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23 Aug 2014, 08:00
| FROM Insead Admissions Blog1: We only have what we give – about the non-for-profit route to business school |
 INSEAD Blog Series on Diversity At INSEAD, we put diversity at the heart. As most of us already have come to know, the 14J class is an extraordinary mix of vibrant, inspirational and exceptional people. This is the eighth article in a blog series, that aims to capture some of the diversity that exists in abundance at INSEAD. It will profile some of our most distinctive class members, asking them to share their unique stories about life, moments of joy, but most importantly about their hopes and dreams. So, the next one out in our profile series is…..  Mastak Kaur Nationality: Indian 5 quickies 1. If you had to choose one drink for the rest of your life, what would it be? Sweet lemonade 2. Who is your favourite professor at INSEAD? Has to be P3 negotiations prof Brett Saraniti, he is the funniest and most engaging professor I have ever had. Humour can be such a powerful tool to engage and motivate is not used enough at INSEAD 3. What you were an animal, which one do you think resembles your personality traits the most? Hmmm… probably a squirrel! 4. One thing you want to accomplish before INSEAD is over? Explore the forest… I have been wanting to do that for a while and now I only have a few weeks left to do it 5. Which country to travel to is next on your list? Brazil for sure. I have met some really great people from Brazil at INSEAD and can’t wait to explore their beautiful country and culture __________________________________________________________________________________ ….so, Mastak, what are you doing at INSEAD? 1. Your background is quite different from most of the INSEAD 14Js. Tell us how your professional career to date has led you to business school. I grew up for the most part in India, but because of the nature of my father’s job, I moved around a lot. Before the age of 16, I had been moved schools 10 times.  My family has always played a crucial role in my achievements Many of my friends marvelled at how I managed to retain a sense of belonging with so much transition happening, but I really saw it as an opportunity to discover the many unique parts that make up my home country and make friends in all these places. I studied my undergraduate degree at University of Delhi and whilst at university, I developed a strong interest in marketing. Marketing is based on the observation of other people and connecting with their emotions and desires, and played to my passion for people.  Seeing these young teenagers feel empowered was the most rewarding part of my job At this time, there were no attractive master programmes in Marketing available in India, so I decided to go to Manchester in the United Kingdom for my degree. It was the first time I was leaving India, and also the first time anyone in my family was going abroad. My family was very anxious, but I eventually managed to persuade them to support me, both emotionally and financially. I was really nervous about my decision, but I knew inside I was doing the right thing and had to overcome the fear. When I arrived, I quickly realized that all students were nervous about their life change, and this helped us to become very close quite quickly. I loved the year, and fell in love with Great Britain. Upon graduation, I decided to apply for work in the country. Having grown up in India where social work is such an important part of our culture, I was particularly interested in the non-for-profit space. I joined The Challenge, a charity that was mandated by the UK government to develop a youth policy. United Kingdom is very diverse country and in inhabited by people from all walks of life and more different backgrounds that you could ever imagine. It is quite a segregated society, where people live in small communities with people from similar backgrounds. They can live most of their lives without breaking out to socialize with the people living a few blocks away, because they happen to have a different ethnic origin. As a result, the United Kingdom is one of the least trusted societies in the world, resulting in slow economic and social development. Our work focused on helping the youth break those barriers of isolation, suspicion and lack of confidence to nurture a next generation society built on trust and mutual respect.  The Challenge is a 3-week programme that runs every summer with more than 14000 youth, put together in small teams with other people from their local communities, but from very different social backgrounds. The groups were designed in a similar way to the P1&P2 groups at INSEAD, coming together to solve physical challenges together and also work on a community-benefiting project. The participants would range from the posh public school kids to the high school dropouts or the disabled. They worked together day and night for three weeks and at the end, they had to pitch a community-project to a Dragon’s Den judge for funding to implement their project. Every time I worked on one of those programs, I saw the transformation happen before my eyes. It was like magic each time. Those kids, lacking vision and confidence, transformed into empowered entrepreneurs and strong role models for younger children. It is the most rewarding experience I have ever had in my entire life. I worked for the charity over the next two years and eight months and saw it grow into a national movement, a flagship for youth empowerment in the United Kingdom.  