Harvard Business School, Wharton, Stanford, MIT Sloan, Northwestern Kellogg, and Chicago Booth published their application deadlines. As expected Round 1 will be in October 2009, Round 2 in January 2010, and Round 3 in March 2010.
Full MBA Admissions Calendar
The top US business schools have also published their 2009-2010 essays. Wharton and MIT Sloan changed some of the essays significantly. Other business schools had minor changes in some of the essays. Recommendation questions had not changed at all in most of the schools.
Full List of MBA Essays and Recommendation Questions
I will keep updating on a weekly bases.
Free Consulting Session with me (follow the simple instructions on the page)
If you find any mistake please let me know via my email
Friday, June 19, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Start Working on Your Application Early
The first round of application is on October, and although business schools have not yet published the deadlines and essay topics for this year, you should definitely think about starting to work on your application even now, 5 months earlier, especially if you intend to create more than one application (which is highly recommended).
But what can you do until the essays are published?
Actually quite a lot. The planning of your application can be started right away. This stage include research of business schools, startegy definition, and topic selection for general essays.
(free consulting session)
After you have a clear strategy, you can then start writing drafts of essays. There are two strategies you can take: writing essays based on the 2008 essay questions, or you can work on a generic application.
The Generic Application
I did a full analysis of the 2008 essay questions, and basically there are 5 essay questions that appear frequently (with wording variations): Career Goals + Why MBA, Achievements, Personal Characteristics (Leadership / Team play), Failure, Contribution to school
You can work on any of the essays, keeping in mind your business school selection. The school specific questions you may leave for last. When the actual essay questions are published, you are guaranteed to have at least half of the work done, and all you will have left to do is tailor the essays for each of the schools, and answer any specific essay questions that was left unanswered.
Here is a full version of the generic 5 essay questions. All question were specially hand picked from actual applications. The reason for choosing the exact phrasing used here, is that answering these questions will be the easiest to tailor to more specific essay quesions:
Career Goals+Why MBA: Describe your career progress to date, including your current job, and your future short-term and long-term career goals. How do you expect an MBA from ??? to help you achieve these goals, and why is now the best time for you to join our program?
Contribution to school: What will you be able to contribute that would make you a unique and valuable addition to the ??? MBA class?
Achievements: What are your two-three most substantial accomplishments and why do you view them as such?
Failure: Describe a setback or a failure that you have experienced. What role did you play, and what did you learn about yourself?
Strengths and Weaknesses (leadership+teamplay): Give a candid description of yourself, stressing the personal characteristics you feel to be your strengths and weaknesses and the main factors which have influenced your personal development, giving examples when necessary. Where in your background would we find evidence of your leadership capacity and/or potential?
Generic Recommendations
Same method applies for recommendations as well. There are 5 basic generic recommendation questions: Context, Strengths, Weaknesses/Feedback, Interpersonal Skills, Leadership Potential. Once you work with your recommenders on those 5 questions, your referee will have little work to adapt the answers to the specific questions of your application.
Context of relationship: Please comment on the context of your interaction with the applicant. How long have you known the applicant and in what connection? If applicable, briefly describe the applicant's role in your organization. What is your overall impression of the applicant?
Strengths/Ranking/Impact: What do you consider to be the candidate's major strengths? How would you rank this applicant compared to his/her peer group? How is the candidate’s impact on your organization different from that of other well-qualified individuals in similar roles?
Interpersonal Skills: Describe the candidate as a person. Comment on his/her ability to establish and maintain relationships, sensitivity to others, self-confidence, attitude etc. Specifically comment on the candidate's behavior or skills in a group setting/team environment
Weaknesses/Feedback: Please describe the most important piece of constructive feedback you have given the applicant. Please detail the circumstances and the applicant's response. What do you consider to be the applicant’s major weaknesses or areas for improvement?
Leadership Potential: Comment on the candidate's potential for senior management? Do you see him/her as a future leader? What will this individual be doing in 10 years? Why? How will the MBA degree contribute to the candidate’s career development?
Schedule a Free Consulting Session with IMPACTMBA, and we can start working on the strategy and generic application.
But what can you do until the essays are published?
Actually quite a lot. The planning of your application can be started right away. This stage include research of business schools, startegy definition, and topic selection for general essays.
(free consulting session)
After you have a clear strategy, you can then start writing drafts of essays. There are two strategies you can take: writing essays based on the 2008 essay questions, or you can work on a generic application.
The Generic Application
I did a full analysis of the 2008 essay questions, and basically there are 5 essay questions that appear frequently (with wording variations): Career Goals + Why MBA, Achievements, Personal Characteristics (Leadership / Team play), Failure, Contribution to school
You can work on any of the essays, keeping in mind your business school selection. The school specific questions you may leave for last. When the actual essay questions are published, you are guaranteed to have at least half of the work done, and all you will have left to do is tailor the essays for each of the schools, and answer any specific essay questions that was left unanswered.
Here is a full version of the generic 5 essay questions. All question were specially hand picked from actual applications. The reason for choosing the exact phrasing used here, is that answering these questions will be the easiest to tailor to more specific essay quesions:
Career Goals+Why MBA: Describe your career progress to date, including your current job, and your future short-term and long-term career goals. How do you expect an MBA from ??? to help you achieve these goals, and why is now the best time for you to join our program?
Contribution to school: What will you be able to contribute that would make you a unique and valuable addition to the ??? MBA class?
Achievements: What are your two-three most substantial accomplishments and why do you view them as such?
Failure: Describe a setback or a failure that you have experienced. What role did you play, and what did you learn about yourself?
Strengths and Weaknesses (leadership+teamplay): Give a candid description of yourself, stressing the personal characteristics you feel to be your strengths and weaknesses and the main factors which have influenced your personal development, giving examples when necessary. Where in your background would we find evidence of your leadership capacity and/or potential?
Generic Recommendations
Same method applies for recommendations as well. There are 5 basic generic recommendation questions: Context, Strengths, Weaknesses/Feedback, Interpersonal Skills, Leadership Potential. Once you work with your recommenders on those 5 questions, your referee will have little work to adapt the answers to the specific questions of your application.
Context of relationship: Please comment on the context of your interaction with the applicant. How long have you known the applicant and in what connection? If applicable, briefly describe the applicant's role in your organization. What is your overall impression of the applicant?
Strengths/Ranking/Impact: What do you consider to be the candidate's major strengths? How would you rank this applicant compared to his/her peer group? How is the candidate’s impact on your organization different from that of other well-qualified individuals in similar roles?
Interpersonal Skills: Describe the candidate as a person. Comment on his/her ability to establish and maintain relationships, sensitivity to others, self-confidence, attitude etc. Specifically comment on the candidate's behavior or skills in a group setting/team environment
Weaknesses/Feedback: Please describe the most important piece of constructive feedback you have given the applicant. Please detail the circumstances and the applicant's response. What do you consider to be the applicant’s major weaknesses or areas for improvement?
Leadership Potential: Comment on the candidate's potential for senior management? Do you see him/her as a future leader? What will this individual be doing in 10 years? Why? How will the MBA degree contribute to the candidate’s career development?
Schedule a Free Consulting Session with IMPACTMBA, and we can start working on the strategy and generic application.
US News 2009 MBA Rankings Published
US News published the annual 2009 rankings. You can find all the 2009 rankings (including US News, Financial Times, and Business Week) at IMPACTMBA Rankings page.
There were no significant changes from last year. Top 3 programs remain HBS, Wharton and Stanford. Kellogg, Chicago Booth and MIT Sloan complete the top 6, while Columbia is down to #9. Completing the top 10 are Berkeley, Yale, and Tuck. NYU Stern is missing from the Top 10 this year.
US News ranks only American business schools, thus LBS, INSEAD, and other European programs are missing from the list.
Interestingly, US News provides Ranking by Specialties. Again, no significant changes from last year. Most surprising is the Finance rankings: Wharton, Chicago Booth, and NYU remain the top 3, however MIT Sloan and Stanford climbed to #4 and #5 respectively.
Marketing: Kellogg, Wharton, Duke
General Management: Harvard, Stanford, Kellogg
Entrepreneurship: Babson, Stanford, Harvard
Operations: MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford
Executive MBA: Kellogg, Wharton, Chicago Booth.
There were no significant changes from last year. Top 3 programs remain HBS, Wharton and Stanford. Kellogg, Chicago Booth and MIT Sloan complete the top 6, while Columbia is down to #9. Completing the top 10 are Berkeley, Yale, and Tuck. NYU Stern is missing from the Top 10 this year.
US News ranks only American business schools, thus LBS, INSEAD, and other European programs are missing from the list.
Interestingly, US News provides Ranking by Specialties. Again, no significant changes from last year. Most surprising is the Finance rankings: Wharton, Chicago Booth, and NYU remain the top 3, however MIT Sloan and Stanford climbed to #4 and #5 respectively.
Marketing: Kellogg, Wharton, Duke
General Management: Harvard, Stanford, Kellogg
Entrepreneurship: Babson, Stanford, Harvard
Operations: MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford
Executive MBA: Kellogg, Wharton, Chicago Booth.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
New MBA Rankings 2009 - The Year For Top European Programs
Financial Times and Business Week both published recently their new 2009 MBA Rankings.
A summary of all rankings you can find in my Rankings page at http://www.impactmba.com/rankings.htm
Traditionally, the top 3 US Programs are Wharton, Harvard, and Stanford. 4 other programs make up the Tier 1 US Schools: MIT Sloan, Kellogg, Chicago Booth, and Columbia. NYU, Tuck, Yale, Michigan, Duke, and Berekley are the strong Tier 2 B-Schools. In Europe there are 3 top tier MBA programs - LBS, INSEAD, and IMD.
Looking at the 2009 ranking, the programs listed above remain the top 10 programs. However some other MBA schools, especially from Asia, climbed up to become top tier. There is a definite trend of improvement in the European and Asian business school to become on par with the US programs.
The key takeaways:
A summary of all rankings you can find in my Rankings page at http://www.impactmba.com/rankings.htm
Traditionally, the top 3 US Programs are Wharton, Harvard, and Stanford. 4 other programs make up the Tier 1 US Schools: MIT Sloan, Kellogg, Chicago Booth, and Columbia. NYU, Tuck, Yale, Michigan, Duke, and Berekley are the strong Tier 2 B-Schools. In Europe there are 3 top tier MBA programs - LBS, INSEAD, and IMD.
Looking at the 2009 ranking, the programs listed above remain the top 10 programs. However some other MBA schools, especially from Asia, climbed up to become top tier. There is a definite trend of improvement in the European and Asian business school to become on par with the US programs.
The key takeaways:
- Definitely the year for top European programs. London Business School is ranked #1 in Financial Times. INSEAD up to #5.
- 5 Asian programs in the FT top 20.
