INSEAD is trialling a counselling service for students to help us with the transition to student life, among other things. We were introduced to this service by a New Zealand clinical psychologist whose organisation is partnering INSEAD for this purpose. In a nutshell, she told us what were the warnings signs of stress and depression, how they could affect our health and what we could do about them.
I already knew these facts while working at the Health Promotion Board, but after a break from work and hearing someone who isn’t a colleague talk about it, it was like a refresher course.
It also made me realise that how we perceive situations depends a lot on our current state of mind, and our attitude. Optimistic people tend to have more successful lives, while pessimists think they’ll fail anyway and won’t try again. When we’re stressed we may interpret things wrongly, and the problem gets compounded.
As part of an exercise, we each took turns to share with our partners our greatest fear at INSEAD, what was the worst outcome, what was the best outcome, what was the realistic outcome and what can we do to make things better. I volunteered my example of fearing the quantitative exams. The worst outcome was, of course, failing them. The best outcome was to pass them (the counsellor added, “Or doing well in them”). The realistic outcome for me was something in between … who knows what the infamous Z-curve grading system will do!
As for the last point, what could be done about it - Attend all classes, do all the readings and exercises, do the extra tutorial questions and show up at tutorials. Ask group mates for help, and if I still have problems, make an appointment to see the professor. Theoretically I know what needs to be done, but in practice I cannot bring myself to ask questions which I think sound stupid. However this is a crucial period where we need to get our foundations right - if not, whatever building blocks I pile on top will just sink through the sand. So I have to have thicker skin and just ask, ask, ask.
Some of my classmates spoke to me after the talk to tell me not to worry, that quant isn’t everything. That is a little reassuring but I would really prefer to get the better of my worry than run away from it. Another classmate even offered to help me out! Much appreciated, A!
While I can’t wait to get to P3 and choose my favourite electives, I do understand the need to have a solid grounding in quant subjects like Finance, Accounting, Statistics. They’re important enough to be core subjects at INSEAD and many other top b-schools. However as you move up the career ladder, you may need it less because you can make your underlings crunch the numbers instead. Case in point: our Executive MBAs don’t do as much quant - I found out when an Exec MBA student/boss joined our Business Foundations class for a week and told me about it.
I guess what’s perturbing me is that I was a straight A / A1 student for every possible math subject, and my GMAT score was above the INSEAD average, so it’s difficult to swallow the fact that I feel slower than many others here. Then I remembered that I got my As not because I was a math genius, but because my teachers re-iterated the facts to me until I understood them all, and also because I practised a lot. So likewise for my current situation, I have to re-read my lecture notes until I understand them well, and practise doing lots of questions.
Like the psychologist said, it helps that you know you’ve been able to do it before. That can make all the difference.
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