then you get a very hard exam. If you miss both, then the makeup exam has the same level of difficulty as the normal final. But we'll make sure that both the makeup exams are on the same day.

A second and perhaps a more powerful incentive to not do this: while your classmates are swimming - in alcohol or otherwise - you will be working.

Singapore beats Fontainebleau again (warning: bragging)

2005-10-20T18:25:00.000+02:00

This post will be full of bragging. If you don't like that I suppose you better stop reading now :)

The last two weeks we have been playing some intranet-based Game Theory games. In total there are 90 work groups at INSEAD in P1 (60 in Fontainebleau and 30 in Singapore). These work groups are linked to each other in groups of 3 (so 30 times 3 groups). During these games you compete with the other 2 groups for a bottle of champagne. Actually, everything at INSEAD is about champagne (phone ringing in class: champagne, win a contest: champagne, thank someone: champagne).

Today we got the results: 14 of the 30 bottles of champagne went to Singapore (so that's more than the 10 you would normally expect). However, since Singapore usually wins these games the professors clustered some Singapore groups to compete with other Singapore groups so the groups in Fonty would at least win some bottles. If you divide Singapore and Fonty in fair groups (so at random), we would have won 21 of the 30 bottles. To make it even worse, 5 of the top-5 performing groups are from Singapore and 8 of the top-10. And this happens every year.

Nobody knows why this happens. Are we more cooperative in Singapore (you tend to earn more that way)? Do the people in Fonty have no time to play the game? Or are we just smarter? If we are smarter that doesn't entail much good when it comes to the relative grading of exams (per campus) based on the Z-curve.... If you have no clue what I'm talking about now, just wait until we get back the results of our exams (next Monday till Wednesday) and I will further explain the Z-curve thing. Anyway, I will reward the person that gives me the answer to the question why Singapore always beats Fonty with a bottle of Champagne. You can pick it up at my place in Singapore...

Last bragging point (then I will stop for at least a few posts): if you type in "INSEAD" at Google Blog search this blog will be the first mentioned :) Thanks you all that linked to my website.

Birthdays are cool

2005-10-17T19:23:00.000+02:00

Today was my birthday. I already had my first 'congratulation' from my fellow students when they threw me into the pool at last Saturdays' barbecue (it's kinda of a tradition). Check this link if you want to see me being thrown into the pool: Click here to watch 'CIMG2227'
This evening I went for diner with a group to celebrate and I must say I had a very good time. First some normal drinks and then, since there was a Mexican there, we switched to tequila shots. First one, then another, then some more and then the waitress came and said we better take the whole bottle since it would be more cost efficient. As we are all rational MBA students, we couldn't argue with that and took another bottle. Sufficient to say, we had a good time (but please don't send me comments saying that I make a lot of spelling / grammatical errors, as I just came home...).

Today was a good day. Next week will be even better as my girlfriend will come and visit me here :) :)

So what happened in the last two weeks?

2005-10-16T19:22:00.000+02:00

It seems like that some people actually read my Blog as I got a lot of messages saying that I should get out of that bar and start writing again. Ok, sorry, here we go....

Two weeks is a long time at a place like INSEAD, so I'll just give you the quick version. I'll end this post with all the things I heard and found funny in class, as I reckon that people enjoy reading it.

So what did I do?

I got involved in the organization of the Winter Ball. This is the semi-annual mega party in the most prestigious hotel of Singapore and I'm sure we will all remember this party for a long time.
I started to dislike the Organization Behavior class. It is getting a bit more of the same and if you're not a girl the OB professor doesn't give you the same opportunities to speak (and no, this is not only the case with me)
I started to like the Prices and Market even more. We had Game Theory the last two weeks (prisoners' dilemma etc) and also played a intranet based game against the other groups (also from Fonty). It's quite fun when you hear a whole group of grown-ups say: "if they screw us this round, we are going to screw them back so hard they are sorry they were even born"
I spent a weekend in bed recuperating from some seriously spicy Indian food. The Indian guy advising me to take that particular dish was very happy, as he could now say to the whole class that he took me down.
I've started giving dancing classes (Latin American and Ballroom) and the first lesson was a big success. Not in terms of quality, but it was fun nonetheless.
We started with the organization of the Dutch Day and INSEAD will see a day full of typical Dutch rude and political incorrect behavior begin December :)
I'm organizing an 'Assassin Game' for all the P1 students. In this game, each student gets a card which states his victim and the weapon that he/she must use (e.g. a banana). We've been playing it for a week now, and it's been a lot of fun (lots of paranoid students as well...)
During all these non-study related things, I also pitched in the occasional hour looking through my books
The list of electives for P3 till P5 is published and I spent quite some time checking out the classes I want to follow. We have some seriously interesting classes coming up

So far the serious stuff, now here come the funny quotes I heard last two weeks:

In financial accounting

Student answers a question, but his pronunciation is a bit unclear

Professor: "Excellent! It's consolidation. That's what you said in another language, right?"

Professor asks question and a lot of students answer

Professor: "I heard 'yes' and I heard 'no'. I give you a tip: one of them is right"

Professor meets a student that is waiting outside for a taxi at 9pm.

Professor: "Hi buddy, how are you doing?"

Student: "I'm alive..."

Professor: "Don't worry, I'll kill you at the exam"

In Finance class

Professor: "Well, the guy who came up with this CAPM model was an engineer that turned an economist. So for all you engineers here, there's still hope"

Professor: "I'm gonna rely on a little bit of your memory. Hopefully, there's some of it"

In Statistics

Professor: "When making a regression on your weight, not only height, but also sex is important"

Student: "So if you have a lot of sex you will be lighter? And if you're a woman it's the other way around?"

