Too much passion?

I met a friend the other day who is currently in the thick of things with the MBA application process and he asked for my input as he kickstarts the same thing that I went through last year. As I described my whole experience to him, I told him that though the whole things feels painful while you’re in it, in restrospect, I really enjoyed the experience and having to put so much thought into my experiences and achievements over the last x years. Great for an ego-boost for sure, but it forced me to really reflect on things I’d done, people I’d met, and most importantly things I’ve learnt. I don’t really do this kind of reflection very often, atleast not in such detail and with so much time set aside especially for it. Bottomline – I enjoyed the whole process. And maybe that’s where the “passion” that needs to show up in the applications probably came from.

My friend told me I was too “attached to the experience” and that his objective was to get into the best school possible (somehow) and get a great job at the end of it all. Differences in perspective I guess :) or maybe he’ll feel differently after he’s done with the entire process as well.

On a different note, I sometimes wish I were going to INSEAD as a partner instead of as a student. How I’d have loved spending a year learning French in France, catching up on all my reading, gone on trips to Paris whenever I felt like it, and tried my hand at exotic French cuisine. Then again, wait a minute – I AM going to get to do all of it (minus the trip to Paris whenever I want bit, and of course the readings won’t be the sort I have in mind) and more. Life’s good again :)

I thought about it seriously the other day – whether I’d ever want to take a year off without working, or whether I would’ve moved with my partner and not worked (at my current career)while my partner studied. And the verdict was pretty clear – I could do it for a month or two perhaps but nothing more, even assuming I could afford it. I talk a lot about how awesome it would be to go for yoga classes in the morning, and read lots,and take my mini laptop to a coffee joint and sit there and watch the world go by and shop if I get bored – and then I snap out of it. Those are more the signs of me needing a short break rather than a looooong one :)

We have a home!

After several weeks of searching, we’ve found the ‘perfect home’ for our time at INSEAD. The price is within our budget,it’s fully furnished (we just have to turn up) the location is great and the landlord has rave reviews (which based on my landlord experience where I currently stay is really important to me). We do of course hope to attend the parties at the party chateaus in INSEAD but weren’t really keen on staying in one.  So the place we’ve chosen is the best of both worlds for us – there are lots of other INSEADers staying close by so we can all get-together but the option of having our own space also exists.  We’ve paid the deposit and NOW I really feel like we’re actually moving!

This is how we went about our search:

1. The INSEAD website : This lists 3 sites to help with the research – Bonaparte, City Junction, and Office de l’mmobilier. I found Bonapart the best when you take a combo of location-quality-price-user friendliness. City Junction looked more professional of course, which also means the prices are much higher. The Office de l’Immobilier site definitely needs a lot of work – very un-user friendly, and not that many listings to begin with. I only visited the site once and was rather put off by it. The listings on Bonaparte are segregated by promotions (that’s what the different batches are referred to) – this of course means that the awesome house by the Seine with the beautiful furnishings and plenty of natural light and that garden you’ve always dreamt of – isn’t available for your promotion. Of course the option is to lease a place for 6 months and then come back from the internship to a different place. We’ll decide when we get there.
2. MBA Connect forum : This was a great source coz it gave me a good idea of the different areas where the INSEAD students stay. A lot of them help their landlords adverstise, so there’s photos and you can always email the students to find out more about the place.
3. Blogs: There isn’t a whole lot on blogs about accommodation or detailed photos either (except some pretty great pics of Tavers) but I did find some information which complemented the info from the INSEAD website and MBA Connect.

I’m reminded (yet again) that Google Maps totally rocks. We’ve checked out the river, the train stations, the other popular neighbourhoods and INSEAD of course.

I will put up photos of the place once we’re there. So watch this space.

With accommodation sorted, I’ve placed a big tick on my to-do list. Time to take a break!