This one is after my team’s 15k blindfolded walk in windy Blackpool The Challenge was a very successful charity for many reasons, one of them being that it benefited from excellent leadership. The management team all had stellar academic background and experience from working in the corporate world. To me, this was really a key success factor and it inspired me to gain sound business experience at INSEAD and beyond, to be able to return to the non-for-profit world in a more effective capacity later in my career.  The first week of the programme where these teenagers go through physical challenges and bond with their team 2. There is currently a debate around the true benefits of aid; some argue that aid is even dead. What is your view? To me, charities play a critical role in society and will continue to do so, as they turn governmental policy work into reality. Sometimes charities lack structure and are run inefficiently, but with the right leadership, they can operate just as well as a corporate, just with the added element of true passion and belief in making the world a better place. I don’t believe that corporates can replace charities all together in the sense that a corporate will be limited by its agenda that potentially distort the purpose of the work because of its focus on delivering shareholder value. Most of the times, a charity operates completely selflessly; simply just delivering on its mandate to benefit the people it has been set up to serve. 3 . What has been your biggest personal challenge entering the unknown environment of INSEAD? I am used to transitions, disruptions, diversity and new people, so that was not anything different coming to INSEAD. For me, the biggest challenge was to find my place, not falling for FOMO (fear of missing out) and making the most of the exceptional network we develop at INSEAD. Finding a way of breaking down the stereotypical perception of nonprofits, where most people assume you are a non-structured organisation barely surviving on limited funds, is hard. But many detailed conversations with fellow classmates have helped broaden this understanding.  My experiences at INSEAD were as intense and as much fun as my previous job 4. Being one of the youngest MBA participants in our cohort and a woman, do you think this has given you a different experience? The experience would only have been different if I would have wanted it to be. For anyone who is applying to INSEAD as a young woman should not be intimidated by the statistics showing that most students are male, consultants and 29 years old. Having a different profile is actually an advantage; it helps you stand out from the crowd. In addition, because your background is so different from most people it gives you the opportunity to meet so many people that are different from yourself. The real value of INSEAD truly comes from the people. I am confident that there is never going to be such a unique opportunity to meet a more diverse group of people. From that perspective, I believe it is the richest learning experience one can ever have. 5. We are now in P5 and INSEAD is almost over. When looking back at the experience, what did you get from the year that you didn’t expect? I think one of the most exceptional experiences at INSEAD is that the craziness never dies. When you are thrown into an environment with people from the entire world, it doesn’t matter where you come from or what you have done in the past, it breaks your life pattern and totally shakes you. It is a year that is so different from anything else, and each period is unique. Once you feel like you have everything under control, the next period begins, and everything is changing again. Learning how to stay grounded in an environment of constant change and fluidity has been tremendously helpful, and not something I anticipated to be such a powerful component of my self-development.  Representing INSEAD at the Sustainable Business plan competition in Bangkok |
23 Aug 2014, 08:01
| FROM Insead Admissions Blog1: Shanghai Summer |
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With 60% of the MBA complete, I’m back in China interning. I’m happy with my P1 to P3 results and I feel like I made significant headway towards reaching my MBA goals. Certainly, I made some mistakes from P1 to P3, but overall, I can’t really complain. I’ve learned a lot! Also, the end of P1 to P3 means my girlfriend and I are no-longer doing long-distance. Finally together, at least for the summer in Shanghai, it’s been a long road. In P3, I really started to enjoy the MBA; in fact, I loved P3. P1 and P2 were great too, but I was pretty stressed and fairly clueless about what I wanted to do post-MBA. At the start of P3, I felt our class collectively relaxed, classes didn’t seem as stressful, and finding an internship seemed easier. For this summer, I am interning in China for a consulting firm. With the recent news that major US consulting firms are no longer eligible to serve Chinese SOE clients, I’m interested to see how the industry will evolve. I also want to see if consulting is right for me as I believe I naturally gravitate towards business development type of roles (my career leader self-assessment placed business development at 97%, management consulting at 80%, and accounting….7%….). By P4, I ideally will have a full-time offer in the works (I hope….  ….). I have three industries I am concentrating on and I have had one FT interview already. Now I realize that after the tremendous challenge of securing an interview, the next big worry is determining whether a company pays more than beans and popcorn.P5, I will return to Shanghai for CEIBS exchange. Post-MBA, I would like to end up in Shanghai, Hong Kong, or Singapore. We’ll see what happens! |
30 Aug 2014, 23:04
01 Sep 2014, 19:01
| FROM Insead Admissions Blog1: Parlez-vous français? |
