This is about things I found amusing/interesting/useful form INSEAD. To know more about my visit to INSEAD, read here: Lessons to adopt from Universities in Singapore
Diverse Class
Each INSEAD cohort has about 70 students. At the start of the classes, you will be put into a group of 5–6 students and each student in your group will be from a nationality and background different from yours.
For the first few months, you will collab in this group for your activities and assignments.
Value is in the cohort
The real value of your MBA learning is from the cohort. You mostly learn from case studies and discussions. This is why attendance in class is a must. You may at most miss 3 sessions.
For those of us spoiled by government colleges where you can come and go as you please, this may be difficult. I’ve heard my own seniors who have gone on to pursue an MBA say this. Would be good to prep ourselves for intensity before joining in.
They don’t publish GPA
INSEAD follows an A-Z grading system instead of a CGPA system. For your exams, the class average is calculated and everyone else is graded as above or below average.
The top 10% make it to the Dean’s list, which is the only way to show your academic excellence.
I felt that this was quite a neat way to avoid competition and get everyone to collaborate.
Fantastic In-House event
Unlike a campus tour, what we attended was an in-house event. You can pre-register for the event or do a walk in registration. The first 15 minutes is an optional campus tour. The INSEAD campus is quite small and intimate. We got to see the lecture theatres, cafe, library and learning areas where students work together.
Post the tour, we had the admissions office introduce to the INSEAD MBA. We then had a master class by a professor. He was quite humorous and spoke about AI
We then had their Career Development Center head talk to us about their offerings. After this was a student experience sharing session and Q&A. Post that was a networking dinner.
This event is what really got me to go on the Singapore trip and I must say, it was worth its weight in gold.
Dedicated Career Services
INSEAD really takes Career Development seriously. Each student is paired with 2 people at the start of the course:
- One senior MBA student
- A Personal Leadership coach
- A Career Coach
You have regular sessions with all the three right from the beginning. You personal leadership coach helps you identify your goals, your strengths and improve your personal leadership capability. While the career coach is a professional consultant who helps you weigh your options and chart out your plan.
In addition to this, INSEAD also has domain experts who you can reach out to and discuss about specific domains/markets and possibilites.
Twin Campus Learning
One fantastic thing about INSEAD is that they have two campuses — One in Singapore and one in Fontainebleau (France. You can decide which campus you wish to study in and also take up few periods in the other campus. For instance, you start the course in France, but after 3 periods, go to Singapore, then come back to France.
Overall, I really liked INSEAD. The experience gave me a better understanding of what to expect and has made it easier to evaluate other universities.