Professor: "Next time, I have an exercise for that..."

Student cannot stop laughing in class.

Professor: "Are you sure you haven't drunk anything this morning? Here, let me give you some extra sample exams."

after looking at the after-MBA salary data from previous classes we found out that an increase in grade point of one will lower your starting salary by EUR 19,000

Professor: "I once had a very bad dream. I got a phone call from a woman with a very sexy voice and then, all of a sudden, she said 'hetroskedasticity'. I woke up sweating."

120 euro dinner in Bangkok and bombings in Bali

2005-10-02T22:29:00.000+02:00

Busy weekend. About 10 of us left the organized environment of Singapore for the total anarchy of Bangkok: awesome!

The trip was a good example of an impulse decision: flight booked at Thursday night, took off at Friday afternoon, found a hotel at Friday night and got totally hammered at a bar we didn’t even know existed.
The next day we walked around the city and saw some of the tourist hot-spots (no pun intended). Of course we also took a traditional Thai massage and I had the pleasure to be massaged by a guy (why did the other 2 get a female masseuse?) that used his elbows and knees to torture me. The last Thai massage I took was 3 years ago and I can tell you that the next one will at least take 3 more years; my muscles still hurt…

Part of the group (the part that already knew they were going to Bangkok a few days in advance) had reserved a restaurant to dine at on Saturday evening. Not knowing about the details of the restaurant, the rest of the group decided to join them. What an experience we got! The restaurant was on top of the highest building in Bangkok (a very fancy hotel) and the bar was outside. About 250 meters above the ground we enjoyed some very expense beers and listened to some easy-listening music. The restaurant is probably the most exclusive one in the whole of Thailand and we definitely discovered that when we saw the prices we were going to pay: a dinner of 120 euro per person. The food was excellent and the company as well (Roger Federer was eating at the table almost next to ours) but the price tag was a bit high. Anyway, you only live once and should have fun. One thing I also found out (again) is that I don’t really like some of the upper class. There were quite a lot of people that just went there just because they were rich and could afford it, but they didn’t have fun. They looked bored, lots of them had way too young girls with them for their age and also treated the staff like shit. “I am rich and everyone should treat me like a king”. Disgusting!

The next day we were just relaxing a bit and getting ready for our flight back to Singapore when something on the news caught our eyes: the terrorist bombings in Bali. We were not the only group of people that went away for the weekend. There was also a group of 10 other INSEAD students (I know all of them) that went to Bali, and also to the exact same place as where the bombings took place. I just found out that they are all safe, but there were quite some insecure hours in the mean time. Terrorist attacks are always terrible, but when it comes this close to your personal life it really affects you.

More log off emails

2005-09-28T12:17:00.000+02:00

If you don't log off your computer and someone finds it, this is what kind of emails you will be sending then:

*******************************

After a month in Fonty,
I happen to talk to so many strange people every day
that I'm getting confused and troubled...
I decided I want to stay in INSEAD forever, become a proffesor, eventually become Dean of the MBA programme,
and then emeritus teacher and be buried in the Amphi A.
That way I could probably start understanding the relations and behaviors that happen in this institution

PS: I left my Glasses Gucci Case by the computer.

*********************************

Hi all,

just wanted to let you know that I'll be giving scuba diving lessons at the Heritage swimming pool every Saturday morning at 8am. Everybody is welcome to attend but there are some rules to follow:
- for men, please do not come wearing "Speedo" type swimsuits
- for those of you that don't know how to swim please bring along inflatable support
- you will always have to do as I say, as it can get very dangerous with a lot of people in the swimming pool
- finally, no flippers are allowed

Please reply to this email to let me know if you are interested in joining

*******************************

Hello everyone,

Sorry for the mass.

Tonight at 20.00, I am throwing a barbeque party to celebrate my catch. Stop by if you feel like a shot of sake and some grilled meat.

By the way, yesterday, on the way back home, I was attacked by a massive lizard. After intense struggling I managed to kill the beast and dragged it home. Tonight I will be the chef and will cook this creature for you to a famous Japanese recipe.

See you by the pool,

******************************

PS. Next time I will write about the difference between campuses (for real this time)

We learn really important stuff around here

2005-09-28T12:00:00.000+02:00

Some examples of things we learned during the last week:

Prices & Markets (a.k.a. "How do beer and sex work?")
1) I learned that if a bar charges a S$72 entrance fee and then S$2 per beer, the bar can use my personal demand curve for beer to the fullest.
2) Professor:"You can use implicit price discrimination when it comes to unexpected needs - that's why contraceptives in a bar are sold at premium prices. Hmmm, when I think of it, contraceptives and beer are actually substitutes of each other..."

Data, Uncertainty and judgment (a.k.a. "How to catch a cheating wife")
1) If your wife delivers a baby and you haven't seen her for 10 months and 5 days, there is less than 1% chance it's your child
2) Student 1: "A pregnancy usually takes between 8 and 10 months". Student 2: "Unless you're an elephant...."

Financial Accounting (a.k.a. "How to earn money? / how being an alumni works?")
Professor: "When the job market is very good and you all earn 250,000 euro, the probability of you paying INSEAD, and me especially, a bonus is higher."
Class laughing
Professor: "Hmmm, that wasn't supposed to be funny..."

I said it before and I will say it again: this will be a very useful year.