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Had I known six years ago that I would attend INSEAD and slave away to pass an A2 level language exam, I would have refrained from throwing away my college notes. Learning French is no easy business, and I uncontrollably joined the whiners club, complaining about the difficulty of gender agreement rules. However, as the study hours progressed beyond 50, I started to see a different picture, and I started to appreciate this experience. Below are, what to me, the three main benefits of learning another language. 1. It grows your brain. Developing your brain is like going to the gym; the more you work out, the more toned you become. Even for a mediocre learner like me, learning French has improved my memory and thinking speed. Cognitive flexibility is a great thing, for a small price of being outside your comfort zone. 2. It gives you more insight into another culture. There is so much culture in a language, and the depth it embodies is what I find most intriguing. Simple things such as differentiating between ‘bon’ and ‘bien’ to me is as satisfying as admiring the Eiffel Tower. As a bonus, I like films, and being able to understand a few lines from Amélie is definitely a better experience than multitasking with the subtitles. 3. It makes you appreciate your own culture. I am born a Chinese and in the decade that I lived in English-speaking countries, I think in English most of the time except when counting numbers. I always suspected the math proficiency found in many Chinese has more to do with the language than the math. After going through the French numbers I see a trend emerging, because to count from 1 to 100, more new words are introduced in French (and English) than in Chinese. Each culture has its peculiarities, and I continue to develop new appreciation of my own heritage. In summary I would encourage anyone to explore another language beyond the beginner level. It’s an epiphany-guaranteed experience, so why not? |
05 Sep 2014, 06:57
05 Sep 2014, 22:12
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06 Sep 2014, 08:02
| FROM Insead Admissions Blog1: Location, Location, Location: Flat-hunting in Singapore |
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So you’ve submitted your application, written your essays, and then a few weeks later, find out that you have been accepted into INSEAD. You’re still basking in the glory when you realize that the programme is gonna start in a few weeks and you still haven’t sorted out accommodation. Panic! Many students have experienced this feeling over the years and the author of the piece is no exception. The month of August had started (I was scheduled to reach Singapore on the 17th) and I still didn’t have a flat to call home. I thankfully managed to find a place before I could put Singapore’s anti-squatting laws to the test. To help the next generation of INSEAD students help in the flat-hunting process (and avoid making the same mistakes I did), I thought it best to put together some of the stuff I learnt along the way: Options: Some students starting in Singapore would have already read the names of Heritage View and Dover Parkview. These two condominiums are next to each other and are a brisk 10 minute walk from campus. Given the proximity to the school (and the presence of modern amenities), flats in these buildings are quite popular with INSEAD students. The catch: rent is not cheap. Thankfully, there are other less expensive options near the campus, including government-built housing HDB (Housing Development Board) flats. If students are willing to spend just a little more time commuting, there are other options as well. Lease terms: In Singapore, typically the minimum period for which a flat can be rented is six months. This might create complications for people who only intend to spend two academic terms in Singapore. As such, it is sensible to tell your agent to insert a clause that allows sub-letting. Given the number of people who swap campuses, it won’t be hard to find a sub-tenant but just make sure you’re not breaking any laws. If possible, come to Singapore a few days before your programme starts:Agents in Singapore are extremely efficient and it is not uncommon to secure a flat within a day or two viewing the property. By visiting the country early, students can have a better feel of the property and allay any concerns they might have from merely looking at the pictures. Some of my classmates started the house-hunting process only after the programme had started and made initial fretting completely unwarranted. |
06 Sep 2014, 08:02
| FROM Insead Admissions Blog1: Learnings from Orientation Week |
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When I visited INSEAD’s Fontainebleau campus ten months ago, I told my mother I must get into this school so that I could return. Today I am welcomed on the campus along with 300 others. It truly gave me a sense of closure. The orientation week in itself is a mini course. It is overwhelming but stimulating at all levels. Personally I would like to share three learnings that I gained from the experience. 1 Diversity in Learning. In the environments I grew up it, voicing different opinions is not considered a character strength. In INSEAD, being vocal about your view is not only accepted but also encouraged, because it drives intellectual versatility. Borrowing the words of a brilliant professor on general management, the learning environment here “helps the more assertive cultures [to] tone down and the more sensitive ones [to] toughen up”. 