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Bonding Even Before Classes Begin at INSEAD
0A first time Brazilian abroad, a Peace Corps volunteer, a Chinese girl with a penchant for adventure and a Londoner, who is an ardent Manchester United fan are but a few of the students who make up the Class of 2018 at INSEAD.
They discuss the factors that led them to choose this particular business school, the diversity they found even before starting the classes, the experience they look forward to at the Fontainebleau campus near Paris and the bonding between the students even before beginning the program, in blog posts on the school’s web site.
For Leandro Salles, this will be the first time that he would be living abroad, away from his parents, with his partner. He says he had applied to five business schools, and got accepted to two.
With only ten days to decide between the two schools, he took note of certain factors like the location of the School in Europe, the campus proximity to Paris and also the possibility of spending some time at INSEAD’s other campuses in Singapore or Abu Dhabi.
The other school, in the US, was in a mid-sized city that was not so close to any other big city in the country.
The second factor was that the One-year MBA program would get him back to the job market faster. While the July intake does not offer a summer internship, the second year of an MBA increases the cost significantly, if you add the cost itself to the opportunity cost of not working, he says.
Since he had never lived outside Brazil, Salles was looking at more student diversity and maximize opportunities for learning and networking.
In the US, most schools have 50%-70% of American students, which turn the program mostly US-centric.
The third factor was his partner, an Italian citizen, who would find it easier to study or work in the EU zone rather than in the US due to unavailability of the work visa. In Rankings too, INSEAD stood first.
France-born Claire Beatley grew up in Belgium and the United States. She had briefly interned in impact investing in Cambodia right after college, an experience that inspired her to pursue a career combining entrepreneurship and development. Prior to joining the school she was a community economic development volunteer with the Peace Corps in the Republic of Georgia
using the current technology, you could get a preview of your class even before the program starts. Once you get the admission letter, you will soon be invited to different groups in Whatsapp, Wechat, Slack, Facebook, and Linkedin.
She says she heard about INSEAD four years ago, during a summer internship for an impact investing firm in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Her supervisor mentored her in getting to know the ins and outs of financial statements, conducting due diligence and market research.
Reading the INSEAD publications her mentor sent about impact investing and working in emerging markets, she became convinced that this was the field she wanted to pursue.
Ariel Lu from China worked in Deloitte tax department for 2.5 years and then changed into the credit risk management department in a Chinese commercial bank.
She says that using the current technology, you could get a preview of your class even before the program starts. Once you get the admission letter, you will soon be invited to different groups in Whatsapp, Wechat, Slack, Facebook, and Linkedin.
Hundreds of conversations are posted daily, with topics covering almost everything from student visa application, travel plans, and sports. The online chats are soon upgraded to face-to-face meetups worldwide.
Even pre-MBA trips and trips between periods will be organized when the alumni start to share stories and get to know each other.
Dushyant Gupta, born in India, grew up in the country and the UK. he worked as a consultant in London before joining INSEAD.
Having got his admission in round 1, he had 9 months before starting the program. Taking a break from work, he traveled 7 of those 9 months through Asia and South America, exploring cultures, cuisines and meeting new and exciting people.
He says he managed to meet up with people in 7 different countries in these 7 months. In just about a month after admission, he was in India when he started getting social media notifications.
When he went to China, he managed to meet up his future classmates in Hong Kong and mainland China in Shanghai. The next stop was at multiple locations in Chile.
His key takeaways are meeting up with as many people as you can before the program as having familiar faces always helps when starting a new journey. You also have to step out of your comfort zone to meet new people. Introverts could blog about their experiences, he says.