Impression of the courses so far

2005-09-20T19:42:00.000+02:00

Time to write something about the courses as well...

Prices & Markets

Course content so far: Estimating supply and demand, pricing strategies for different kind of markets, auction strategies
Professor: (India) The best professor in the first period. He has a good deal of humor and really knows how to explain things.
My general opinion so far: I already have quite a background in this field (we will see how I do at the mid-term next Monday...). But still, I must say I like this class. It's cool to see what 'trivial' mistakes even the largest of corporations make when it comes to pricing: very useful!

Data, Uncertainty and judgment

Course content (so far): All kind of statistical calculations but the course is mainly about understanding how you can make decisions based on statistics and how you can influence others (and can be influenced yourself!)
Professor: (Greece) A definite guru in his field. Dry sense of humor and teaches by all kind of gambling games (you can make some money here if you know what you are doing!).
My general opinion so far: As an Actuary (insurance mathematican) I should already know all the statistical theories. However, the real useful thing is not in the theory, but in the practical implementation. By all kinds of exercises it becomes very clear that numbers are not exact and the intepretation can be greatly influenced by the way the numbers are present or the questions are asked. Generally: a lot of fun.

Financial Markets & Valuation

Course content: Discounted cash-flow models, Valuation of projects and companies, bond pricing, equity
Professor: (China) Very knowledgeable and she makes a great efford to teach as good as possible. However, she is fairly inexperienced in teaching when compared to the other professors.
My general opinion (so far): I know, it gets a bit boring, but I also have some previous experience in this field (by the way, this will definately be different in the courses of period 2 to 5). There are not that many real life cases in class, which I find a pity. An MBA is not only about theoretical knowledge, but mainly about the practical implementation. The course content is definately very useful for everyone that aspires a job in Management, Finance or Consulting, but it could do with some more cases.

Leading People and Groups (a.k.a. "OB")

Course content (so far): How to work effectively in teams, how to lead people, how to influence people (generally: the soft skills)
Professor: (US) Totaly in line with what you expect of an Organizational Behavior professor, this guy is a very extrovert and inspiring teacher. He likes to teach by using Dilbert comics (you can't go wrong with that).
My general opinion so far: Totally awesome class. This is the kind of stuff I want to learn during my MBA. I have no previous experience in this field (at least not more than the average MBA student) and there are a lot of things I can improve on. There is ample group work in this class and it's very informative to see some of your group/class mates in action. Observe, listen, and try it yourself. One of the things we had to do as a group was to contruct a group profile and a organizational/operational plan of how to work together. We named our group "The Dry Run" as we want to establish an atmosphere where we can experiment with all kind of styles in an environment "free of fear". Other things we did are watching/analyzing a movie (12 Angry men), building a car that could carry an egg and could be dropped from a height of 15 meters, negotiating and learning all kinds of ways that people can be influenced. One bad point about the class: there is an aweful amount of reading involved (like 150 pages per class)

Financial Accounting

Course content (so far): Calculating and reading of income statements, balance sheets, cash-flow statements and all the interdependecies between them
Professor: (US) He clearly explaines all the reasoning and interdependicies in Financal Accounting. Not afraid to make a harsh comment or two (I like that).
My general opinion so far: Again, previous experience. But, as with most of the other classes, there are ample real life cases involved (Enron, Worldcom, etc.). Understanding of Financial Accounting is an absolute must if you want to get anywhere in life after your MBA.

In general

I work my ass off!!! Eventhough most of the theory in the courses is not especially difficult, the workload is amazing. A normal working day starts at 8.30 in the morning and lasts until midnight. But I still enjoy it! My fellow students are very inspiring and I learn a lot (the parties, diving weekends, etc are also good fun). I had only about 3 weeks of classes now, but it sure feels like a few months.

My next post will be about the Singapore campus and why I think this is the best place to be of both campuses (mind you, I haven't been in Fonty yet so it will all be subject to change).

That was absolutely hilarious!

2005-09-16T11:07:00.000+02:00

Yesterday we had the traditional Heritage Dash. We run, dressed up in all kind of costumes, from the Heritage apartment complex to the INSEAD campus. It was awesome. The way bystanders were looking at us was priceless. Here are some pictures (I hope to provide a link to the video soon).

Part of the crew that did the Dash

MeRunning across a junction

I'm off now; I'm going to spend my weekend diving in Malaysia :)

When you forget to log off

2005-09-14T16:55:00.000+02:00

There are a lot of computers at the INSEAD campus. When you want to use them you need to log in and you'll have access to your email as well then. However, when you forget to log off it is kind of a tradition that the next person sends an email to the entire INSEAD community. Luckely, I haven't forgotten to log off yet. Here are some of the emails that were sent:

*******************

Dear All

Sorry for the mass, but it appears my beloved teddy has gone missing.

Life really isn't the same without him. I can't sleep, I have no one to talk to, no shoulder to cry on.... who will help me with my finance cases? And what about OB? And who will log me off now that he's gone?

Maybe he's in a better place now, enjoying himself somewhere along the N7 perhaps, or with a ladyboy in Sinagpore....

If you see him, please let him know that I'm sorry, I still love him and I want him back

*******************

Hi all,

I'm organazing an Asian-theme dinner at my place tonight (commencing at 9pm). Please, let me know at your earliest conveniece whether you want to attend.