2. Diversity in Network. Most say the value of the INSEAD MBA is its network. For me the difference between hearing about it and experiencing it is the same as looking at the pictures of Rome and actually being inside the Coliseum. In a single event, I could interact with nuclear engineers, pilots, and scientists as much as marketers, bankers, and consultants. What struck me is not only the sheer breadth and depth of their experiences, but also their willingness to share and listen. 3. Diversity in Life It is easy to assume that an INSEADer has it all—the intellect, the work experience, and the great future earning potential. Would your perception change if I tell you the sacrifices they made to get to where they are today? Behind the success is hard work, perseverance, juggling family responsibilities, and giving up comfort to step into the unknown. Hearing the stories from different people gave me new perspectives on relationships, career, and family. Indeed, learning how others balance the trade-offs in life inspired me greatly. The orientation week passed in the blink of an eye. INSEAD stayed true to the values it stands for, and I look forward to the interesting days to come. |
09 Sep 2014, 07:23
09 Sep 2014, 10:54
10 Sep 2014, 20:01
| FROM Insead Admissions Blog1: Preparing for Separation |
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Klanti amar khama koro prabhu Pathe jodi pichiye pori kobhu —Rabindranath Tagore If I ever fall behind on the path If I ever get tired —Forgive me Lord. I’m sitting in my small room looking over the city—this huge edifice of human existence and labor. I see children smiling, screaming, and playing on the school playgrounds next to my building; I see the cars driving smoothly by; I see clouds in the sky and the glass and steel façades of the magnificent skyscrapers all around. This city, Singapore, is a testament of the best in human nature itself: the toil and the ingenuity that have joined forces to bring this gigantic machinery together are unimaginable in most other parts of the world. There is a lot to say about this city and this wonderful new part of my life. A few examples should suffice. Classical music plays underwater in the swimming pools; the streetlights have sensors to detect the presence of pedestrians and grow brighter or dimmer as needed; the buses detect change automatically; and drones capture street imagery. I can hardly contain my excitement at finally being able to make the journey to INSEAD, which by the way, is a dream come true. The level of intellectual discussion in the classroom and the experience and maturity of my fellow students amaze me time and again. The first feeling that grabs you when you enter INSEAD as a student is the feeling of being dwarfed by a cavalcade of amazing people. The year at INSEAD will definitely be one of the best yet one of the most trying in the life of anyone attempting it with the challenges of the huge loan and the sacrifices that you have to make to get here along with the pressure of performing among a group of over-achieving individuals. Yet, the biggest challenge that anyone will face here will have more to do with the disconnect that you will feel from the anchors that have been keeping you steady till now. You can prepare for almost everything to the minutest detail starting from academics to toiletries and feel that you are indeed ready for the challenge of the year ahead. Only choose two between three – sleep, study and socialize. I feel very strongly that they are missing out on the fourth corner of the problem, the invisible corner if you will. This corner consists of your family that you may have left back home or brought with you, in which case you need to devote time to them as well. This corner isn’t spoken about enough, yet it happens to be the most important one when it comes to your mental balance and peace. The pressures at INSEAD can get to the most seasoned of campaigners and proper planning is the only way to stay ahead of the curve. Me and my wife we spoke a lot about this disconnect and the fact that we would be spending a year mostly separated from each other. The good thing about technology is the number of choices it provides you to stay connected provided you want to stay connected. So we set up a few simple ground rules, such as trying and involving the other person in our lives as far as possible so as to reduce the disconnect. This serves the dual prupose of letting the other person know that you care and want her to be involved but also to let her know for a fact that most of the pressures that you are talking about are very real and not a figment of your imagination. Apps like Skype, Viber and https://gmatclub.com/chat have played a pivotal part in our lives in keeping in touch. I try and send even class notes to her by taking snaps of the handouts and sending them to her via https://gmatclub.com/chat. This has actually helped me a lot at times as she happens to sometimes bring out points which I might have missed out. It also helps in bonding and lends matter to talk about, something which can become a sore issue if you are spending your year in different cultures and different time zones. One other thing that I try and do regularly is to call her up whenever I can via Viber or Skype. Internet is cheap and Wi-Fi is free everywhere. It also helps if you’ve spoken ten times a day for two minutes each and then speak for maybe an hour before you go to sleep. However, this is rather optimistic as most days you wont get the time to call her ten times or speak for an hour. You will be trying to catch up with all that was taught in the class and at the same time prepare for the next day. This means that weekends will become more precious than you can imagine as it always boils down to a choice, whether to go out for a game or a tour or a party with friends or to stay home and chat over Skype. Like I have said before this is a hard trade off and the decision is almost everytime dependent on the people involved. Just one word of advice though, try and decide on your priorities first. That way you won’t end up just says that repenting even if you did lose up on the other things that you needed to do. Yet, you will constantly feel something missing from my life and I know well what that is. Which is why I started my blog with that comment on top from Tagore. It simply says that you will make mistakes and will get tired but then you will be forgiven in time. This year is indeed going to be exciting by the looks of how it has started, I just wish that I didn’t have to spend it celibate though! |