Sorting through stuff

I’ve finally started going through the tons of stuff I have in preparation for packing for the move. I figure a little bit once in a while will help me avoid hitting the panic button at the last minute what with moving out, making sure I haven’t missed out any of the paperwork, and the millions of other things on my as yet unchecked-off, and evergrowing, to-do list.

I realise I have way too many books, and movies. And I don’t know what to do with them. The secondhand market for these in my city isn’t great, or rather taking them to the secondhand store is going to cost me more than what the store’s going to give me for them. That of course is the only excuse I’ve been able to come up with as I can’t bear to part with them (How can I possibly give away Sophie’s World? Unthinkable!) Shipping stuff home is just not going to be worth it, because it would then mean I’d need to ship them back to whichever corner of the world I am going to be in post-INSEAD. There go all my visions od having a huge library in my house with all these awesome books where I’m going to retire for the afternoon and sip my tea and scones on a rainy Saturday afternoon….how I love that thought. For now, I have to start sending emails to my book-loving friends so my books find good homes.

I also have tons of French films – all bought at the Alliance Francaise exhibitions – I never did manage to watch any without keeping my eyes glued to the English subtitles. Hopefully all that’s going to change after a year in France. That was actually another reason I picked INSEAD – that it has a compulsory requirement to pick up a third language.

I love languages. Once I’m done with French (satisfactorily), I hope to start on Spanish. But that will have to wait until after INSEAD.

As always, there’s too much to do and too little time.

Fastforward

There’s nothing much happening on the MBA front at the moment. We received the official email from INSEAD regarding the Open Days for admits. I’m still trying to get my hands on the 2010 calendar so I know when the breaks during the year are – apparently, we don’t get that until much later. Will just have to make do with the July batch’s calendar for now.

I’ve finally started on the pre-readings. Given the pace of the MBA, we’re expected to have gone through 4 books before we get there – Accounting, Microecons and 2 on Finance. I’ve started on the accounting one and have spent more time congratulating myself on not taking up Accounting as a career than actually doing the reading. I like the content of the book and each chapter is only about 20 pages or so, but I don’t like the way the book is presented. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, u clearly haven’t started on yours ;) The book’s written for a 5-year old, with fill-in-the-blanks all through the book. I mean come on, a couple of pages is okay, but an entire book? Maybe that’s the plan – make it a little irritating and everyone will try and get through the book as quickly as possible.

The weekend’s been a good one in terms of sports – Chelsea defeated Burney 3-1 – it matters all the more because of Burnley’s defeat of ManU last week. Hah!

The highlight of the week was an absolute masterful negotiations’ demonstration by A, with our landlord. Landlords = pain. Period. I’ve learnt more about contract law in the last few months from my landlord than I have in my entire life. Tips for renting – a. Rent only if u’re a lawyer, b. Do NOT rent from a landlord who does not have a fulltime job – he/she has no concept of the value of time. I’m so looking forward to owning my own place. If only I could fastforward time…

Exams at business school

A and I got into a debate last night about exams at INSEAD, or any MBA school for that matter. I don’t have anything against exams – heck, I’ve taken them all my life. But I’d like to think business school is different and exams there should be made optional coz:

a. I’m investing a LOT of money to get this degree -> I am pretty motivated to get the maximum out of it in terms of learning and don’t need exams to get me to learn
b. If INSEAD has a non-grade disclosure policy anyway, and a. holds good for me, why do I need to take compulsory exams?
c. If I want to know how I’m doing vis-a-vis my peers, I’ll take the optional exam (and hope a lot of other people do the same)

Maybe the school wants to make sure the students “really” have learnt something while they’re there and hence will be able to have an intelligent conversation with a recruiter, and land a job, and make sure INSEAD’s recruitment figures look great, so INSEAD continues to attract top students. But wait a minute, didn’t the admissions criteria and the GMAT and everything else not already establish that I was real motivated to get here? So having exams is for INSEAD’s gain instead?

A was of the view that most people need an “incentive” to study (way to go baby- you are doing all those Microecons pre-readings!) and hence exams exist.

I’m going to ask when I get to INSEAD.