Thanks,

********************

Hi All
I am really confused in life. I think I will skip on campus recruitment this year and instead try out the following

Please vote and help me

1. Become a Dean-o-Boy by end of P4

2. Become an actor by end of P5. ( Preview below )

3. Go for P6 to "THE ISLAND"

************************

Hi all. Is there a club for those people who don't even log off from the computers in the bar area? If not I would like to start one! Please reply to me if you are interested.

************************

Hi All,

Me'z a Dean'O Boy thanks to my name on the Dean's list. However, I feel that all is not well with me and that I could do with some improvement in my class participation.

How can go about it? Please respond!

a.) Me'z a dean-o-boy so everything is allright
b.) Me has gone nuts so perhaps bringing a guitar to the class might help
c.) Me should come to the class dressed like Elvis and start singing Opera

Now Me does remember my stats course from P1 so to get a wider sample of opinions, Me'z sending this email to Singapore folks too. Help Please!!

Some interesting things from class

2005-09-14T05:40:00.000+02:00

Statistics class:

Quote professor: "We are not rational, but in a very consistent way"

A bidding game we played (we gamble a lot in Stats class, even though it's actually illigal in Singapore):
Auction S$100
- The highest bidder will pay the amount bid and win S$100
- The second highest bidder must also pay the amount that he or she bid
- Call out bids in multiples of S$10
Try this and see what happens :)

Prices and Markets class:

An alternaltive proposed by the professor to the amount of money the EU spends on Agricultural subsidies:
"You can send every cow in Europe around the world on a business class ticket with US$2000 dollars in pocket money each to spend on duty-free shops."

Leading People & Groups class

For those that know a bit about the Myers Briggs personality test, these are the most common profiles among INSEAD students:

ENTP 15%
ESTJ 14%
ISTJ 13%
ENTP 13%

Google Earth images of INSEAD and Heritage

2005-09-10T16:57:00.000+02:00

Google Earth is an amazing tool. You can zoom in on most of the places in the world and see the satelite pictures.

On the first picture you can see how close the INSEAD campus is to Heritage View (that's where I live). It takes about 10 minutes to walk from one to the other. You can reach it in less time, but it's just too hot here too walk to fast. By the way, the Dover Parkview complex is just north of Heritage.

The second one shows the Heritage View apartment complex. If you look closely, you can see the pools. I live at tower B.

Pictures of INSEAD, apartment and pool

2005-09-10T16:13:00.000+02:00

Some pictures of the most important spots (made by my roommate, thanx).

This is the living room of the apartment.

The Heritage apartment buidling, one of the pools and the BBQ spot next to one of the pools.

The front view of the INSEAD campus

A food court (we usually eat at one of these)

Prices & Markets Course: buying paint

2005-09-08T13:51:00.000+02:00

(Taken from the Prices & Markets Course)

BUYING PAINT FROM A HARDWARE STORE

CUSTOMER: Hi. How much is your paint?
CLERK: Well we have regular quality for $12 a gallon and premium for $18. How many gallons would you like?
CUSTOMER: Five gallons of regular quality,please.
CLERK: Great. That will be $60 plus tax.

versus....

BUYING PAINT FROM AN AIRLINE

CUSTOMER: Hi, how much is your paint?
CLERK: Well, sir, that all depends.
CUSTOMER: Depends on what?
CLERK: Actually, a lot of things.
CUSTOMER: How about giving me an average price?
CLERK: Wow, that's too hard a question. The lowest price is $9 a gallon, and we have 150 different prices up to $200 a gallon.
CUSTOMER: What's the difference in the paint?
CLERK: Oh, there is ABSOLUTELY no difference; it's all the same paint.
CUSTOMER: Well, then, I'd like some of that $9 paint.
CLERK: Well, first I need to ask you a few questions. When do you intend to use it?
CUSTOMER: I want to paint tomorrow, on my day off.
CLERK: Sir, the paint for tomorrow is the $200 paint.
CUSTOMER: What? When would I have to paint in order to get the $9 version?
CLERK: That would be three weeks, but you will also have to agree to start painting before Friday of that week and continue painting until at least Sunday.
CUSTOMER: You've got to be kidding!
CLERK: Sir, we don't kid around here. Of course, I'll have to check to see if we have any of that paint available before I can sell it to you.
CUSTOMER: What do you mean check to see if you can sell it to me? You have shelves full of
that stuff; I can see it right there.
CLERK: Just because you can see it doesn't mean that we have it. It may be the same paint, but we sell only a certain number of gallons on any given weekend. Oh, and by the way, the price just went to $12.
CUSTOMER: You mean the price went up while we were talking!
CLERK: Yes, sir. You see, we change prices and rules thousands of times a day, and since you haven't actually walked out of the store with your paint yet, we just decided to change. Unless you want the same thing to happen again, I would suggest that you get on with your purchase. How many gallons do you want?
CUSTOMER: I don't know exactly. Maybe five gallons. Maybe I should buy six gallons just to
make sure I have enough.
CLERK: Oh, no sir, you can't do that. If you buy the paint and then don't use it, you will be liable for penalties and possible confiscation of the paint you already have.
CUSTOMER: What?
CLERK: That's right. We can sell you enough paint to do your kitchen, bathroom, hall and north bedroom, but if you stop painting before you do the bedroom, you will be in violation of our tariffs.
CUSTOMER: But what does it matter to you whether I use all the paint? I already paid you
for it!
CLERK: Sir, there's no point in getting upset; that's just the way it is. We make plans based upon the idea that you will use all the paint, and when you don't, it just causes us all sorts of problems.
CUSTOMER: This is crazy! I suppose something terrible will happen if I don't keep painting until after Saturday night!
CLERK: Yes, sir, it will.
CUSTOMER: Well, that does it! I'm going somewhere else to buy my paint.
CLERK: That won't do you any good, sir. We all have the same rules. Thanks for painting with our airline.