- 7 European programs in the FT top 20. Spain is becoming a center of business schools in Europe with 3 universities on the FT Top 20. UK also with 3 programs in the top 20.
- 6 US MBA programs in the FT top 10, and 9 in the Top 20.
Financial Times
The top 10 US MBA Programs are: Wharton, Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, MIT Sloan, NYU Stern, Chicago Booth, Dartmouth Tuck, Yale, Kellogg
Top 5 European MBA Programs: London Business School, INSEAD, IE Business School, IESE, IMD
Top 5 Asian MBA Program: INSEAD, Ceibs, Indian School of Business, Hong Kong UST, Nanyang
Alumni recommendation (one of my favorite categories, which correlates well with prestige): Harvard, Wharton, Stanford, Kellogg, LBS, INSEAD, Chicago Booth, Columbia, MIT Sloan, NYU Stern
My insights:
- The list above seems reasonable. I believe that the list indeed contains the top programs in each region.
- The trend of globalization is in full motion - only 9 American MBA programs in the top 20 (6 in the top 10) implies that no longer studying in the US Ivy league is as important as it used to be.
- The #1 school is joint between Wharton and London Business School. Pretty amazing!
- Schools on consistent up trend (3 years) - LBS, INSEAD
- Schools on consistent down trend - Columbia, Stanford, Chicago Booth, Yale
I want to examine some of the key parameters, and list the top 10 schools in each of them:
Salary: Stanford, Wharton, Columbia, Harvard, MIT, Tuck, Ceibs, IMD, Chicago Booth, Indian Business School.
Salary Increase: Ceibs, IE, Indian, ESADE, IESE, Yale, NYU Stern, Columbia, Nanyang, Hong Kong
Value for money: IMD, INSEAD, Cambridge Judge, Oxford Said (one year programs are better value-for-money according to FT)
Business Week
BW gives a slightly different view. First, there is no direct comparison between US based MBA programs, and European ones.
Top 10 US Programs: Chicago Booth, HBS, Kellogg, Wharton, Michigan Ross, Stanford, Columbia, Duke Fuqua, MIT Sloan, Berekley Haas.
Top 5 European Programs: IE, INSEAD, LBS, ESADE, IMD
Top 3 Canadian Programs: Queens, Werstern Ontario (Ivey), Toronto Rotman
Business Week also ranks EMBA programs. Top 10: Northwestern, Wharton, Chaicago, Michigan, USC, Columbia, Emory, UCLA, Duke, UNC.
US News
Based on 2008 rankings, US News provides data only on American MBA programs. They do a ranking per specialty.
Finance: Wharton, Chicago Booth, NYU Stern, Columbia, Stanford. I would add LBS to this list.
Marketing: Kellogg, Wharton, Duke, Harvard, Stanford. I would add INSEAD.
General Management: Harvard, Stanford, Kellogg, Michigan, Wharton. I would add LBS and INSEAD to the list.
Entreprenuership: Babson, Stanford, Harvard, Wharton, MIT Sloan. INSEAD would be ranked first or second.
Visit my new website IMPACTMBA
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
IMPACT MBA Launch
After several months of work, I am proud to announce the launch of my new MBA Admissions Consulting Services company - IMPACTMBA.
http://www.impactmba.com/
Until now we operated under a different name, and we have already helped several candidates in their application. I am proud that our success rate so far has been 100%.
At IMPACTMBA we are offering an affordable and transparent service, based on pre-defined packages, and fixed price model (unlike other similar services, we do not charge by the hour/minute). Our services are based on unique methodologies that we have developed based on our experience, to offer an effective and responsive service. Last, but as important, we offer a friendly service, with a personal touch, as we are in this business because we enjoy helping candidates from all over the world succeed in being admitted to top MBA program, just as we had succeeded several years ago.
Please visit our website, to find all the information in details and learn more about our services, packages, fees, and methodologies. You will be able to book a free Introductory Meeting or Phonecall.
We can help you create an impactful application for any MBA program in the world. Especially, for INSEAD candidates we have special offers.
Please provide me with any feedback, and I hope that you will choose IMPACTMBA.
Yariv Hammer
http://www.impactmba.com/
Until now we operated under a different name, and we have already helped several candidates in their application. I am proud that our success rate so far has been 100%.
At IMPACTMBA we are offering an affordable and transparent service, based on pre-defined packages, and fixed price model (unlike other similar services, we do not charge by the hour/minute). Our services are based on unique methodologies that we have developed based on our experience, to offer an effective and responsive service. Last, but as important, we offer a friendly service, with a personal touch, as we are in this business because we enjoy helping candidates from all over the world succeed in being admitted to top MBA program, just as we had succeeded several years ago.
Please visit our website, to find all the information in details and learn more about our services, packages, fees, and methodologies. You will be able to book a free Introductory Meeting or Phonecall.
We can help you create an impactful application for any MBA program in the world. Especially, for INSEAD candidates we have special offers.
Please provide me with any feedback, and I hope that you will choose IMPACTMBA.
Yariv Hammer
Friday, November 7, 2008
New MBA Admissions Consulting Service
As many of you requested, I will now be offering a professional MBA Admissions Consulting Services. Over the past year I have already assisted many of you with your journey towards a top MBA program. If you read through my blog, you should have realized that applying to your dream MBA program will require a very complex application.
Please visit our new website at www.hmr.co.il/mba
We will simplify the process for you, provide you with all the candid feedback that you require, and be with you every step of the way. Our services include:
Please visit our new website at www.hmr.co.il/mba
We will simplify the process for you, provide you with all the candid feedback that you require, and be with you every step of the way. Our services include:
- General extensive guidance on the entire MBA experience, the application process, the GMAT, etc.
- Selecting the business schools, scheduling time line, and defining your most appropriate application strategy.
- Targeted structure of the application for each business school, including selections of topics for the essays, structuring each essay, etc.
- Selecting the recommenders, and structuring the recommendations.Essays and other written material reviews.
- Interview preparation.
So if you want to study an MBA in a Top Tier business school; If you want an international experience that will last for your entire life; If you want to have your dream job in just one or two years – don’t hesitate to schedule your free of charge Introductory Meeting/Phone-call with us today!
To receive more information, please contact us at our Email address.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
My MBA Admissions Guide
Here are my posts regarding MBA admissions.
I felt it was appropriate to have it all in one post. If you browse in my blog you will find other information about the preparation for the business school once you are in, and some of my INSEAD experience. Good luck.
Please remember that I am an MBA student and not an admissions professional, therefore everything in this site is based on my experience. You should probably talk to other people before doing anything.
These days I am too busy job searching to write in my blog, but soon as time frees up I will continue writing about the amazing experience in INSEAD.
Do You Really Want an MBA?
The MBA Admission Process
The GMAT
The TOEFL
Choosing a School
MBA Rankings 2007
Planning the application
Building Your Strategy
The Recommendations
Writing the Essays
Finalizing the Application
The Interview
My Interviews
My Yale SOM Interview
My London Business School Interview
My INSEAD Interviews
My MIT Sloan Interview
My Oxford Phone Interview
My NYU Stern Interview (That didn't take place)
Being on the Waitlist
And finally
Why Did I Choose INSEAD Over MIT And Oxford...
I felt it was appropriate to have it all in one post. If you browse in my blog you will find other information about the preparation for the business school once you are in, and some of my INSEAD experience. Good luck.
Please remember that I am an MBA student and not an admissions professional, therefore everything in this site is based on my experience. You should probably talk to other people before doing anything.
These days I am too busy job searching to write in my blog, but soon as time frees up I will continue writing about the amazing experience in INSEAD.
Do You Really Want an MBA?
The MBA Admission Process
The GMAT
The TOEFL
Choosing a School
MBA Rankings 2007
Planning the application
Building Your Strategy
The Recommendations
Writing the Essays
Finalizing the Application
The Interview
My Interviews
My Yale SOM Interview
My London Business School Interview
My INSEAD Interviews
My MIT Sloan Interview
My Oxford Phone Interview
My NYU Stern Interview (That didn't take place)
Being on the Waitlist
And finally
Why Did I Choose INSEAD Over MIT And Oxford...
Friday, January 18, 2008
High-Tech and Consulting Clubs
As P3 started, and we are now the senior promotion on campus, we took over all the clubs. Since I have more time now I am actively involved in the High Tech Club and the Consulting Club, two industries that I might seek a career in after the MBA. I was struck by how much the students shape the clubs. It is all a matter of how students wish to contribute from their precious time and their experience.
The High Tech Club is growing. I imagine that 10-20% of the students will end up in a high tech company or consulting to this sector (a third of the students will end up in Industry, so at least a third of that will work in High Tech). We cover the wide range of sectors within the high tech industry, including telecom, computers, software, IT, electronics, equipment, consulting and startups. We ran a poll in P2 to check which are the top 20 companies which INSEADers would like to see on campus. We will try to maintain contacts with those companies in the future. In addition we are planning an industry panel in P4, and an industry trek to Dublin in one of the breaks. We are working on a focused CV book dedicated to those who are interested in High Tech. In P2, when we had to submit our CVs to the INSEAD CV Book, we had a session in which all the members of the clubs gave feedbacks to one another, in order to optimize the CVs. So, a wide variety of activities which will be extended in the future.
The Consulting Club is a much more established club, as almost all students are interested somewhat in that industry. INSEAD is a well-known school for consultants, and the consulting firms have a strong relation with the INSEAD Consulting Club and the Career Services. The club brings speakers from the top consulting firms, organize mock interviews for students, maintain contacts with consulting firms and alumni, and much more.
I took it on myself to help creating the websites for those clubs which will be up and running soon hopefully. Also I help to organize a mock case interview session in P3, in order to help us practice for the most infamous case interviews that we all fear so much these days. I will surely get involved in other projects as P3 continues.
The clubs are an important part of student life, and can help engage in leadership activities. So far it was a pleasure to be part of those clubs, and I will report later (hopefully) how are things shaping.
The High Tech Club is growing. I imagine that 10-20% of the students will end up in a high tech company or consulting to this sector (a third of the students will end up in Industry, so at least a third of that will work in High Tech). We cover the wide range of sectors within the high tech industry, including telecom, computers, software, IT, electronics, equipment, consulting and startups. We ran a poll in P2 to check which are the top 20 companies which INSEADers would like to see on campus. We will try to maintain contacts with those companies in the future. In addition we are planning an industry panel in P4, and an industry trek to Dublin in one of the breaks. We are working on a focused CV book dedicated to those who are interested in High Tech. In P2, when we had to submit our CVs to the INSEAD CV Book, we had a session in which all the members of the clubs gave feedbacks to one another, in order to optimize the CVs. So, a wide variety of activities which will be extended in the future.
