You are currently browsing the monthly archive for February 2011.
I finally figured out that housing in P4 wasn’t going to find me, so I went out and found it. It’s turned out pretty well… I’m living with some folks coming over from Singapore, most of whom I know or have met and are cool and I’m glad that I get to expand the social circle a little. I wouldn’t say it’s the Great Wall of China between the Fontainebleau people and Singapore people, but when you already have friends, you definitely need to be proactive meeting new people.
Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. Behold my new, plurally-named but single house, Minthouses.
It looks pretty classy, no? I’ve taken one of the rooms on the top floor which shares a kitchen and a bathroom (I know, I know) with the other room on the top floor. It’s a bit far away in the charming village of Bois-le-Roi, which I have never seen but take to be a charming village. A 15 minute drive from INSEAD under ideal conditions. I’ll probably be leaving a healthy half hour before class though. I can’t wait to drive my car again. In fact, I feel a bit deranged saying it with the beautiful weather and all here in Singapore, but I miss Fontainebleau! Cheap but expertly crafted wine and delicious cheese and boars and afternoon beers outside the bar, here I come!
Anyway, the link, should you care to explore the Minthouses further is here (along with many more photos and all the accouterments): Minty.
Mostly because I couldn’t find a good 
image to put on the top of this post, I’m going to fully endorse Ritas Hotel and Restaurant (no apostrophe) on the beach in Narigama, Hikkaduwa, Sri Lanka. If you’re planning a trip a trip to Sri Lanka and need somewhere to stay, this place was amazing. We got a sick room–the nicest in the hotel–for about $50 (USD) a night. You can even fit three people in it. View of the ocean, etc. And food was similarly cheap/excellent. I highly recommend the prawn fried rice.
In any event, if you want to go, you can contact Ritas at ritas@sltnet.lk.
Anyway, onto the main event, my classes and profs this period. P3 has been more work than P1 or P2, so whoever tells you otherwise is a filthy liar. P4 starts a little bit more relaxation. Meanwhile, as the universe IS a fair and just place, we’re finally reaching the end of our core courses. Good riddance. I’ll cover those first:
Macroeconomics and the Global Economy: MGE is a clunker of a course taught by the dead pan (but hilarious) Turk, Ayhan Kose. For what it’s worth, I have never liked Macro in any of the four or five classes of it that I’ve had to take in my life. IS/LM, Y=C+I+G+NX… it’s just a bunch of letters no matter how hard I try. Anyway, Ayhan’s visiting from the IMF where he’s something important, so that’s sort of fun. It’s nice to ask him real world questions, because in his real life, he’s intimately involved in a lot of it.
International Political Analysis: IPA is our other core course this period and, similar to Macro, is a bit of a clunker. I haven’t picked up all that much from it, unfortunately, but we did have a couple good sessions… one on Egypt just under a week before Mubarak left and the other, a guest lecture from a man running the Indonesian operation for the Canadian insurer Manulife back in the year 2000 when corruption was rampant and doing business was pretty dangerous. Other than that, our proudly kiwi prof Douglas Webber was enjoyable, but I didn’t feel like I got all that much out of the course.
Now onto electives, which are the good stuff. Generally, if not universally.
Negotiation: It has a real name like “Negotiation Dynamics” or something, but most people just call it “Negotiation”. This class is great I think. First of all, it’s taught by an awesome Hawaiian hippie named Brett Saraniti. He’s the perfect mix of disarmingly down to earth and really smart. The class itself involves about 50% negotiation exercises and 50% what-the-hell-was-that-all-about analysis in which we learn to expand the pie and think win-win…-win…….-win. You can just keep adding wins on. If you’re picking electives, I’d give this one a strong recommendation.
Advertising and Social Media Strategy: ASMS to those in the know. Another really cool course, and obviously it does not get more timely/topical to emerging ideas and ways of thinking as we enter the year that Facebook once and for all takes over the world. Although, as Andrew Stephen, the prof, likes to point out, this isn’t Facebook Strategy class. There’s a lot more to social media than that, and in fact, a lot of it isn’t even online. Andrew himself is a great prof. He loves teaching this class (or at least pretends to), he puts a ton of energy into getting real-world speakers to come do lectures and exercises with us, and we all get to work on a real-world social media project with a real world client. Frankly, our project has been a bit frustrating, but the idea and the experience, for many, is awesome. I’d still say all this good stuff even if I didn’t think he was probably reading this.
SPSD: This class has a real name. No one knows what it is. That’s because the class didn’t have anything to do with whatever the name was. This is, without contest, the best class offered at INSEAD, as far as I’m concerned. If you’re coming to INSEAD, be sure to take this class if they’re giving it when you’re here. It’s taught by our POM prof from last period, Karan Girotra, who has developed amazing insights into the development of new businesses, and every student in this class benefits from them. It’s the only class I’ve had so far that has given me an education in business rather than aspects of business. I think this should be a core course that everyone should have to take. I can’t say enough for it.
Applied Corporate Finance: Or ACF for short. More than anything else, this class is a TON of work. Like, a lot. Someone from our group has been up until 4 or 5 AM the night before each of our cases was due. It’s divided into two halves, one taught by Denis Gromb and the other by Pierre Hillion, and I strongly feel that the course itself should be two mini-electives (0.5 credits). Moreover, I would suggest that they call them “Managerial Applications of Corporate Finance” and “Applied Finance” because the first half was great for people who aren’t looking for finance careers, while the second half goes deep into finance theory with extensive use of the CAPM model and beta estimation and things like that. I’m not good at this class, but I am glad I took it because it’s a nice cementing of the concepts of FMV and CFP. That said, if they did divide it, I (personally) would only take the first half.
Okay, so that’s that – and now, in fact, I have ACF and I have to present the a case that is the spawn of dark financial demons entitled “Refinancing the Western Harbour Crossing, Hong Kong”.
A bunch of the other bloggers here are doing it, so I’m going to get involved also with acknowledging that we are officially half way done with the MBA! It is pretty unbelievable. Can’t wait to see what the next half has in store. Also, I’ve named this post “51%” because I think 50% was really, like, yesterday or the day before or something. Anyway, my point still stands.
I promise some posts coming soon on P3 classes and Profs as well as my thoughts on all this “DIVORSEAD” business.
If you're not familiar with the term "Hump Day", it's just Wednesday. The middle of the week. Get your mind out of the gutter.
For Business and Pleasure - INSEAD '11J 