My third official week at INSEAD was definitely better than my second.
The main reason is that I got scared that I would not be able to catch up academically with my brilliant classmates. So I worked a lot on my quant topics in particular, attending the optional Saturday tutorials, looking at the answers and methodologies. I did most of my readings and exercises for this week but skimmed when I felt there was no time and no point killing myself. So this week, more things made sense and I felt more in control of the situation.
I also have to thank my group for being patient and helpful. I had to first overcome shyness/swallow my pride and admit that I had trouble understanding how to calculate the answer, and then a groupmate helped me - not by spoonfeeding me line by line, but by telling me the overarching concept and leaving me to figure the rest out. Which is a better way to learn.
Doing lots of exercises helped as well. At INSEAD you will not be in want of practice. Our Microecons professor (super cool guy perpetually in Hawaiian shirts) gives us lots of graded assignments. For accountancy we have lots of cases to practise with. For statistics, there are many types of math questions to solve. So just practise, practise, practise. You won’t remember theories that you read if you don’t try them out.
I like the fact that our professors will give us working solutions a few days later, so we can learn where we went wrong. If we don’t understand the methods, we can show up for tutorials and ask their teaching assistants for help. If we still don’t get it, we make an appointment to see the professor personally.
Needless to say I still have a lot to work on. But at least things have become a little better. They had better be, because I need to handle one extra topic - French!
And because I worked faster this week, I had time to hang out twice with the cohort - at the traditional Bar of the Week (on Wednesdays) and to celebrate Stefan, Johanne and Calista’s birthdays at Le Noir, Clarke Quay. I danced until I could dance no more, got a few compliments for my looks and was randomly kissed by a P4 senior (on my hand!).
Some forthcoming posts I have in mind:
- Which type of people seem to do better in school (not a scientific study but a gut feel from my observations so far)
- Impressions of the career fair so far, and the job situation
- Takeaway points from my career counselling session
Watch out for them… And have a good weekend!
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