The Consulting Club is a much more established club, as almost all students are interested somewhat in that industry. INSEAD is a well-known school for consultants, and the consulting firms have a strong relation with the INSEAD Consulting Club and the Career Services. The club brings speakers from the top consulting firms, organize mock interviews for students, maintain contacts with consulting firms and alumni, and much more.
I took it on myself to help creating the websites for those clubs which will be up and running soon hopefully. Also I help to organize a mock case interview session in P3, in order to help us practice for the most infamous case interviews that we all fear so much these days. I will surely get involved in other projects as P3 continues.
The clubs are an important part of student life, and can help engage in leadership activities. So far it was a pleasure to be part of those clubs, and I will report later (hopefully) how are things shaping.
P3 - Changes
We ended the second week of p3. The campus looks completely different. A new promotion has just started, and the campus is full with unfamiliar faces. Also our promotions changed a lot as 180 of our friends moved to Singapore, and 100 came here.
On the one hand, it is good to meet new peopleand it makes things here more intersting. On the other hand several friends went to Singapore, so we surely miss them, and we did not get a lot of time to spend with them. That's the price of a short program on a two campus university.
Also, elective season started. After doing some shopping on the first days, everyone selected the most interesting courses for them. This period is extremely interesting and the workload is significantly lower, so I actually find time to engage in other activities, such as clubs and job search.And some pics from the break - on the menu was a skiing trip with 80 of INSEAD community to Meribel in the 3-Valles, a trip to Amsterdam, Brussels, and Bruges, and new year's eve in Paris.
Monday, December 24, 2007
P2 Ended - Go P3
P2 is over. 4 month have passed so fast, in a blink of an eye. Now I have some time to tell you about some of the important things you need to know from a p2 perspective,
We studied 6 core courses in p2, still in the same sections and study groups as in p1. This was a very busy period, and academics took most of our lives.
Corporate Finance Policy (aka Finance 2)
We had a brilliant professor, who taught us (almost) all about options and corporate finance. This was the class to see many paniced faces who had no idea what's going on in class. The professor was so good, that there were no compaints - everybody understood that it's their own damn fault that they don't understand what in god's name is the difference between a short put and a long forward, and between tender offers and right issues. Lucky for us in almost all study groups there was one finance guru who solved the problem sets (or at least we could take the answers from the finance guru of other study group, and reverse engineer the answers). The exam was super difficult - the professor had a vision of 50 average with 25 points standard diviation (so all you need to pass the exam was show up).
Managerial Accounting (Harvard Style)
This course deals with analyzing costs of things, and how to better plan the budgets of corporation. The professor was very much influenced by the case method of HBS, and in every class he intimidated another poor student into spilling the content of the latest case of another failed company somewhere in Argentina or Sweden. The course was quite good, and we even touched some of the more juicy stories of businesses from previous years like the Enron energy fiasco, and Ford's failure to deal with excess capacity.
Processes and Operations Management (POM POM POM)
6-sigma? Queues? Inverntory Management? All of these were taught in an entertaining way, using fun cases like Zara, Shloldice Hospital (for hernias), Ralph Laurence, Xenon and others. The course is built around the smart book "The Goal" (a nice read). We even shot ping pong balls using an XPult catapult (to test its quality).
Strategy (Camel Comedy Club)
Strategy is a pretty abstract term. In order to teach it you must be a very skillful professor. We had one: a very funny and original guy, who gave us the framework to think in a strategic way. 90 minutes of laughter. He used the Cirque de Soleil as an example to Blue Ocean Strategy (an INSEAD invention), the italian mafia (from godfather) as a family business who wants to expand to pharma (should it go to a JV with the other mafia and share resources?), Formula 1 (to explain how to be a center of a business), and the music industry (as an example for industry evolution). In addition we used cases for easyGroup, Apple, Dell, and many more. A fun fun course and I truely learnt a lot. Unfortunately, the Teva case was cancelled (which was the only Israeli company in the menu of p1 and p2).
Foundation of Marketing (or how to market a small grocery store in London, Canada)
This course was not as successful as the others, although we did cover a lot of topics, such as advertisement (using Virgin histerical commercial, and Intel Inside evolution of commercial), branding (using Black&Decker and Wal Mart), and others. For an assignment we had to do a marketing strategy to Jill's Table, a high end grocery store in the middle of London, Ontario (mmm, very large international scale as appropriate to INSEAD). The exam was about the Chinese Li Ning sportsware company, who had to build a brand competing against Adidas and Nike.
Leading Organization (aka LO)
Better than LPG from p1, this course gave us the foundations to think about organizations in 3 percpectives: Strategic Design, Culture, and Political. We did several simulations, last one was a computer simulation in which we had to convince an entire organization to implement a significant change. The most controvercial moment in class was the debate about Milgram's experiment, in which a person had to ask questions another person, and to punish the latter for a failed answer (to teach us about misuse of power). We had a most dreadful group exam, in which for 4 hours we had to write a 22 pages (!!!) paper about a company with problems.
Summary
It was busy, but we learnt a lot about business, less quantitative more qualitative, and many many Harvard cases.
We studied 6 core courses in p2, still in the same sections and study groups as in p1. This was a very busy period, and academics took most of our lives.
Corporate Finance Policy (aka Finance 2)
We had a brilliant professor, who taught us (almost) all about options and corporate finance. This was the class to see many paniced faces who had no idea what's going on in class. The professor was so good, that there were no compaints - everybody understood that it's their own damn fault that they don't understand what in god's name is the difference between a short put and a long forward, and between tender offers and right issues. Lucky for us in almost all study groups there was one finance guru who solved the problem sets (or at least we could take the answers from the finance guru of other study group, and reverse engineer the answers). The exam was super difficult - the professor had a vision of 50 average with 25 points standard diviation (so all you need to pass the exam was show up).
Managerial Accounting (Harvard Style)
This course deals with analyzing costs of things, and how to better plan the budgets of corporation. The professor was very much influenced by the case method of HBS, and in every class he intimidated another poor student into spilling the content of the latest case of another failed company somewhere in Argentina or Sweden. The course was quite good, and we even touched some of the more juicy stories of businesses from previous years like the Enron energy fiasco, and Ford's failure to deal with excess capacity.
Processes and Operations Management (POM POM POM)
6-sigma? Queues? Inverntory Management? All of these were taught in an entertaining way, using fun cases like Zara, Shloldice Hospital (for hernias), Ralph Laurence, Xenon and others. The course is built around the smart book "The Goal" (a nice read). We even shot ping pong balls using an XPult catapult (to test its quality).
Strategy (Camel Comedy Club)
Strategy is a pretty abstract term. In order to teach it you must be a very skillful professor. We had one: a very funny and original guy, who gave us the framework to think in a strategic way. 90 minutes of laughter. He used the Cirque de Soleil as an example to Blue Ocean Strategy (an INSEAD invention), the italian mafia (from godfather) as a family business who wants to expand to pharma (should it go to a JV with the other mafia and share resources?), Formula 1 (to explain how to be a center of a business), and the music industry (as an example for industry evolution). In addition we used cases for easyGroup, Apple, Dell, and many more. A fun fun course and I truely learnt a lot. Unfortunately, the Teva case was cancelled (which was the only Israeli company in the menu of p1 and p2).
Foundation of Marketing (or how to market a small grocery store in London, Canada)
This course was not as successful as the others, although we did cover a lot of topics, such as advertisement (using Virgin histerical commercial, and Intel Inside evolution of commercial), branding (using Black&Decker and Wal Mart), and others. For an assignment we had to do a marketing strategy to Jill's Table, a high end grocery store in the middle of London, Ontario (mmm, very large international scale as appropriate to INSEAD). The exam was about the Chinese Li Ning sportsware company, who had to build a brand competing against Adidas and Nike.
Leading Organization (aka LO)
Better than LPG from p1, this course gave us the foundations to think about organizations in 3 percpectives: Strategic Design, Culture, and Political. We did several simulations, last one was a computer simulation in which we had to convince an entire organization to implement a significant change. The most controvercial moment in class was the debate about Milgram's experiment, in which a person had to ask questions another person, and to punish the latter for a failed answer (to teach us about misuse of power). We had a most dreadful group exam, in which for 4 hours we had to write a 22 pages (!!!) paper about a company with problems.
Summary
It was busy, but we learnt a lot about business, less quantitative more qualitative, and many many Harvard cases.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
A Trip to Reims in Champagne
I took time-off from studying hard in p2, and went with my wife Inna, and a couple of friends, Carolina and Patricio, to Champagne.
We went on a Saturday by car. Using toll roads it is about 2 hours drive to Reims, and the toll is about 10 euros one way. We drove back the same evening.
Pommery is the oldest winery in Champagne, since the 19th century, and it the second largest in terms of market share. Madam Pommery inheritted the estate from her husband, and immedietly started to expand. She bought the area, and apperantely there were Roman pyramid-shaped caves. She dug tunnels between those pyramid to form an 18 km cellers underground. This place is amazing! In the caves there are huge carvings done by artists.
We went on a Saturday by car. Using toll roads it is about 2 hours drive to Reims, and the toll is about 10 euros one way. We drove back the same evening.Since it was Saturday we could only find one Champagne Cave (a winery) openned, Pommery, and we reserved a place on Friday. There are English tours at 12:00 and at 14:45. On
weekdays there are plenty of Champagne caves around.
Pommery is the oldest winery in Champagne, since the 19th century, and it the second largest in terms of market share. Madam Pommery inheritted the estate from her husband, and immedietly started to expand. She bought the area, and apperantely there were Roman pyramid-shaped caves. She dug tunnels between those pyramid to form an 18 km cellers underground. This place is amazing! In the caves there are huge carvings done by artists.
At the end of the tour we got a glass of champagne each. There are several options: 10 Euros for the simple traditional champagne. 12 Euros for the more sophisticated one. 15 Euros for 2 glasses of your choice. 17 Euros for the best quality champagne. All prices include the tour.
This is December, and in Reims there is a beautiful Christmas market, near the impressive gothic church that reminded us of Notre-Dam in Paris. From christmas decoration, to all sorts of food, this rich market was a nice way to spend our Saturday evening. I even found Krembo (an Israeli invention of creme and choclate, apperantly improved by the French) - the best Krembo I ate in my life. We ate Chorus and marrons - it was awesome.
In the area you can also go to Epernay (someone told me that except for some more caves nothing much to see), and Chalons which is the capital. We passed.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Campus Exchange
As you probably know INSEAD has campuses in France and in Singapore. When you get into a campus you have to stay there for P1 and P2. But in P3/4/5 you are free to fransfer between campuses. Also in P4 there is the option to go to Wharton in Philadelphia.
Singapore Exchange
80% of the July promotion (at least those who start at Fonty) want to go for P3 to Singapore, for several reasons: the French winter (vs. The Asian sun), in P4 the recruiting process start so they want to be at Fonty, many wanted in the first place to spend several periods in Asia, and maybe more.
