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Everyone says to start them early. I’m hoping three months is early enough. I’ll probably have to cram way more material into two month segments once I’m at INSEAD, so three months had better be enough! So far the reading (I’m about 60 pages in) is basically what I expected… Discussion of equity and debt markets, capital structure, corporate governance. You know, all that exciting stuff.
Honestly, though, I had only a vague grasp as to what any of it was before reading these books, so I’m really glad I’m doing it. I think that taking the Business Foundations course will prove to have been a wise decision as well.
God knows I love nothing more than including media in my blog posts, so here come the pictures. The (officially optional) books they ask us to read are these:
Corporate Finance
Corporate Finance by Hillier, Ross, Westerfield, Jaffe and Jordan. This is one of the ones I’ve already started reading. It’s surprisingly readable and, while technically the European Edition, pretty focused on most of the world’s major markets. Each chapter has tables describing how what you’re reading about is called or treated in a whole slew of different countries. That said, if there’s one country in particular that interests you, you may have to supplement it from time to time, but as a general, international textbook, so far it’s pretty good. (Oh, and apparently we’re only supposed to read the first two chapters of this one. I wonder why…) Anyway, the cover makes me feel so serene about corporate finance that I dove into this one head first.
Finance for Executives: Managing for Value Creation
Finance for Executives: Managing for Value Creation by Hawawini and Viallet. This is the other one I’ve started reading. So far so good. I think FfE will ultimately prove to be more hard accounting/numbers-based, but so far it’s all pretty manageable. Gabriel Hawawini is a former Dean of INSEAD, so I guess it makes sense that they chose this textbook. Regardless of the fact that they decided to keep the textbook selection “in-house”, however, I think they chose a totally competent book to teach us what we need to know before we get there. Textbook covers are great – this one makes me excited to leaf, importantly, through pages and pages of financial statements with blurry dollar signs all over them. Isn’t that what all executives do?
Essentials of Accounting
Essentials of Accounting by Anthony and Breitner. It’s definitely up in the air between EoA and Corporate Finance for the Most-Beautiful-and-Yet-Unrelated-to-the-Subject-Material Cover Award. Those spruce trees, I guess, are somehow supposed to give you happy thoughts about income statements and balance sheets or something. Maybe they will in the end; I haven’t started reading this yet. By the time I’m done, it will all make sense. Anyway, this book is sort of weird, which is why I haven’t started it yet. It’s basically one big workbook, which I think is a learn-by-doing thing, but I haven’t had the energy to wrap my head around it yet. Oh, and I accidentally bought two of these, so if you want one, I’m happy to sell it for totally reasonable price (which I will then be able to, you know, credit to my bank account, as I will learn when I read this book).
Principles of Microeconomics
Principles of Microeconomics by Mankiw. Looks interesting, but I don’t actually intend to read this because micro was always one of my strengths as an econ major during my undergrad, so I’m going to focus on the material I don’t know. I hope any of you who are reading it enjoy it! And just to be consistent with my other book summaries, I’m delighted to report that this book seems to have an interesting and yet appropriate cover – look at all those small businesses in that market (market… economics… get it??) who will have to make economic decisions on an individual scale! Microeconomics at work! Good work to Mankiw’s cover artist, whoever you are. (If the picture there is too small, you can embiggen it here.)
That’s all for now. Over and out. Talk to you soon.
I realized that in spite of the fact that I’ve been poring over every photo, video, piece of writing I can find about INSEAD, many of you might not have any idea where it is or what it looks like or what the program is. So, here I will post some helpful links.
Link #1: Overview of the INSEAD MBA Program (or Programme, as they spell it).
Link #2: Tour of the Fontainebleau Campus (or Fonty as it is affectionately nicknamed).
Link #3: Overview of the Difference Between INSEAD and Harvard Business School
As for location, INSEAD is located in beautiful, leafy Fontainebleau (Fon-ten-blow …not -blue), France, which is situated about 40 minutes southeast of Paris and is easily accessible by train. It’s literally in the middle of the woods – back in the day the king had his hunting lodge there and this is the town surrounding it. Of course, a king’s lodge looks more like a palace (this one, actually) and now functions as a museum, and the forest (the Forêt de Fontainebleau) is mostly known for its world-renowned geology and rock climbing.
With a few of my extra minutes, I’ve made a very helpful diagram for those of you who are still not clear on the geography:
Okay, that’s all for now. I think I addressed all the basics…any questions I didn’t answer?
A few people have wondered why I’m blogging. I’m not 100% sure where I see this going yet, but my basic intention is to share my experience with friends and family from home. This will hopefully be an effective way to reach out to those people that, because of time differences or time deficits, I can’t talk to as much as I would like. I hope to keep the blog reasonably well updated and give both specifics on my experiences as well as any more general insights I have on other items that seem relevant. Once I’m in Fonty, hopefully I’ll be able to get some pictures up as well.
Disclaimer: I’m going to try to keep it updated, but judging from others students’ blogging adventures, I make no promises. We’ll see how this works out.
A while back, on December 18th, I heard from the INSEAD admissions committee that I was accepted to the class of July 2011, starting in September 2010. I was totally overwhelmed and excited. Like most of the world’s other top schools, INSEAD seemed to me like a place that you could never really count on getting into regardless of the quality of your application. That said, the news was good, so I paid my €5,000 deposit and secured my spot. I had only applied to one other program, and INSEAD was by far my preference.
Right now, I’m focusing on my current job, which I’ll be done with at the end of July, then I’m moving to Fontainebleau in mid-August. I recently locked in my housing, which is going to be at Villa Vivante. It seems like a great place, given that it’s in town/close to school, but still has the size and seems to have the culture of the bigger châteaux. I guess I’ll find out for sure in a couple of months. It also has a maid and gardener. Awesome.
In any event, I’m planning on visiting Fonty during the last weekend in May for the Open Day. I’m looking forward to meeting some current students, alumni, and future classmates then. I met some of the future ’11J’ers in New York a couple of times already. If they’re representative of our class as a whole, it’s going to be a good bunch.
I’ve got my entrance language certification out of the way (Spanish), and I think I might try to pass my exit language test before I go as well (French), so that I don’t have to worry about it while I’m there.
Regardless of all of this, I know I’m in for an adventure. Word on the street is that this is going to be the best, craziest, most challenging, and quickest year of my life, and I can’t wait. Hopefully I’ll come out, as Daft Punk would put it, “harder, better, faster, stronger”.
For Business and Pleasure - INSEAD '11J 