Heard in class and wanted to mention it

2005-09-06T20:12:00.000+02:00

In Ethics class:
Student: "What I'm trying to say is...."
Professor (interupts student): "Yeah, try to say it."

Class about Asian cultures
Quote on one of the slides about culture: "The last thing a fish will discover is water: it finds out only once in the fisherman's basket!"

Class about Asian cultures
About false predictions: in 1980 it was expected that Sylvester Stallone would soon have a higher GDP than Thailand

Heritage Dash

2005-09-06T20:05:00.000+02:00

New post. Otherwise my post become to long and nobody will read them.

Had a presentation from the Student Council today. The explained how all the good stuff at INSEAD is arranged (parties, national weeks, and all kinds of more serious stuff). One of the things I especially liked is the Heritage Dash.

At the Heritage Dash a bunch of people gather at the Heritage View apartment complex and then run to the campus (about 1 km). The good thing is that they do this in all kind of silly costumes. Some examples: as a duck, 2 guys inside a horse suit, as sumo wrestlers and as a frog. They showed us a movie about it. It was absolutely hilarious! About 30 people running through the streets, all looking like idiots. I will try to get my hands on the video and post a link here. Anyway, next week there will again be a Heritage Dash and I need to think of something outrageous to wear for the run.

President of Singapore in Statistics Class

2005-09-06T19:39:00.000+02:00

Last week has been a very good one. During the introduction week we've had a number of interesting one-time classes (General Management, Ethics and a class about the main countries in SE Asia), the outward bound program at one of the Islands of Singapore (all kind of stuff for team building), club presentations (I joined the Rugby club named "The Barbarians", which is partly about playing rugby and partly about drinking...), a national diner and a good final party. However, on the party I had a bit of mixed feelings. The party, and the whole of the introduction week, was sponsored by a not further to be named Consultancy (not the one I worked at) and I kinda expected it to be free drinks etc. I was glad I took along some money, as I soon found out that we only got 2 drinks for free. Also, we expected that the club was exclusively for INSEAD students, but after about 2 hours all could enter. I don't want to sound spoiled or something, but you either sponsor a party and do it all the way or you don't sponsor the party. No good marketing in my opinion. I furthermore took the German language test last week. To my surprise I today heard that I passed the test and now officially am able to speak German in a business setting (to be honest, I think I was very lucky as there is no way that I am able to do that).

This week the real courses started:

Financial Accounting (should be no problem as I already have a background in Accounting)
Data, Uncertainty and judgment (also have a statistics background)
Financial Models and Valuation (been there, done that)
Leading People and Groups (good class, the professor uses Dilbert comics to make his points)
Prices and Markets (will get the first class tomorrow)

So far no real challenges yet (only on the Leading class), but that will change once we get classes like Marketing and Operations Management.

Monday, the Asia Campus of INSEAD was visited by the president of Singapore. He also took a peak at the Data class as we were just reviewing data about the starting salaries of INSEAD MBA's, which were ranging from EUR 40,000 to EUR 180,000. Might have changed his ideas about the school :)

PS. I found out that there are currently 71 nationalities present at the MBA program (both campuses and both the December and July classes). The diversity in people really astonishes me.

A truly global MBA

2005-08-31T04:49:00.000+02:00

We've gotten some statistics about our MBA class that I want to share. The class of July'06 (my class) starts with 445 participants. As the class of December'05 is 447, the total yearly intake at INSEAD is about 900. In those 445 participants, there is no real dominant group: the largest one is the Indians with about 14% followed by the French and English.

Of the 445 participants, 154 started at the Singapore campus (so about 35%). These 154 people are from 36 different countries (that's pretty global). The statement that INSEAD is a truly global b-school is further supported by the fact that there are 24 countries in the world that have over 100 alumni from INSEAD; the number two among the top b-schools 'only' has 12 countries with over 100 alumni.

The participants are further divided into groups (these groups will works together for the next 4 months on the various group assignments). My group of 6 consist of people from the following countries: Spain, India, Italy, USA, Switzerland and The Netherlands.

This year will certainly be one full of cultural diversity. I like it.

Introduction week has started

2005-08-30T11:38:00.000+02:00

It's been some good days. Last Sunday about 25 participants (we are called participants, not students, as we are supposed to participate in the classes) went to Sentoso beach. This is a beatifull, but artificial beach at one of the islands of Singapore. It's quite a strange sight to lay on the beach and see a huge ship at just a few hundreds meters. The swimming area is secluded, but outside this area the busy port makes for a remarkable view. That evening about 60-70 students (it just sounds better than participants...) came together for a nice BBQ at the Heritage apartment complex. Needless to say, this was a great opportunity to meet lots of people and have some nice cold beers.

The introduction week has started. After registration and some speeches yesterday, we got a deeper understanding about the practical things at INSEAD today in some meetings about career management services, IT, operations, etc. I'd like to mention one quote from the manager of the library: "It's ok to sleep at the library, but we dont't like it when you are snorling or droowling over the books".

I now have (wireless) access to the INSEAD network at the campus and the internet connection at the apartment will probably be fixed this evening. It's good to be connected to the world again.

On a different note, Forbes just released there B-School rankings and I'm pleased to say that INSEAD ranks as the number one B-School in the world. I am much aware that these kind of rankings do not really give a good view on the situation and should be taken with some kilos of salt, but it's nice to be number one :)

Hello Singapore!