The other direction is non-significant. Students from Singapore want to come to Fonty probably in P4. This result in a massive movement to Singapore. Fonty will probably be empty in P3.
Now, there are limited spaces in each campus (around 260), and the demand is high. So INSEAD asks each student to tell where they want to be in each period, and then select people randomly. Those who registered but did not get in are on the waitlist. In the next month or so people waiver their opportunity to go to Singapore, so almost all the waitlist can also go to Singapore.
Those who go to Singapore will have to find a solution for their appartments in Fonty. Some will simply replace appartments with students who come from Singapore to Fonty. But most has to either continue pay the rent or leave their appartments.
Then there is the accomodation in Singapore. The landlords over there knows exactly how to take advantage of the situation and charge very high prices (for example 1200 Euro/Month for a room). Since there are so many people coming to Singapore in P3 there is a big demand and the price goes through the roof. There are two apartments buildings (Heritage and something else) which are more expensive. However, all the other appartments are far away, and you will need public transportaion.
Wharton
There are 20 places on the list of MBAs who want to Wharton. For this previlege students must bid points from their elective banks. The lucky ones gets to spend p4 in philadelphia. The number of points deducted from their elective choice in p5 is the points bid by the last person to get in the list.
While in Wharton, students from INSEAD who exchange with Wharton are regular students for the period of 2 month, and they have access to all the facilities and networks as Wharton students. The courses, however, are not as good as p4 at INSEAD, because most of the courses at Wharton are for regular semester, so finding courses only for half a semester is limited.
With regard to emloyment, for the July promotion p4 in USA is off season. So there is not much recruitment going on in the campus.
Still, several students each year bid for the place in Wharton.
Summary
The past month there was an intensive hunt for appartments in Singapore, many people from the waitlist tried to convince people who are not certain to remove themselves from the list, and planning the 2 month vacation is Asia. They probably forgot how intense INSEAD can be.
I will remain your loyal reporter of the life here at Fontainebleau.
Singapore Exchange
80% of the July promotion (at least those who start at Fonty) want to go for P3 to Singapore, for several reasons: the French winter (vs. The Asian sun), in P4 the recruiting process start so they want to be at Fonty, many wanted in the first place to spend several periods in Asia, and maybe more.
The other direction is non-significant. Students from Singapore want to come to Fonty probably in P4. This result in a massive movement to Singapore. Fonty will probably be empty in P3.
Now, there are limited spaces in each campus (around 260), and the demand is high. So INSEAD asks each student to tell where they want to be in each period, and then select people randomly. Those who registered but did not get in are on the waitlist. In the next month or so people waiver their opportunity to go to Singapore, so almost all the waitlist can also go to Singapore.
Those who go to Singapore will have to find a solution for their appartments in Fonty. Some will simply replace appartments with students who come from Singapore to Fonty. But most has to either continue pay the rent or leave their appartments.
Then there is the accomodation in Singapore. The landlords over there knows exactly how to take advantage of the situation and charge very high prices (for example 1200 Euro/Month for a room). Since there are so many people coming to Singapore in P3 there is a big demand and the price goes through the roof. There are two apartments buildings (Heritage and something else) which are more expensive. However, all the other appartments are far away, and you will need public transportaion.
Wharton
There are 20 places on the list of MBAs who want to Wharton. For this previlege students must bid points from their elective banks. The lucky ones gets to spend p4 in philadelphia. The number of points deducted from their elective choice in p5 is the points bid by the last person to get in the list.
While in Wharton, students from INSEAD who exchange with Wharton are regular students for the period of 2 month, and they have access to all the facilities and networks as Wharton students. The courses, however, are not as good as p4 at INSEAD, because most of the courses at Wharton are for regular semester, so finding courses only for half a semester is limited.
With regard to emloyment, for the July promotion p4 in USA is off season. So there is not much recruitment going on in the campus.
Still, several students each year bid for the place in Wharton.
Summary
The past month there was an intensive hunt for appartments in Singapore, many people from the waitlist tried to convince people who are not certain to remove themselves from the list, and planning the 2 month vacation is Asia. They probably forgot how intense INSEAD can be.
I will remain your loyal reporter of the life here at Fontainebleau.
INSEAD Auction and the Electives
In the past month we had to bid for both the campus exchange and the p3 electives. Since this is unique I figured it is worth some explanations.
The system works like this: Each student gets 200 points. Each period the students bid points for the electives that they want to take next period. Since some of the electives are too popular, not all students can take them. So out of all the points that remained from previous periods, each student divide them between the courses they want to take (giving most points to the electives they want the most - strategy, strategy).
If a course is not full, no points are deducted. However, if the course is full each student that bid high get in. The number of points deducted for all the students is according to the last student to get in. For example: If there are 100 places, and the 100th student bid 20 points, all the 100 students are deducted 20 points (even if they bid higher). Sometimes though, INSEAD opens a new section if there is a high demand (not guaranteed).
The auction is done per campus. Most classes are given in both campuses. They provide us with all the information about the syllabuses, requirements, and faculty (including rankings of the professors in previous periods - a grade above 4 is considered good).
The 200 points are cummulative throughout the program. If a student is deducted 50 points in the P3 bidding, he will only have 150 points in P4.
In the first week of P3 the students are allowed to drop and add electives as they choose (if there are available places). If the class is full, dropping from a course will result in someone from the waitlist getting in (dropping the course gives you the bidding points back). There is also the possibility to audit a course (meaning to sit in class but not get credit) - if the professor allows it.
Why did INSEAD impose such a complicated system is beyond me, but these are the rules, and we must play accordingly, right?
The P3 Electives
There are 6 groups of electives in the program: Finance, Accounting, Strategy, Marketing, Technology & Operations, and Entrepreneurship. There are also electives in Organizational Behaviour (OB) and Economics.
Most electives are 1 credit, but there are also mini ones for half a credit (and only 8 sessions). In the program you can take 10.5-12.5 elective credits (and you must attend minimum of 2 credits in P5 - meaning that you have to be at INSEAD in that period). More then 12.5 you must pay extra.
There are tons of electives - mostly in P5 - and choosing is hard. In P3 it is recommended to take 3.5 credits. There are also 2 core courses.
Here is a list of some of the electives offered (not all of them):
Finance - If you want a finance career, it is recommended that you take all the finance courses. However, for the numbers-handicaped of us, it is recommended to take two basic courses: Applied Corporate Finance (the cases course, given both in P3 and P4), and Investements (mini, only in P3). International Financial Management is the third course offered.
Entrepreneurship - In P3 INSEAD offers Corporate Entrepreneurship in Fonty, and Business Models in Singapore (no symmetry). Also you can take a project in the industry (Entrepreneurshial Field Study).
Marketing - In P3 or P4 you should take Marketing Driving Strategies, which involves simulations and is supposed to be great.
Strategy - A popular course is given in P3, M&As, Alliances and Corporate Strategy (taught in Fonty by an Israeli professor).
Technology and Operations: The second course (after the core course) is Strategies for Product and Service Development. There are two mini course called Leveraging IT Opportunities and Trends - Part I/II which are given in P3 and P4 respectively (different courses not related).
One last course that I want to describe here is the Negotiations course which is supposed to be great in Singapore (and hopefully in Fontainebleau too).
The system works like this: Each student gets 200 points. Each period the students bid points for the electives that they want to take next period. Since some of the electives are too popular, not all students can take them. So out of all the points that remained from previous periods, each student divide them between the courses they want to take (giving most points to the electives they want the most - strategy, strategy).
If a course is not full, no points are deducted. However, if the course is full each student that bid high get in. The number of points deducted for all the students is according to the last student to get in. For example: If there are 100 places, and the 100th student bid 20 points, all the 100 students are deducted 20 points (even if they bid higher). Sometimes though, INSEAD opens a new section if there is a high demand (not guaranteed).
The auction is done per campus. Most classes are given in both campuses. They provide us with all the information about the syllabuses, requirements, and faculty (including rankings of the professors in previous periods - a grade above 4 is considered good).
The 200 points are cummulative throughout the program. If a student is deducted 50 points in the P3 bidding, he will only have 150 points in P4.
In the first week of P3 the students are allowed to drop and add electives as they choose (if there are available places). If the class is full, dropping from a course will result in someone from the waitlist getting in (dropping the course gives you the bidding points back). There is also the possibility to audit a course (meaning to sit in class but not get credit) - if the professor allows it.
Why did INSEAD impose such a complicated system is beyond me, but these are the rules, and we must play accordingly, right?
The P3 Electives
There are 6 groups of electives in the program: Finance, Accounting, Strategy, Marketing, Technology & Operations, and Entrepreneurship. There are also electives in Organizational Behaviour (OB) and Economics.
Most electives are 1 credit, but there are also mini ones for half a credit (and only 8 sessions). In the program you can take 10.5-12.5 elective credits (and you must attend minimum of 2 credits in P5 - meaning that you have to be at INSEAD in that period). More then 12.5 you must pay extra.
There are tons of electives - mostly in P5 - and choosing is hard. In P3 it is recommended to take 3.5 credits. There are also 2 core courses.
Here is a list of some of the electives offered (not all of them):
Finance - If you want a finance career, it is recommended that you take all the finance courses. However, for the numbers-handicaped of us, it is recommended to take two basic courses: Applied Corporate Finance (the cases course, given both in P3 and P4), and Investements (mini, only in P3). International Financial Management is the third course offered.
Entrepreneurship - In P3 INSEAD offers Corporate Entrepreneurship in Fonty, and Business Models in Singapore (no symmetry). Also you can take a project in the industry (Entrepreneurshial Field Study).
Marketing - In P3 or P4 you should take Marketing Driving Strategies, which involves simulations and is supposed to be great.
Strategy - A popular course is given in P3, M&As, Alliances and Corporate Strategy (taught in Fonty by an Israeli professor).
Technology and Operations: The second course (after the core course) is Strategies for Product and Service Development. There are two mini course called Leveraging IT Opportunities and Trends - Part I/II which are given in P3 and P4 respectively (different courses not related).
One last course that I want to describe here is the Negotiations course which is supposed to be great in Singapore (and hopefully in Fontainebleau too).
P2 Academic Overview
P2 was definitely busier than P1. You might have wondered where I disappeared in the past couple of weeks. But no worries - I am still here (tired but breathing), writing to you about all the stuff that you need to know about INSEAD, the greatest business school in the Fontainebleau area (and the world).
So what did we have in this period: More courses, less time, more team assignments, less time, more CV preparation, less time, more stress, well you get the picture...
We study 6 courses this period, but 5 of them are only 12 sessions (Foundation of Marketing is the only one with 16). All of the courses together give a much clearer view of the business world.