13 Sep 2014, 06:29
13 Sep 2014, 06:57
13 Sep 2014, 09:34
14 Sep 2014, 08:25
14 Sep 2014, 10:34
14 Sep 2014, 14:28
15 Sep 2014, 01:01
| FROM Insead Admissions Blog1: Diversity: what we all have in common |
 5 September 2014 I’m three weeks into the MBA program at INSEAD and I have already made meaningful connections with so many of my classmates. At first glance, the diversity of the INSEAD student population can be intimidating. My classmates are some of the most successful young professionals from every corner of the world. As an engineer from the U.S., what could I possibly have in common with an investment analyst from India or a luxury goods public relations manager from Belgium? Meeting all of these new people with different backgrounds and cultures has made me realize that the fact that we are all so diverse is what makes us have so much in common. We all have so many experiences that it is easy to find something that we share, even if it is small. With the depth of our diverse cultures, experiences, and characteristics, there is bound to be overlap. Where are you from? This is the classic question that I’ve struggled with all of my life and most INSEADers have a difficult time answering it with just one word. My family is from Slovakia, I was born in Austria, but grew up in Florida and lived in Chicago before I came here. This complicated answer is nothing new among the INSEAD student population and my dual nationality is completely normal. Because there are so many students with dual-nationalities and those that have lived/worked all around the world, I feel like I truly belong here. What did you do? Another difficult one to answer. Many of have had multiple jobs before coming here and even already changed careers from our undergraduate education. Then there’s the question of what we want to do after graduation—even harder to answer. However, because of the breadth of experience, I’ve met people that have worked in the same industries or job functions as I have. What’s next? Like I said, people are very curious about what you want to do post-MBA but the truth is that most of us are still exploring our options. On-campus recruitment is going on for the 14D class but many of us 15Js are participating to get ahead and learn more about companies. The struggle to figure out what to do next bring our class together as we ask each other about our former careers and discuss options for the future. It is the things that make us different that actually bring us together. Because of the wide variety of locations, jobs, and experiences, you’re bound to have at least one little thing in common with everyone that you meet. Maybe it’s a former employer or location or simply the global mindset that brought us all together at INSEAD in the first place. I’ve made connections with other people that have immigrated to new countries even if we are from opposite ends of the world. I’m looking forward to discovering more about my classmates as the year goes on and getting to know everyone past the surface questions of where you’re from and what you did before. |
15 Sep 2014, 19:30
15 Sep 2014, 21:00
| FROM Insead Admissions Blog1: The beginning of the best? |
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“Your year at INSEAD is going to be ‘the best’ or at the least ‘one of the best’ in you life.” I have heard this statement innumerable times from my interviewers, alums, and also close family of students. Did it feel forced? Something one just had to say? It felt like it. But now, in just a few short weeks, I am a firm believer: This year is going to be one of the best years of my life. I still remember when I received the phone call; I was just getting on the treadmill, when I received news of my acceptance. I just had to stop everything I was doing and ran home. The day was practically a blur. I just remember this feeling of sheer excitement and joy. That was end May. Yes, I was an R3 candidate, which meant that I had just about two months to change my life and pack…to come and start my year at INSEAD. Life begins in P1, actually before P1, on FB and Instagram, and so on. Your inbox could get flooded with mails—from INSEAD, from your interviewers, from others in the same intake as you. Its just so much information, but this is good training ground for all the information you’ll get once you’re actually here. SO, sitting at Fonty after close to three weeks, seems surreal. Has it actually been that long? And, have we actually done so much in such a short time? These two questions seem to contradict each other, but as any INSEADer will tell you, it makes perfect sense. The friends and mates, the lectures and tutorials, the wild parties and friendly BBQs, the rain and the sun—it just all seems to be here. So difficult to absorb and yet one just has to do it all. So, here I am, living one of the best years of my life. |
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