2005-08-27T06:27:00.000+02:00

I've been here two days now and this place is awesome!

First, the flight to Singapore. I was lucky that Singapore Airlines operates a direct flight from Amsterdam to Singapore. The entertainment on board was very good (among others, you could choose from 60 movies to watch), the food was very decent and the stewardesses were good-looking. I can recommend it to everyone: fly Singapore Airlines (to the Singapore Airlines board of directors: you will receive the bill for my marketing services shortly). The only problem was that when you think all is well there happens to be a small child nearby that just insist on screaming the full 12.5 hours of the flight. So I didn't really get that much sleep.

Taxis in Singapore are cheap. The ride from the airport to the Heritage View complex took about 25-30 minutes and only costed me S$ 19 (about 9 euro). I'm certain there will be a lot of taxi rides in the next 4 months with those prices.

As I don't want to bore people with an extremely long post about what happens then, I will keep it very short and to-the-point. I will furthermore add some notes about whether I will post more details about the topic soon. here we go...

The apartment complex is awesome (more info and pictures soon)
I've already met one of my roommates and he's a cool guy. The other one will arrive this evening
Had some drinks in Holland Village (probably more info soon)
The city is beautiful - very clean and green (more info soon)
Arranged the basics: telephone, internet access (probably from Tuesday on), bank account, maid.
Its warm outside, but when they use airco they really overdo it (it's cold!)
Been at the INSEAD campus - actually I'm there right now (a lot more info soon)
Been at a disco called Velvet Underground yesterday night. Good music and atmosphere, but at some points I feel it was a bit too much of the same and it became boring (still a decent place to go though). The dance floor was cold!!??
Food is good and very cheap (more info soon)
Alcoholic drinks are good and expensive (the first and last time I want to mention this as it's gonna hurt enough as it is without thinking about it all the time)
Introduction week will start Monday (certainly more info about that soon)
I probably forgot to mention a lot of stuff, but I will catch up later.

1 day to go....

2005-08-23T12:43:00.000+02:00

1 day to go and I'll head off to Singapore. It's really starting to get close now.

Yesterday I handed in my car and telephone at work. It's strange how you don't feel like a complete person anymore once you don't have a mobile phone with you. That will definately be one of the first things I will do once I arrive: get myself a nice pre-paid mobile (with a camera option of course, so I can put some photos on this site). Yesterday evening I, again, had some goodbye drinks with friends - it was good fun. Not owning a car anymore suddenly isn't that bad anymore: you can't drink and drive anyway, so now that I am depended on public transport I can drink again.

Today is going to be my packing day. I'm planning to have everything packed in some hours from now so I can spend the last day here with my girlfriend.

My next post will be from Singapore. I'll try to post one as soon as possible, but I don't yet know how easy it will be to get an internet connection.

All forms and tasks are completed

2005-08-19T17:21:00.000+02:00

There are so many small things you have to arrange before coming to Singapore that it's easy to forget something. I spend this afternoon (or at least part of it) to check if I completed everything.

Completed medical report from a certified medical doctor for the student pass. CHECK (not needed if you stay less than 6 months)
Fill in the student pass application on the site of the Singapore government. CHECK
Return the Language Declaration form as soon as you have been admitted. CHECK
Return the questionnaire on Financing your MBA. CHECK
Return the Confirmation on the Second Tuition Payment. CHECK
Send photograph to NetVestibule. CHECK
In Principle Approval Form for participants from visa-required countries. CHECK (not needed in my case)
Get yourself a financial calculator. CHECK (quite expensive)

And I did more the last few days. I washed my car so it can be returned to my company, I selected the CD's I want to take with me, I made arrangement to get a laptop, I wrote down the telephone numbers I might need, I made the last arrangement for my loan, I got myself a healthcare insurance for the next year, and I probably did some other things I can't remember right now.

As for learning German.... Well, that's not really been going as smooth. I just didn't put enough time in it so far. What I did do is checking what the options are if you don't pass the language exam right away. There are ample opportunities to take some classes and do the exam during the year so I guess I will be fine.

Ok, so I'm set to go. 5 days and counting....

Most complete INSEAD Blogger list?

2005-08-17T01:24:00.000+02:00

I just added some links to other websites that feature a Blog from (ex) INSEAD students. Took me quite some time to find them actually. There just isn't a good list for all INSEAD bloggers. The "League of MBA Bloggers" is a nicely compiled list, but it just isn't complete. And looking them up on Google is also quite hard as it seems that a lot of people spell "instead" as "insead".

Anyway, is this the most complete list of INSEAD bloggers? If anyone can prove me wrong, please do so. If I'm right, then I deserve a reward :)

Career Management Services

2005-08-17T00:03:00.000+02:00

The Career Management Services (CMS) department plays an important role in the lives of most students during their year at INSEAD (or any other MBA). A lot of students will change their career and any help they can get in looking for the best fitting job is good.

One of the things CMS does before the year starts is giving all accepted students access to a self assessment, which states your characteristics, strong points, motivators and career paths that will fit with those. I did my assessment already and found out......... exactly what I already knew. Ah well, it is actually not really a surprise; the outcome of such tests is based on the input (duh) and the input is what you already know about yourself. Anyway, it's good to see that a professional assessment organization agrees with me.

For those that are interested, there are the career paths stated by the test:

Entrepreneurship
Private Equity
Venture Capital
General Management
Consulting

In about a year I will tell you which one will be the winning guess (might be something completely different as well).