We do a lot of cases (some from Harvard, some from IMD, and some - yes - from INSEAD). So I got to intimately know various companies so far. Let me name the most well known: Coca Cola, Pepsico, Starbucks, Wal-Mart, Black&Decker, IKEA, IBM, Dell, Apple, Cirque de Soleil, Nintendo, easyJet, American Airlines, Zara, Marks&Spencer, Ralph-Lauren, and the list goes on and on.
We learnt how to analyze business problems with relation to cost measurements, allocation and control; marketing and branding; option pricing; process and bottleneck problems, to name a few.
INSEAD had a very big impact on strategy with the invention of "Blue Ocean Strategy", and you might want to read the book about it (with the same name). For this achievement the Strategy department here at INSEAD is very strong, and the course of Strategy is taught seperately from the Marketing course.
In the Processes and Operations course we had read the book "The Goal" by Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt (an Israeli!), which is written as an easy-reading and demonstrates the constraints theory very effectively. I recommend the book (you will probably have to read it anyhow if you study an MBA), and I enjoyed it very much (it didn't take long to read).
I must say that in most of the courses the level of teaching and the material is at a very high level, and the classes are taught in a interesting and inspiring ways. The professors make tremendous efforts to deliver the material in a fun and effective way (Some of the classes we laugh so hard that you might think it is a stand-up comedy show).
However, we have a large amounts of readings, and some of the professors use the cold-calling method. Especially in the Managerial Accounting course, in which we have a professor from HBS, who use the case method devoutly. The case method means in practice that for each class you must read a story about a company, and analyse several exhibits in order to answer several questions regarding an issue. Then the class is more of a discussion fascilitated by the professor. The method has proven itself in my eyes as effective, though very strict.
Once the period is over I will give a more thorough review of the different courses, so you will know in advance what to look for.
So what did we have in this period: More courses, less time, more team assignments, less time, more CV preparation, less time, more stress, well you get the picture...
We study 6 courses this period, but 5 of them are only 12 sessions (Foundation of Marketing is the only one with 16). All of the courses together give a much clearer view of the business world.
We do a lot of cases (some from Harvard, some from IMD, and some - yes - from INSEAD). So I got to intimately know various companies so far. Let me name the most well known: Coca Cola, Pepsico, Starbucks, Wal-Mart, Black&Decker, IKEA, IBM, Dell, Apple, Cirque de Soleil, Nintendo, easyJet, American Airlines, Zara, Marks&Spencer, Ralph-Lauren, and the list goes on and on.
We learnt how to analyze business problems with relation to cost measurements, allocation and control; marketing and branding; option pricing; process and bottleneck problems, to name a few.
INSEAD had a very big impact on strategy with the invention of "Blue Ocean Strategy", and you might want to read the book about it (with the same name). For this achievement the Strategy department here at INSEAD is very strong, and the course of Strategy is taught seperately from the Marketing course.
In the Processes and Operations course we had read the book "The Goal" by Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt (an Israeli!), which is written as an easy-reading and demonstrates the constraints theory very effectively. I recommend the book (you will probably have to read it anyhow if you study an MBA), and I enjoyed it very much (it didn't take long to read).
I must say that in most of the courses the level of teaching and the material is at a very high level, and the classes are taught in a interesting and inspiring ways. The professors make tremendous efforts to deliver the material in a fun and effective way (Some of the classes we laugh so hard that you might think it is a stand-up comedy show).
However, we have a large amounts of readings, and some of the professors use the cold-calling method. Especially in the Managerial Accounting course, in which we have a professor from HBS, who use the case method devoutly. The case method means in practice that for each class you must read a story about a company, and analyse several exhibits in order to answer several questions regarding an issue. Then the class is more of a discussion fascilitated by the professor. The method has proven itself in my eyes as effective, though very strict.
Once the period is over I will give a more thorough review of the different courses, so you will know in advance what to look for.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
A Trip to Loire Valley
On P1/P2 break I went on a two days trip to Loire Valley with my partner Inna. Loire Valley is an area in France located on both sides of the Loire river, and is rich with Castles, Chateaus and interesting cities. The capital is Orlean, a city located 1 and a half hour drive from Fontainebleau. Unfortunately there is not much to see there, and another hour drive brought us to Chambord, the biggest
castle in the area. It is truely magnificant, and the rich architecture of the roofs and terraces is impressive. There is a very interesting stare case with two parrallel starecases allowing two persons to go up without meeting. Leonardo De Vinci was involved in the engineering of the castle.
castle in the area. It is truely magnificant, and the rich architecture of the roofs and terraces is impressive. There is a very interesting stare case with two parrallel starecases allowing two persons to go up without meeting. Leonardo De Vinci was involved in the engineering of the castle.
From there we went to Chambray castle (20 minutes drive), not very exciting.
Then we went to Blois (pernounces- blua), a city of medivial ages, a very 
impressive view from the other side of the Loire. A line of gray roofs, with several large castles and cathedrals, 
very dense on the mountain side. The Chateau is from 4 different architecture styles - Reinnesance, Gothic, and others. We walked on stairs that looks a lot like Piaza Espania in Rome, and in the couple of streets full of stores and pasteries.
impressive view from the other side of the Loire. A line of gray roofs, with several large castles and cathedrals, 
very dense on the mountain side. The Chateau is from 4 different architecture styles - Reinnesance, Gothic, and others. We walked on stairs that looks a lot like Piaza Espania in Rome, and in the couple of streets full of stores and pasteries.
The next stop was Embois, another small town, with a medivial style Chateau, near the Leonardo De Vinci museum. Again it was nice to walk for half an hour in the European Village style streets of this town. The last stop of the day, and where we spent the night, is Tours, a large city located 3 and a half hours drive from Fontainebleau. They have a Gothis cathedral in the center of town (a small version of Notre-Dam in Paris?). It was a perfect location for next days' trip.
The next day we started with Azay Le Rideau Chateau, 20 minutes further from Tours. This Chateau is a small but impressive one, located on an artificial small lake, giving a reflection in the water. There is a small garden. Very nice. We came at 11:45 so only the gardens were open for a discounted price. It was sunday and there was a flee market out side the Chateau.
Next we started going back, visiting Villandry gardens. These are probably the largest and richest gardens in the Loire. Different shapes and colors, walking around different vegetables and fruits and a big artificial lakes and tunnels. You can walk up to the forest for a view of the entire area.We ended the trip by visiting Chenonceaux castle. This is the most touristic attraction, and you can tell from the moment you enter the place. This chateau 
is the most impressive from the inside (although surprisingly small). It is located literally on the river, with several arcs holding it like a bridge. Pitty that the line of water is low. The gardens are nothing like Villandry but worth a visit. They have an old farm and a winary (the whole Loire is filled with winaries).
is the most impressive from the inside (although surprisingly small). It is located literally on the river, with several arcs holding it like a bridge. Pitty that the line of water is low. The gardens are nothing like Villandry but worth a visit. They have an old farm and a winary (the whole Loire is filled with winaries).A little tip about the cost: Each chateau cost 7 to 10 euros per persons, sometimes there are discounts for students, or for persons below 25 years of age. Fuel (diesel) cost around 40 euros. And the hotel cost 35-100 Euros per night (search the web). You might want to sleep in Embois or Blois instead of Tours, or look for a small place on the way.
And a word about the roads in France: The highways cost money (probably 30-40 euros for the entire trip). Otherwise, N152 (I think) takes you all the way to Tours. It's partly yellow and partly red, but most of the ride is in one lane, and you can get stuck behind a slow car for half an hour. But the road is pretty, so there is an upside. Once you get near a chateau there are good way signs.
Friday, November 2, 2007
What Has Changed in the MBA World
Financial Times has posted the annual MBA ranking. Being the most international ranking there is, I used this ranking a lot when deciding which program to attend.
http://rankings.ft.com/global-mba-rankings
Global Perspective
Top 10 USA schools according to this ranking (place last year in the brackets)
1. Wharton (1)
2. Columbia (4) - surprised here?
3. Stanford (3)
3. Harvard (2)
6. Chicago GSB (6)
8. NYU Stern (7)
9. Tuck (8)
10. Yale (11)
14. MIT Sloan (10)
17. UCLA Anderson (19)
Top 10 European Schools
5. LBS, UK (5)
7. INSEAD, France/Singapore (8)
11. IE Business School, Spain (-)
13. IMD, Switzerland (14)
15. Cambridge Judge, UK (35)
16. IESE, Spain (13)
18. HEC Paris, France (22)
19. Oxford Said, UK (20)
22. Manchester Business School, UK (22)
24. Esade, Spain
An up trend for European school. Also important is Ceibs from China #11 this year.
Personal Perspective
INSEAD is ranked 7th in the world, up from #8 last year. MIT Sloan - the other business school I was admitted to is down - #14 this year, a fall from #10 last year. Did I do the right decision here? It seems so.
My third business school was Oxford - up 1 place in #19 in the world. Cambridge (the strong competition) is #15.
I was on the waitlist of London Business School, still at #5 and the best European school according to this ranking. But it is not that clear that it is a better choice than INSEAD as I will show next.
INSEAD - A Further Look
Ok, so INSEAD is up to #7. What other things can we tell from this ranking?
Employment
Weighted Salary for INSEAD students is 140K$. 2nd in Europe - IMD is first with 153K$. LBS only third with 135K$. Oxford is not legging behind with 128K$.
Top salaries are for graduates from Stanford (168K$), Cape Town (What? 163K$), Wharton (160K$), and HBS (157K$).
Salary Increase - For LBS it's 122%, INSEAD only 94% (poor us).
You wanna get an increase? Go to Ceibs (159%), Yale (151%), or IE (149%).
Will you get a job after the MBA? According to FT you have a chance of 90% if you graduate from INSEAD - pretty low comparing to all the others. LBS is 96%.
School
INSEAD is the #6 international school. LBS is only 10. The other top 10 schools are no where to be seen. Do you want an international perspective? Come to INSEAD.
Value for money - INSEAD is the 2nd school among the Top 20 schools, only IMD is above. Oxford not too far behind. LBS is one of the most expensive schools and the worst in the world in that category. Being a one year program pays off.
Reputation - Alumni were asked to rate the schools based on whether they will recruit MBAs from that school. LBS is #5 and INSEAD #6. This is a pretty important category so here is the top 10:
1. Wharton
2. HBS
3. Stanford
4. Kellogg
5. LBS
6. INSEAD
7. Chicago GSB
8. Columbia
9. MIT Sloan
10. Ross
Next 10: NYU, Tuck, Duke, Darden, UCLA, Berkeley, IMD, Toronto, Iese, Kenan-Flagler.
Is this the true ranking? From inspecting the results it might as well be. The American schools are sorted pretty much as I would expect, and also the European schools. Less surprising than the real FT ranking.
