September 17, 2007

X60 tablet update/Learning/3 of 2/subjects

When you join INSEAD, they say that you can do 2 of the 3 things - Network, party or study. Very true. The subjects have caught pace and it's becoming really difficult to do all three and most people are beginning to prioritize. You ask yourself the question "is this relevant? is this valuable? should I do this?" for everything and then decide. There are tons of things you can do here, and it becomes all the more important to decide what your time is worth.

Having said that, I'm actually enjoying the subjects - for the first time, I feel smarter when I read FT or WSJ. Some of the terms make sense. I actually feel like I'm learning something. We're covering broad microeconomic theories, use of statistics, fundamentals of corporate finance, organizational behavior and accounting. Everything is new to me and it feels to good to learn all that. The teaching started slow but is now really fast paced and it's critical everyone reads for the next day and does all assignments, or it's really hard to catch up. The professors are great - no surprises there.

INSEAD conducts huge number of exec education programs - these are also excellent sources for us to network with senior executives from influential organizations - Shell, Nokia and what not. We are given the opportunity to set up meetings with them, and I think it's a fantastic chance to learn details of organizations we are interested in. We also soon have a INSEAD alumni gathering which is attended by some real heavyweights.

In other news, I had written about my use of my tablet. I can tell you now officially that it works really well. I use it for all my study note-taking, solving exercises and it works like a charm. Here is a screenshot.


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Necromonger

I'm starting my EMBA in November at INSEAD. There are no EMBA bloggers that I can find (perhaps they're too busy juggling a full time job and MBA, or perhaps they don't get into the INSEAD experience as much as the full timers), but I have been enjoying your blog.

A couple of questions for you and the other INSEAD bloggers who might check your pages.
1. is there much social mixing between MBAs and EMBAs at INSEAD.
2. do you know of any INSEAD EMBA bloggers?

Thanks
Maybe we'll meet once I arrive at Fonty.

P.S. A month ago I bought the new X-61 tablet and downloaded a trial of onenote 2007 - looks like it is going to be a great asset.

Anonymous said...

Hi Anon,

Welcome as an EMBA participant! To answer your questions

a) I'm not aware of much mixing as such between EMBA and MBA. The MBA program has its own schedule and is very hectic as well, so I guess most of us try to get to know our own classmates :) and it is very hard to go beyond that. Having said that, MBA students often request time (through a coordinator) to talk to EMBA participants to get to know more about their companies and to network. This is one way I know there is a little mixing.

b) I am not aware of EMBA bloggers

and c) I am in Singapore -and might be in Fonty only in March. When are you arriving at Fonty and for how long? If you send a note to my addr necromonger at gmail dot com I could respond with more info if you need and we might meet as well.

And yes, X60 rocks (=> x61 too)

Anonymous said...

Hi Necromonger

Will contact you when I get to campus - maybe we can meet up when you return to Fonty.

Sunil said...

hi necromnger,
i just wanna know are there people with no international exposure in your class- i am an india, in consumer product sales and marketing but without any international exposure,
do u think one can have a decent case

Anonymous said...

Sunil,

There are other Indians in class with little or no international experience. But what distinguishes them is that they have impressive backgrounds, possibly pretty high GMAT and one of them I know well has very strong non-professional activity lists as well.

If you have no international experience, keep in mind you need to raise your own entry bar higher and work that much more diligently on your story.

Garth said...

Hi Necromonger - following our recentt exchange I decided to start my own blog - possible the first INSEAD EMBA blog (and definitely my first blog).

Any links or feedback would be appreciated

Milan said...

Interesting to read your description of going through the same set of experiences I penned down myself exactly a year ago.

Enjoy the year while it lasts! Fatas is right when he told you guys it will fly by :-)