Academics

Four weeks into the classes, half way through Period 1 and we start to feel the weight of the academic load. Classes move rapidly and the amount of the unknown, unread, not-calculated material increases in geometrical sequence. Thanks to our great professors and my daily minimum studying I feel I am still afloat. But I honestly expected the core courses to be 'mas o menos' repetition of my undergrad. Not really. One of the similar things between INSEAD and SSE (among many) is how we adapt the new words/concepts to daily communication. All of a sudden "sunk costs", "opportunity costs", "valuation" enter conversations over lunch. My $100 lost two nights ago was immediately labeled as sunk costs, thus irrelevant to the current mood. I know all that, but I still want sympathy! Active learning 101.

The classes themselves are a lot of fun. Either teachers make them interesting and entertaining, or us (e.g. bingo game) or the subjects themselves. Only last week we were eating M&Ms in Statistics class to demonstrate sample vs population statistics with counting red M&M before jumping into Central Limit Theory, confidence intervals (mind numbing material).

In Price & Markets Professor Dutt revealed the existence of a real cappuccino at Starbucks (called short cappuccino) vs. tall/grande/venti ones as an example to explicit market segmentation. Microeconomics is my least favorite subject, but here I am actually enjoying (maybe more the professor than the subject).

For Leading People and Organizations we were watching Twelve Agry Men before the discussion on leadership. Besides that it's an amazing movie, I guess it is the idea behind Mikhalkov movie "12".