Summary
It seems that INSEAD is a top 10 school again this year in all categories, an excellent value for money, with great employment future and an international exposure.
Last, I did my own ranking based on the criteria I find most important (I know that's weird but it made sense to me): Alumni recommendation-reputation (30%), salary(30%), chance of employment(10%), international(10%) and value(20%).
Here are the results:
1. INSEAD
2. IMD
3. MIT Sloan
4. Wharton
5. Kellogg
6. LBS
7. Cranfield (Uk)
8. HBS
9. Stanford
10. Tuck
11. Oxford
12. UCLA
13. Capetown (South Africa)
14. Chicago GSB
15. Ceibs (China)
16. Columbia
17. IE (Spain)
18. Erasmus (Netherland)
19. Iese
20. North Carolina
Told you that INSEAD is number 1 :) .
(I swear that I did not arrange it so INSEAD would be #1. I just picked the most important criteria and put it in Excel. Amazingly INSEAD is the best pick.)
http://rankings.ft.com/global-mba-rankings
Global Perspective
Top 10 USA schools according to this ranking (place last year in the brackets)
1. Wharton (1)
2. Columbia (4) - surprised here?
3. Stanford (3)
3. Harvard (2)
6. Chicago GSB (6)
8. NYU Stern (7)
9. Tuck (8)
10. Yale (11)
14. MIT Sloan (10)
17. UCLA Anderson (19)
Top 10 European Schools
5. LBS, UK (5)
7. INSEAD, France/Singapore (8)
11. IE Business School, Spain (-)
13. IMD, Switzerland (14)
15. Cambridge Judge, UK (35)
16. IESE, Spain (13)
18. HEC Paris, France (22)
19. Oxford Said, UK (20)
22. Manchester Business School, UK (22)
24. Esade, Spain
An up trend for European school. Also important is Ceibs from China #11 this year.
Personal Perspective
INSEAD is ranked 7th in the world, up from #8 last year. MIT Sloan - the other business school I was admitted to is down - #14 this year, a fall from #10 last year. Did I do the right decision here? It seems so.
My third business school was Oxford - up 1 place in #19 in the world. Cambridge (the strong competition) is #15.
I was on the waitlist of London Business School, still at #5 and the best European school according to this ranking. But it is not that clear that it is a better choice than INSEAD as I will show next.
INSEAD - A Further Look
Ok, so INSEAD is up to #7. What other things can we tell from this ranking?
Employment
Weighted Salary for INSEAD students is 140K$. 2nd in Europe - IMD is first with 153K$. LBS only third with 135K$. Oxford is not legging behind with 128K$.
Top salaries are for graduates from Stanford (168K$), Cape Town (What? 163K$), Wharton (160K$), and HBS (157K$).
Salary Increase - For LBS it's 122%, INSEAD only 94% (poor us).
You wanna get an increase? Go to Ceibs (159%), Yale (151%), or IE (149%).
Will you get a job after the MBA? According to FT you have a chance of 90% if you graduate from INSEAD - pretty low comparing to all the others. LBS is 96%.
School
INSEAD is the #6 international school. LBS is only 10. The other top 10 schools are no where to be seen. Do you want an international perspective? Come to INSEAD.
Value for money - INSEAD is the 2nd school among the Top 20 schools, only IMD is above. Oxford not too far behind. LBS is one of the most expensive schools and the worst in the world in that category. Being a one year program pays off.
Reputation - Alumni were asked to rate the schools based on whether they will recruit MBAs from that school. LBS is #5 and INSEAD #6. This is a pretty important category so here is the top 10:
1. Wharton
2. HBS
3. Stanford
4. Kellogg
5. LBS
6. INSEAD
7. Chicago GSB
8. Columbia
9. MIT Sloan
10. Ross
Next 10: NYU, Tuck, Duke, Darden, UCLA, Berkeley, IMD, Toronto, Iese, Kenan-Flagler.
Is this the true ranking? From inspecting the results it might as well be. The American schools are sorted pretty much as I would expect, and also the European schools. Less surprising than the real FT ranking.
Summary
It seems that INSEAD is a top 10 school again this year in all categories, an excellent value for money, with great employment future and an international exposure.
Last, I did my own ranking based on the criteria I find most important (I know that's weird but it made sense to me): Alumni recommendation-reputation (30%), salary(30%), chance of employment(10%), international(10%) and value(20%).
Here are the results:
1. INSEAD
2. IMD
3. MIT Sloan
4. Wharton
5. Kellogg
6. LBS
7. Cranfield (Uk)
8. HBS
9. Stanford
10. Tuck
11. Oxford
12. UCLA
13. Capetown (South Africa)
14. Chicago GSB
15. Ceibs (China)
16. Columbia
17. IE (Spain)
18. Erasmus (Netherland)
19. Iese
20. North Carolina
Told you that INSEAD is number 1 :) .
(I swear that I did not arrange it so INSEAD would be #1. I just picked the most important criteria and put it in Excel. Amazingly INSEAD is the best pick.)
Thursday, October 25, 2007
How To Do 5 Exams in 3 Days And Stay Sane
In the previous days we had the final exams. The way that INSEAD organizes it is to put all the exams in 3 days, and let you go for a 4 days vacation. They keep you studying and submitting group assignments until the last minute, so you only have the weekend to study.
Preparation
First of all, you must be on top of things throughout the period. Otherwise it will be difficult to study everything in a few hours.
Most of the courses are closed book, one A4 sheet allowed, so everybody spent their weekend in preparing Cheat Sheets (I have no idea why they call it that way - it is completely legit). Those are word documents in a 5 sized font, with all the material of the course packed in it. (completely worthless in real time).
We got several exams from previous promotions, so we had little time to solve them all.
Basically it is 3 days of studying all day long.
The Exams Themselves
In order to do 5 exams in 3 days you have to be superman. Otherwise you just have to rely on the Z-Curve to do the work for you. The grading policy is that everybody get their grades in a scale (sometime 1-100), and then the professor checks the average and standard deviation. If you are more than 3 standard deviations below the average you failed. Your grade is the number of standard devations you are from the mean. It means that if they give us an easy exam, everybody will get 90, and then if someone gets a 70 he fails the class! so they try to make an exam with an average of 50, and a wide spread of grades.
If I had completely lost you by now: The grades are completely relative. They give us very very very difficult exams, in order for the average to be 50. It means that not only we did 5 exams in 3 days, we did very fuckin difficult exams as well (pardon my french).
Now, I come from the Technion. I am used to difficult exams. But such a marathon I have never done in my life. Lucky for us we are all in the same boat, so if I had to suffer everybody else had to suffer as well (I am a nice guy, aren't I?). Because the grades are completely relative, I probably had to do miserably horrible in order to fail.
Two funny things about the Z-Scores. They brain-washes us into hoping to get difficult exams. So I heard a girl who was not so strong in Finance actually coming to the professor and asking him to give us a hard exam! People here have completely lost their minds.
Also I heard talks about colluding and doing lowsy on purpose (it's like a prisoner dillema if you think about it). Of course it was a joke, but a funny one (of course this can never work - this is not a Nash equilibrium. You should probably work on your game theory if you don't understand me).
First Exam - A Group Exam
A group exam is an exam you take with your study group (well, dah!). In the leadership course we were given a case, and we had to sit for four hours and write one paper about all the sheety things that happened in the case. Of course we had to put as much terms from the course as possible, linking to buzz-words, and like any history exam in high school - write as much as possible.
Think that you are given such an assignment to do alone. You would probably finish it without any problems. It's not that hard - read the case for 30 minutes, think for another 10, write 20 pages for 2 hours, check your spelling and you are done (kind of like writing a blog ;)
But if you do it in a group it becomes much more complicated, as 5 people want to write the exact same thing in 5 different ways. Ironically all the ways are completely ok. We had a planning session before the exams and you could hear the shouting from the cubicles in the South Wing! We agreed to some strategy (and of course changed it 180 degrees in the real exam).
We divided ourselves into 3 sub-groups, each group will write about a third of the problem. We were 5 so one of us was left writing alone. We read the case, and sat for half an hour trying to figure the structure of the paper. For each of the 3 topics we assigned as many buzz words as possible. And at last we sat to write (who is going to write on the computer almost ended in a fight, but I was the bigger man). Of course the one person who wrote alone finished earliest.
At last we finished and submitted the paper. I was named before the exam the leader of the group (Because I possess some of Henry Fonda, from "12 angry men", and Ghandi leadership qualities. Ohh sorry I fell asleep for a second, because I was the first in alpha bethical order). What can I say, leadership sucks (Maybe this is what they have tried to teach me in this leadership course). I had to come 10 minutes earlier to take the case, and stay 30 minutes after we were done to wait for the assisstant to come and pick up our paper (I was starving).
Regular Exams
It was all part a very big scheme. First Nikos, the professor from economics, told us not to worry too much because the exam is going to be piece of cake, and we will finish it in half the time. Of course I did not study for this one (priorities). 2 and a half hours in the exam I was still trying to figure out what the hell is Cournot equilibrium (he specifically said he would require us to calculate the damn things).
Then in Finance we got a question about call stock options. Did we not study enough material in the course that the professor could ask questions about stuff that we ACTUALLY DID learn? I recall that he specifically told us that options are for Finance 2. I calculated the points - 18 points out of a 100 for something we learnt nothing about. Of course the question could be solved by pure simple (or not so simple) logic.
I knew that the accounting exam is going to be the hardest (call it a hunch or a sixth sense). It was. And the thing is that it was the forth one. I had 2 exams on Monday, one finance exam in the morning (not a picnic), and only then came the One. I thought that I was going to fall asleep in the middle of the exam. The professor told us that never tries to trick us on purpose. It is always done by accident. Well, too bad I am not insured because I counted at least 3 accidents in the exam.
And after this one I had the entire evening to study for the statistics exam coming tomorrow. Of course I fell asleep right on the 2006 exam in 22:00. I woke up the next day, rushed out of the house, only to discover 5 minutes into the exam that I have forgotten my statistics tables (you simply cannot calculate anything without them). So I improvised (Donald Trump would have been proud). I programmed my calculator to perform the ntegral for the normal distribution (so lucky for me the claculator replaced some of the tables). Superman or not? Of course I screwed the easiest question on the exam (old habit of mine).
Let me summerize (and with that I leave p1 exams behind me for good, thank god for the memories) by saying that doing so many exams in such a short period of time, without any time to prepare is more a mental challenge than an academic one. It doesn't really matter whether you have answered everything right, because everybody is on the same boat. What matters is how much you have actually learnt and will take with you to the next periods. I can proudly say that I survived this week (They should give you a certificate: "Did 5 exams in 3 days and remained sane"). p2 starts, and will go by in a second, and then we have 6 exams in 4 days. A breeze compared to p1 (I am sure...)