Access to INSEAD message boards upon acceptance

2005-08-16T23:39:00.000+02:00

Was a busy 2 days again :)

I've done my first share of packing last night. Went through all my clothes and picked out the stuff that I wanted to take along. There was an awful lot of old stuff in my closets so a lot went out as well (at least I don't have the female size clothes collection anymore now). Also, I picked up some one-day contact lenses today so I can use them when I go scuba diving, do some sports or just want to look different... Just one week to go, better get ready now.

I'll try to get some information about INSEAD in my post as well so people will actually read my Blog. As the title suggests, today's topic: INSEAD message board.

Once you get accepted, you will get access to "Netvestibule". This is a part of the internet you can access with a password. There's a lot of useful stuff on it, like: a welcome guide, all kind of forms, a way to look up how your classmates look like (can be a real eye-opener), some other stuff and also a message board. All accepted students, current students and alumni have access to these message board, although it is mostly used by just accepted students. I wonder if the current students also have a board of their own, but I will find out about that later anyway. Here are some of the titles that I just picked from the message board, so you know what kind of talk is going on:

Room in 3bdrm Heritage View Apartment Available
For Sale: 94 Renault Laguna 2.0 RT, 181K km
Anyone for dinner/drinks tonight? Tuesday 16th in Singapore
Where can I buy French registered cars in UK?
KEY.com - loans to International based in US
Buying a suit in Singapore
Meet up in London

I've noticed there is a shift from housing related issues (where can I find a house, etc) to the more day-to-day things. Looks like most have found an apartment by now and the streets won't be crowded by homeless students at night.

Automatically check for updates

2005-08-14T23:47:00.000+02:00

I've added an option so everyone that wants to can automatically check if there is a new post on this weblog. Just click on the "+ My Yahoo!" button and you can add the RSS feed to your own My Yahoo! site. This, of course, is only suitable if you use My Yahoo! on a regular basis (or want to start doing that now).

Does all this work on the blog indicate I have too much time on my hands now?

The application process for INSEAD

2005-08-14T14:40:00.000+02:00

Not feeling very well at the moment. Last night I had some "going away" drinks in Amsterdam with some friends and I either am getting older or I don't practice enough anymore; drinking all night till the bars are all closed was not an option. Anyway, we had a lot of fun and I'm now having a headache...

In this post, I want to write something about how the application process goes for INSEAD (for most other MBA's it's about the same). Before I got admitted there were some steps to be taken: a TOEFL test, a GMAT test, filling in the application, writing essays, getting letters of recommendation and, finally, doing some interviews.

First I did the TOEFL test. It's a test to see if you master the English language well enough to participate in the MBA program. To be honest, this test is a joke. Just sit back and fill in what you feel is the right answer and you will ace the test. Learning all kind of rules on forehand will only make you think too much about the questions and you shouldn't do that.

After that, I did the GMAT test. This is some kind of an IQ test that consist of a quantitative analytical part and a verbal part. The GMAT is a whole different story; you really need to practice and prepare in advance in order to be able to score high enough. On the test you can score from 200 points up till 800 points. To get admitted to INSEAD you would at least have to score about 650 points. I think 650 points meant something like you're on the 90th percentile (90% of the people that took the test scored lower than you did), so it's not a linear scale. The normal average of INSEAD students is just above 700 I think (about 95th percentile).
The GMAT test is an adaptive test. This means that if you fill in the right answer you will get a harder question and if you fill in the wrong answer you will get an easier question. After some questions you will get 50% of the answers right and that will become your score. So if the last few questions are very hard, you know you did well. There are also some trial questions in the test that don't count towards your score, but are in there so the test makers can see how hard the questions are so they can be put in the real test later. Of course I knew about these test questions and was told just not to think about it. However, when I did the analytical part of the test my last few questions were something like this: if 4a=16, how much is a? These are, of course, very easy questions and I really thought that I must have screwed up the test and ended up at the easy questions. I was not feeling happy at all. When I got my end score I found out that I actually did very well at the analytical part and the last 4-5 questions must have been test questions. So my advice: don't think about the adaptive part of the test too much. Final result: a happy applicant :)

Then I had to write about 7 essays about myself. This included things as: what do you want to be when you grow up, how did you learn from your mistakes, what are your strong points, etc. The essays are the most important part of the application. INSEAD doesn't just look for smart people, but mainly looks at the personality of the applicant. They also highly value diversity among the students so people do not only learn from the professors, but also from each other. This means that you have to proof that you are a good addition to the student population. Being a white male working for a Strategy Consultancy, this means that you really have to focus on how you are different and special as there are already plenty of those applying. For diversity, I mainly focused on two points. I studied Actuarial Sciences (insurance math) and also worked in that field for some time. Furthermore, as a consultant I've worked a great deal in the Healthcare sector (mainly hospitals) and this also sets you apart from the normal strategy consultant.
The essays are written in what I call the "American" way. Meaning that you don't write down "I am good" but "I am awesome". For Dutch this does not come naturally as our culture isn't like that. A colleague of mine explained it to me the following way: "Write down the truth, but do it in such a way that you almost puke about yourself, and then push it a little bit more". This was an interesting experience. After I wrote the essays and was thoroughly convinced that I would conquer the world, I let some of my colleagues proof-read my essays. In one of the sentences I mistakenly used "we" instead of "I". One colleague left the following note: "After all that bragging about yourself, I understand how you came to use this word, but I think that using the royal plural form when talking about yourself is pushing it a bit too far". Anyway, mission accomplished :)

It was then time to arrange two recommendation letters. One of the partners of the consultancy was an INSEAD alumni and he was happy to write one for me. For the other letter, I was able to get the CEO of one of the companies I consulted. It is also recommended that you try to get one letter from your current employer and one from a client, so this part was a success.