Preparation
First of all, you must be on top of things throughout the period. Otherwise it will be difficult to study everything in a few hours.
Most of the courses are closed book, one A4 sheet allowed, so everybody spent their weekend in preparing Cheat Sheets (I have no idea why they call it that way - it is completely legit). Those are word documents in a 5 sized font, with all the material of the course packed in it. (completely worthless in real time).
We got several exams from previous promotions, so we had little time to solve them all.
Basically it is 3 days of studying all day long.
The Exams Themselves
In order to do 5 exams in 3 days you have to be superman. Otherwise you just have to rely on the Z-Curve to do the work for you. The grading policy is that everybody get their grades in a scale (sometime 1-100), and then the professor checks the average and standard deviation. If you are more than 3 standard deviations below the average you failed. Your grade is the number of standard devations you are from the mean. It means that if they give us an easy exam, everybody will get 90, and then if someone gets a 70 he fails the class! so they try to make an exam with an average of 50, and a wide spread of grades.
If I had completely lost you by now: The grades are completely relative. They give us very very very difficult exams, in order for the average to be 50. It means that not only we did 5 exams in 3 days, we did very fuckin difficult exams as well (pardon my french).
Now, I come from the Technion. I am used to difficult exams. But such a marathon I have never done in my life. Lucky for us we are all in the same boat, so if I had to suffer everybody else had to suffer as well (I am a nice guy, aren't I?). Because the grades are completely relative, I probably had to do miserably horrible in order to fail.
Two funny things about the Z-Scores. They brain-washes us into hoping to get difficult exams. So I heard a girl who was not so strong in Finance actually coming to the professor and asking him to give us a hard exam! People here have completely lost their minds.
Also I heard talks about colluding and doing lowsy on purpose (it's like a prisoner dillema if you think about it). Of course it was a joke, but a funny one (of course this can never work - this is not a Nash equilibrium. You should probably work on your game theory if you don't understand me).
First Exam - A Group Exam
A group exam is an exam you take with your study group (well, dah!). In the leadership course we were given a case, and we had to sit for four hours and write one paper about all the sheety things that happened in the case. Of course we had to put as much terms from the course as possible, linking to buzz-words, and like any history exam in high school - write as much as possible.
Think that you are given such an assignment to do alone. You would probably finish it without any problems. It's not that hard - read the case for 30 minutes, think for another 10, write 20 pages for 2 hours, check your spelling and you are done (kind of like writing a blog ;)
But if you do it in a group it becomes much more complicated, as 5 people want to write the exact same thing in 5 different ways. Ironically all the ways are completely ok. We had a planning session before the exams and you could hear the shouting from the cubicles in the South Wing! We agreed to some strategy (and of course changed it 180 degrees in the real exam).
We divided ourselves into 3 sub-groups, each group will write about a third of the problem. We were 5 so one of us was left writing alone. We read the case, and sat for half an hour trying to figure the structure of the paper. For each of the 3 topics we assigned as many buzz words as possible. And at last we sat to write (who is going to write on the computer almost ended in a fight, but I was the bigger man). Of course the one person who wrote alone finished earliest.
At last we finished and submitted the paper. I was named before the exam the leader of the group (Because I possess some of Henry Fonda, from "12 angry men", and Ghandi leadership qualities. Ohh sorry I fell asleep for a second, because I was the first in alpha bethical order). What can I say, leadership sucks (Maybe this is what they have tried to teach me in this leadership course). I had to come 10 minutes earlier to take the case, and stay 30 minutes after we were done to wait for the assisstant to come and pick up our paper (I was starving).
Regular Exams
It was all part a very big scheme. First Nikos, the professor from economics, told us not to worry too much because the exam is going to be piece of cake, and we will finish it in half the time. Of course I did not study for this one (priorities). 2 and a half hours in the exam I was still trying to figure out what the hell is Cournot equilibrium (he specifically said he would require us to calculate the damn things).
Then in Finance we got a question about call stock options. Did we not study enough material in the course that the professor could ask questions about stuff that we ACTUALLY DID learn? I recall that he specifically told us that options are for Finance 2. I calculated the points - 18 points out of a 100 for something we learnt nothing about. Of course the question could be solved by pure simple (or not so simple) logic.
I knew that the accounting exam is going to be the hardest (call it a hunch or a sixth sense). It was. And the thing is that it was the forth one. I had 2 exams on Monday, one finance exam in the morning (not a picnic), and only then came the One. I thought that I was going to fall asleep in the middle of the exam. The professor told us that never tries to trick us on purpose. It is always done by accident. Well, too bad I am not insured because I counted at least 3 accidents in the exam.
And after this one I had the entire evening to study for the statistics exam coming tomorrow. Of course I fell asleep right on the 2006 exam in 22:00. I woke up the next day, rushed out of the house, only to discover 5 minutes into the exam that I have forgotten my statistics tables (you simply cannot calculate anything without them). So I improvised (Donald Trump would have been proud). I programmed my calculator to perform the ntegral for the normal distribution (so lucky for me the claculator replaced some of the tables). Superman or not? Of course I screwed the easiest question on the exam (old habit of mine).
Let me summerize (and with that I leave p1 exams behind me for good, thank god for the memories) by saying that doing so many exams in such a short period of time, without any time to prepare is more a mental challenge than an academic one. It doesn't really matter whether you have answered everything right, because everybody is on the same boat. What matters is how much you have actually learnt and will take with you to the next periods. I can proudly say that I survived this week (They should give you a certificate: "Did 5 exams in 3 days and remained sane"). p2 starts, and will go by in a second, and then we have 6 exams in 4 days. A breeze compared to p1 (I am sure...)
P1 Ended - Go P2
It's been awhile since I have last written in my blog. It's been really hectic around here. Now that the exams are over and I have some days off, I can tell you about some of the things we have done in the past few weeks.
I will dedicate this post to summerize the first period academically. Later I will post on some of the more interesting things that you need to know about INSEAD.
We studied 5 courses, and I also studied spanish. I can say that it was very busy. Here is what happened in all 5 courses:
Finance
Definitely one of the more difficult courses. The material is complicated, and in the 7 weeks we had to learn about the time value of money, how to valuate companies and projects based on NPV and future cash flows, and how to price risk.
We had some group work (somewhat limited), and plenty of exercises and readinings. I can say that this is the course where I heard a lot of complaints from the other students about the way that our professor taught it. I guess that like in all places some of the professors are not as good as the others.
The math requirement was limited, and the challnge was more understanding the concepts. Some of the students have a lot of experience in the area, so when they asked questions it was last Chinese for me. And there were some classes in which I felt completely lost (especially when the professor put some English letters on the slides without explaining what they were). But overall I think that I have taken from the course what I should have.
Microeconomics
We had a great professor for that course. Every lecture was like a stand-up comedy show. It was a very basic course in micro economics. If you had seen supply and demand, monompoly pricing, and oligopoly games you should hae exempted from the course, because it was really slow. The professor was very afraid to confuse us with derivatives (of straight lines - it is very simple), so he insisted on explaining everything with "Marginal" this and "Marginal" that. For me it's more confusing, but the subject is easy to begin with.
I can say that I have studied a basic course in microeconomics before, and it had been much more difficult than our course.
The more interesting part was the Game Theory part. We learnt about Dominant strategies, Nash equilibrium and more. I will dedicate a seperate post to this part of the studies.
Financial Accounting
Here we arrived to the least pleasant course. Now I understand why I wouldn't want to be an accountant. The professor was very good, and he brought from his experience to teach us how to interpret financial statements, and how managers tend to manipulate them. The goals of the course were to understand company valuation and managerial decision making. The excelent professor made the subject interesting, but challenging. It is definitely not intuitive.
However, the professor uses cases and he cold called us on class - so we had to be perfectly prepared to every class. This was very tiring, and he managed to hijack our time form the other courses. Also he did not let us into class if we came late (even by 5 seconds). He said "You are late you have to leave), and then you had to turn around, no arguments, and walk out the amphi. He actually came to class 5 minutes ahead of time, stared at the clock, and the second it turned 15, he started the lecture and you could not enter.
Statistics
This is a breeze if you have some background in probability and/or statistics. This is hell if you are a lawyer (ot have no background). It is a very basic course in statistics, but with a lot of material covered (binomial, poisson and normal distributions, hypothesis testing and p-values, and linear regression).
Some of us were bored half the time, while the other stared at the slides without understanding what's going on.
The professor did his best to narrow the gaps. The course material is very original. I don't want to spoil it for you, so I won't say much, but as an example they tried to teach us what is sampling, so they brought M&Ms bags, and we tried to see if the number of red M&Ms in the bag is indeed 1/6 of the bag like the company promised. So everyone got a bag of M&M and we actually counted the number of each color. Than with the data we assessed whether the company is not so accurate (and the company is indeed not accurate). A brilliant experiment to understand this subject.
Also the professor tried to show us how newspaper and other sources manipulate the data they present to us in polls. The most famous is what happened in Florida in the Bush-Gore elections, but plenty of other examples were given (there was a competition of who brings the most radical manipulation from the most well-known source).
Moreover, we did some surveys and the professor showed how he can bias our answers with the way that he asks the questions. Very intertaining. At one time he gave us a list of words such as "Probable", "Possible", "Likely", "Slightly", and we should have put a percentage for each word that an event will occur. For instance I said that if the event is probable to occur, it means that it will occur in 90%, and if there it has slight chances it means 20%. Other students gave completely different numbers, and the most extreme, a girl in my class gave 10% for probable, and 90% to slightly possible. Go figure! It is amazing how different people think differently sometimes.
Leading People and Groups
I looked forward to the leadership module (you can learn all the other stuff reading books, but this is were you can honestly improve), and came out somewhat disappointed. We covered conflict resolution, negociations, group dynamics, influence, cultural differences and more, but the overall feeling is that we only scratched the surface. We had to write two essays - one at the beginning and one in the end. What can I say, it is completely BS to write that you have learnt something in 1 and a half month. I had to write about my strength and weaknesses as a leader and show what I have learnt. Lucky for me, after 8 school applications (and one blog) I am trained in BSing for several pages.
The most interesting lesson was the feedback lesson. In our study groups each of the 5 of us gave feedback to the other 4 (and received feedback as well). I find it hard to deliver feedback , but I managed to do all right. The other people delivered me the feedback that I expected to hear, but it was an educating experience to hear from people I had known for such a short time about myself. I will definitley take their comments into account in the future.
There were other very fun experiments but I don't want to spoil them for you so I won't continue.
Overall
Several points:
I will dedicate seperate posts to the exams, and the language courses.
I will dedicate this post to summerize the first period academically. Later I will post on some of the more interesting things that you need to know about INSEAD.
We studied 5 courses, and I also studied spanish. I can say that it was very busy. Here is what happened in all 5 courses:
Finance
Definitely one of the more difficult courses. The material is complicated, and in the 7 weeks we had to learn about the time value of money, how to valuate companies and projects based on NPV and future cash flows, and how to price risk.
We had some group work (somewhat limited), and plenty of exercises and readinings. I can say that this is the course where I heard a lot of complaints from the other students about the way that our professor taught it. I guess that like in all places some of the professors are not as good as the others.
The math requirement was limited, and the challnge was more understanding the concepts. Some of the students have a lot of experience in the area, so when they asked questions it was last Chinese for me. And there were some classes in which I felt completely lost (especially when the professor put some English letters on the slides without explaining what they were). But overall I think that I have taken from the course what I should have.
Microeconomics
We had a great professor for that course. Every lecture was like a stand-up comedy show. It was a very basic course in micro economics. If you had seen supply and demand, monompoly pricing, and oligopoly games you should hae exempted from the course, because it was really slow. The professor was very afraid to confuse us with derivatives (of straight lines - it is very simple), so he insisted on explaining everything with "Marginal" this and "Marginal" that. For me it's more confusing, but the subject is easy to begin with.
I can say that I have studied a basic course in microeconomics before, and it had been much more difficult than our course.
The more interesting part was the Game Theory part. We learnt about Dominant strategies, Nash equilibrium and more. I will dedicate a seperate post to this part of the studies.
Financial Accounting
Here we arrived to the least pleasant course. Now I understand why I wouldn't want to be an accountant. The professor was very good, and he brought from his experience to teach us how to interpret financial statements, and how managers tend to manipulate them. The goals of the course were to understand company valuation and managerial decision making. The excelent professor made the subject interesting, but challenging. It is definitely not intuitive.
However, the professor uses cases and he cold called us on class - so we had to be perfectly prepared to every class. This was very tiring, and he managed to hijack our time form the other courses. Also he did not let us into class if we came late (even by 5 seconds). He said "You are late you have to leave), and then you had to turn around, no arguments, and walk out the amphi. He actually came to class 5 minutes ahead of time, stared at the clock, and the second it turned 15, he started the lecture and you could not enter.
Statistics
This is a breeze if you have some background in probability and/or statistics. This is hell if you are a lawyer (ot have no background). It is a very basic course in statistics, but with a lot of material covered (binomial, poisson and normal distributions, hypothesis testing and p-values, and linear regression).
Some of us were bored half the time, while the other stared at the slides without understanding what's going on.
The professor did his best to narrow the gaps. The course material is very original. I don't want to spoil it for you, so I won't say much, but as an example they tried to teach us what is sampling, so they brought M&Ms bags, and we tried to see if the number of red M&Ms in the bag is indeed 1/6 of the bag like the company promised. So everyone got a bag of M&M and we actually counted the number of each color. Than with the data we assessed whether the company is not so accurate (and the company is indeed not accurate). A brilliant experiment to understand this subject.
Also the professor tried to show us how newspaper and other sources manipulate the data they present to us in polls. The most famous is what happened in Florida in the Bush-Gore elections, but plenty of other examples were given (there was a competition of who brings the most radical manipulation from the most well-known source).
Moreover, we did some surveys and the professor showed how he can bias our answers with the way that he asks the questions. Very intertaining. At one time he gave us a list of words such as "Probable", "Possible", "Likely", "Slightly", and we should have put a percentage for each word that an event will occur. For instance I said that if the event is probable to occur, it means that it will occur in 90%, and if there it has slight chances it means 20%. Other students gave completely different numbers, and the most extreme, a girl in my class gave 10% for probable, and 90% to slightly possible. Go figure! It is amazing how different people think differently sometimes.
Leading People and Groups
I looked forward to the leadership module (you can learn all the other stuff reading books, but this is were you can honestly improve), and came out somewhat disappointed. We covered conflict resolution, negociations, group dynamics, influence, cultural differences and more, but the overall feeling is that we only scratched the surface. We had to write two essays - one at the beginning and one in the end. What can I say, it is completely BS to write that you have learnt something in 1 and a half month. I had to write about my strength and weaknesses as a leader and show what I have learnt. Lucky for me, after 8 school applications (and one blog) I am trained in BSing for several pages.
The most interesting lesson was the feedback lesson. In our study groups each of the 5 of us gave feedback to the other 4 (and received feedback as well). I find it hard to deliver feedback , but I managed to do all right. The other people delivered me the feedback that I expected to hear, but it was an educating experience to hear from people I had known for such a short time about myself. I will definitley take their comments into account in the future.
There were other very fun experiments but I don't want to spoil them for you so I won't continue.
Overall
Several points:
- The academic level is not of a masters degree. Each course by itself is an introduction to a topic.
- The difficulty comes from the time pressure, and the vast information they bombard you with. You must learn these things very fast if you don't want to stay behind.
- INSEAD structure the courses nicely, in the amphi, the readings, and all the courses combined, and by studying so much stuff hopefully all the important pieces of information got through (I will only be able to tell for sure in the future).
- Although we have to invest time for our careers and socially as well, in the last few weeks I was more into the academics. It is hectic!
- The atmosphere was excellent, and people are very smart. All the students came here to study hard and fast, and to have fun in the process.
I will dedicate seperate posts to the exams, and the language courses.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Japan-Korea Week
Last week was the first national week of the year: Japan-Korea Week. All the Japanese and Korean students did their best to bring activities and attractions to INSEAD. It was a great effort ftom their behalf. Ken from my study group, a proud Japanese, got on average 2 hours of sleep last week. It all started on Monday, with the Japan-Korea 
delegation crashing the amphi with traditional customs, and show a movie they have created. There was a long list of activities for the week: A market (and a special T-Shirt), Korean breakfast, Korean and Japanese games (Tug-of-War is a rope pulling game, with my section coming second place after the 
tenacious E2), Japanese Lunch (those shushi where gone in a second - what a demand!), Origami school, Talko drums performance, Korean Dinner, Kimono & Hanbok Tryout, and last the Drunken Businessmen Party.
delegation crashing the amphi with traditional customs, and show a movie they have created. There was a long list of activities for the week: A market (and a special T-Shirt), Korean breakfast, Korean and Japanese games (Tug-of-War is a rope pulling game, with my section coming second place after the 
tenacious E2), Japanese Lunch (those shushi where gone in a second - what a demand!), Origami school, Talko drums performance, Korean Dinner, Kimono & Hanbok Tryout, and last the Drunken Businessmen Party.In the middle of the week we had a Karaioki Bar of the Week thing. Every week the student council sets up a different bar in Fonty with happy hour prices between 9 and 10. This week it was dedicated t
o our friends fromthe far east. The bar had many TVs and basically the students just screamed the song together over beers and very large glasses of cocktail.
o our friends fromthe far east. The bar had many TVs and basically the students just screamed the song together over beers and very large glasses of cocktail.
The Drunken Businessmen Party was something else. Good atmosphere, nice place, and a lot of karaioki and booze. The hit of the night was the Soja Bomb: They take a glass of beer, and put two chopsticks on top of it. Then they put a shot of Soja (like a korean Saki - really strong) on top of the chop sticks, to create a fearsome structure. They put it all on a tray with a towel in front, and you have to hit your forehead on the towek (not kidding), making the shot of Soja drop into the beer glass, mixing the alcohols. Then you have to drink all of it in my shot. 3 of those and 2 Saki made my head spin (but not like my friend who drank 7 Sojas).Monday, October 1, 2007
INSEAD Impact
(3-10-07)
Ever since I got here I wanted to do something different. I figured that INSEAD is the place to take initiatives and engage in activities that I have not done before. I looked for several things that could interest me, and finally decided to become a Section Rep.
And so I found myself dealing with all sorts of situations: the class did not understand the material in one of our classes, so I engaged several activities to handle the matter: I am in touch with the professor and we aligned to make the subject more approachable to the croud, and I organized a session where students from strong background in the subject sat with the students who found the subject hard; I arranged (and taught) an Excel Workshop for my section (next week I do it again for entire class - pretty scary); I delivered messages from the professors to the students and vice versa. Quite a challenge, and a little time consuming- but a lot of fun. I found it fun to have people discussing the professors and the lessons with you, exchanging stories and suggestions. Very fulfilling position. Yesterday I had a meeting with Dean Fatas, who wanted ro hear from us the major issues that we faced and how we are handling our duty.
In the last week it was announced that the next Student Council would be elected next week. I collaborated with a team that runs for the position. After we get elected (of course we will) we will be in the Student Council starting p3. Should be very interesting and a unique experience for me.
Our team is called INSEAD Impact, and we have a proactive agenda. Our moto is "Easier INSEAD For You - No B.S.", and we have a bull (no relation to Meryl Lynch) with cross on it to emphasize the last term. We worked all week on posters and flyers (lots of hard work), and we had a presentation.
Advetures as Academic Rep
Ever since I got here I wanted to do something different. I figured that INSEAD is the place to take initiatives and engage in activities that I have not done before. I looked for several things that could interest me, and finally decided to become a Section Rep.In the first two periods we are divided into 4 sections. Each section has 5 representatives: The Social Rep (responsible for drinks, events, activities, champaigne fines for people who are late or fall asleep in classes), Academic Rep (responsible for all program related issues), Career Rep (responsible for connections with career services), Campus Rep, and IT Rep. The role that suited me most was Academic Rep, and I was elected for the role (let's say that no-one wanted the position more than me).
And so I found myself dealing with all sorts of situations: the class did not understand the material in one of our classes, so I engaged several activities to handle the matter: I am in touch with the professor and we aligned to make the subject more approachable to the croud, and I organized a session where students from strong background in the subject sat with the students who found the subject hard; I arranged (and taught) an Excel Workshop for my section (next week I do it again for entire class - pretty scary); I delivered messages from the professors to the students and vice versa. Quite a challenge, and a little time consuming- but a lot of fun. I found it fun to have people discussing the professors and the lessons with you, exchanging stories and suggestions. Very fulfilling position. Yesterday I had a meeting with Dean Fatas, who wanted ro hear from us the major issues that we faced and how we are handling our duty.Student Council
In the last week it was announced that the next Student Council would be elected next week. I collaborated with a team that runs for the position. After we get elected (of course we will) we will be in the Student Council starting p3. Should be very interesting and a unique experience for me. 
Our team is called INSEAD Impact, and we have a proactive agenda. Our moto is "Easier INSEAD For You - No B.S.", and we have a bull (no relation to Meryl Lynch) with cross on it to emphasize the last term. We worked all week on posters and flyers (lots of hard work), and we had a presentation.Our competition are a group called "Show Us". They decided to turn INSEAD into an american high school (Veronice Mars or something), and made a campaigne with all the accessories and tararam. Agenda was not really necessary in their case, but it should be a closed call any how.
Voting ends tonight, and results are tomorrow, so I will update when we win.
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