After I sent my application (at INSEAD you can do it all on the internet, so that's very convenient) the waiting started. After a month I got the message that I needed to do two interviews with INSEAD alumni. One of the people that interviewed me worked at an Investment Bank and the other at a Private Equity firm. Both interviews went well and it was good fun to talk to some people that already had the INSEAD experience. Then it was waiting another two months untill the final decision arrived. This was actually the hardest part; there is nothing you can do to influence the decision anymore. Personally, the waiting was probably even harder because I only applied to INSEAD (and not to a couple of schools at the same time as I understand most people do). It was either INSEAD or no MBA at all at that point. Finally I got the verdict: admitted!

So that's the story about the application process. If anyone has more questions about the process, feel free to leave a comment and I will try to adress them.

Nice, I can also post pictures

2005-08-11T21:47:00.000+02:00

Just playing around a bit. Here's a picture from the Singapore Campus. However, I think it is not up-to-date anymore as they've build a second tower last year. Anyway, look at the palm trees :)

Still a lot to do?

2005-08-11T18:19:00.000+02:00

13 days and then I will fly off. A lot of people ask me if everything is arranged yet. I think most of it is. My last day at work was the 29th of July, so I have/had 3.5 weeks to make any final arrangements. However, when you don't have to do that much, my experience is that you will also not do that much and each tiny accomplishment is a day job (wow, I extended my drivers license today! It has been a productive day, now I need to rest the remainder of it.)

The most important thing to arrange is housing. I will probably spend the first 4 months at the Singapore campus. After that, the next 6 months will be Fontainableau (France). I already have an apartment in Singapore and will share it with 2 other guys. One of them is from Italy and worked for the same company as I did. The otherone is half Lebanese and half Canadian and currently lives in Egypt (which, from what I know so far, is a quite common profile among the very international student body at INSEAD). I have never met either of one (only spoke to them by emails) so we will either become live-long friends or we will strangle each other. Might also be something in-between. The apartment is at the Heritage complex. This is one of the two spots most students live and only a couple of minutes walk from campus. I don't have the exact address of the apartment yet, so I might email them if they maybe know and want to tell me as well.

One other thing that I currently busy with (or at least should be) is learning German. INSEAD requires you to be able to speak/write at least 3 languages upon graduation. My mothertongue is Dutch and I do speak English (how are my typos?). However, that is about it. I did have some French and German at school and I even once tried to learn a bit of Swedish, but none of these are fluent enough. So now I have some German study books lying on my desk and I even made a study plan to brush it up enough to pass the test at the beginning of the program. So far the good stuff, now the reality: there is still is a lot to be done in order to pass the test and I am not exactly on schedule. Anyway, we'll see how it works out and if the initial test doesn't work out I will just have to do some brushing up during the coming year.

I think there might also be some other paper work to do before I leave. I will check about that tomorrow. Lazy? I've already done my job for today: I created this weblog :)

A bit about myself

2005-08-11T17:31:00.000+02:00

Ok, time to get started. I've told numerous friends, relatives and colleagues that I would start a weblog so all can see what I am up to. Guess I now have to life up to my promises :)

Why a weblog? Well, if you are going away for a whole year, you are of course obliged to tell people how you are doing, what the experience is like, etc. This can be done by email. However, there are some disadvantages to email: some that would like to read about your experiences are not on the email list and some that are on the list aren't the least interested in you and are happy you left the country (you never know :) ). So this way everyone can choose for themselves if they want to read about me. Furthermore, some web surfers I don't know yet might find this page.

So I'm going to do my MBA at INSEAD. Probably not everyone has a clear picture of what an MBA is and have never heard of INSEAD before. For those I have one clear advice: stay tuned, read my post in the coming year and you will find out. Also, you can check out the links on this weblog. I took the following from the website of the INSEAD MBA program: "You will never again meet a group of people as diverse, international, and stimulating as you will meet during your year at INSEAD. The intense one-year programme, dual-campus learning environment, calibre of teaching, opportunities for career advancement and dynamic social experience set the INSEAD MBA apart from all other business schools." Let's see if it turns out to be true.

I can tell you, I am really looking forward to the coming year. The last years have mainly been work: I first did some consulting in the insurance industry and for the last 3 years I've been a Strategy Consultant. It's really time for a change in scenery. I have good memories of my time as a student at my university: lots of fun with friends, lots of time in bars and clubs, lots of drinks, some studying, lots of strange experiences (did I do that?), more drinks, "study" abroad, good holiday traveling, etc. I expect the current year to be somewhat the same as these year, with the only big change that I will really need to spend more time studying. I can also write about the good things this year can brings me as growth in my professional life, excellent education and ample opportunities for broadening my view. These are all valid points and also important in my decision to do an MBA, but the main reason for is quite simple: I think it will be a lot of fun.

As the title of this post suggests, I will write a bit about myself. So here it comes. I currently live in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, with my lovely girlfriend. Unfortunately, she wont come with me to Singapore and Fontainebleau for a whole year, but I'm very glad that she can come to see me a couple of times (she already bought the plane tickets, so she can't back out now :) ). In 13 days my plane will head off to Singapore and the experience will begin.

First post

2005-08-11T16:14:00.000+02:00

Just testing :)