The Blogger Reflects on INSEAD’s Reputation as the ‘Finishing School’ for Europe’s Elite

Last week I had a revealing conversation with someone in the INSEAD community who bemoaned the decline in the quality of students at INSEAD over the years. To protect his identity, we shall endearingly call him Mr. Lily White Euro-Snob. It’s not that Mr. Lily White Euro-Snob thinks that today’s INSEAD students enter with worse grades, GMAT scores, or work experience. Quite the contrary. Today’s INSEAD student is probably smarter and more qualified than ever before. What has however changed is the student demographic.

Whereas the old rigid French and German language requirements once screened out all but the children of Europe’s elite– students (or participants in INSEAD parlance) who spent their summers and winters in Lausanne, Monaco, and Saint Tropez and who showed up on campus in sports cars which made the faculty envious, nowadays a much wider cross-section of participants attend from Europe, Asia, and the Americas. INSEAD has long been sensitive to its reputation as a ‘finishing school’ for Europe’s business elite and has worked hard to counter it with tough academic standards and financial support for needy participants.

Paul Fussell wrote in his timeless 1983 classic Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, “In the absence of a system of hereditary ranks and titles, without a tradition of honors conferred by a monarch, and with no well-known status ladder…. Americans have had to depend for their mechanism of snobbery far more than other peoples on their college and university hierarchy.” If indeed INSEAD has served a similar function in post-war Europe, do class and social hierarchy constitute learned behaviours that can be acquired in an MBA program, or are they as some suggest, intangible qualities that fewer and fewer INSEAD participants possess? Should we bemoan the vanishing of the trust fund jet set from the streets of Fontainebleau, or celebrate the democratization and meritocracy of the admissions process? Thrown in the mix is the inescapable issue of race and national identity. Just as the global business world is increasingly focused on India and China, so is the INSEAD MBA class increasingly comprised of participants from Asia. The “nicest kids in town” (to quote Hairspray) are no longer exclusively white Europeans.

What does this mean for the Euro-Snobs who harken back to INSEAD circa 1970? Two experiences stand out in my mind from my first week at INSEAD. Last week an Asian student posted a critical e-mail on the internal NetVestibule bulletin board, grumbling about the fact that so few shop clerks in Fontainebleau spoke English. The Euro-Snob in me was tempted to flame him and question his arrogance for coming to a school in France and not knowing any French. Besides, what kind of cultured educated person doesn’t speak French, or at the very least, express profound embarrassment and regret at his inability to speak French?

The second incident took place this evening at the welcome cocktail party, when I found myself explaining to a classmate that white wine served with crème de cassis is called Kir, and when served with Champagne, as it was at the party, is called Kir Royale. Hadn’t this person ever been to a cocktail party? What is the value of holding a degree from Europe’s top finishing school, if you can’t supply the requisite sophistication and cosmopolitan understanding expected from members of the elite?

Speaking French and knowing proper food and drink terminology might have once signaled status and hierarchy, but are they relevant in today’s world of technology millionaires and booming Asian economies? The painful answers are no. In today’s human capital economy, they are fast becoming about as relevant as peerage. And so I raise my glass of Kir Royale and toast in French, “A votre santé” … for the demise of the Euro-Snob is near.

 

The Blogger Gets Lost in Translation, Nationalism, and Identity Politics

I took the picture seen above in the famous Chateau de Fontainebleau and I present it to you not to suggest innuendo about scandalous exposures concerning the Pope about which civilized folk will refrain from comment, but to illustrate the dangers of mistranslation. I reckon that a fair bit of the world’s conflicts, hostilities, and gaps in understanding are attributable to poor translations. Each party misunderstands the other because each is in fact relying on different information. Two recent incidents have stuck in my head…

At the Louvre Museum in Paris, I saw a plaque above the crown jewels which states in English that the collection represents an indispensable part of the French national patrimony. In French, the plaque states that the collection represents an indispensable part of the heritage of mankind! Can you really blame the French for their Napoleonic Syndrome? They really do delude themselves into a sense of greatness. I’m curious whether it was the Louvre museum curator who instructed the English translator to soften the jingoism in the English version, or whether the sly translator took the task upon himself.

The second incident was in the bubble gum summer movie Hairspray. Queen Latifah’s line, ‘If we get any more white people here, this place is going to turn into a suburb!’ was translated in France not as banlieue but quartier chic. Suburbs apparently don’t have the same rosy reputation around Paris because of unemployment, violence, and recent riots.

It’s possible to understand a language such as French, but be totally oblivious to cultural nuances. Take the rental agent for my apartment in Fontainebleau. Yesterday he described my new INSEAD neighbours who will be entering the apartments down the hall… “le Chinois est arrivé hier soir et l’Indien arrivera demain.” I can’t be sure if he meant any malice by using Chinese and Indian as nouns instead of employing what would be considered politically correct in English: “The student from China” or “The student of Chinese origin.”

Earlier in the day, I found myself correcting a Middle Eastern classmate who used the word oriental, advising him to use Asian. I now regret having intervened, and sense that I have violated the INSEAD Prime Directive of sorts. Clash will be inevitable part of the INSEAD experience, and I question whether I should have sheltered my classmate from embarrassment and deprived him of the opportunity to learn for himself. If an Asian student is insulted by our classmate’s use of the world oriental, he will speak up and the resulting discussion will likely be more useful than a white guy like me pre-emptively correcting our classmate. It will certainly be interesting to see how race, ethnicity, and national identity will play out among us this year at INSEAD.

The Blogger Reports from the World’s Drug and Sex Capital (Hint: Rhymes with “Green Eggs & Ham”)

Sex, drugs, and bicycling. I’ve paid money in the past for 2 out of 3 of them. For the longest of time, I’ve done 2 out of 3 of them on a daily basis, and I’ve even engaged in 2 out of 3 of them at the same time on occasion. But I don’t ever recall anyone commodifying, marketing, and hyping all 3 of them as successfully as Amsterdam.

I don’t easily fall for slick advertising campaigns and consider myself immune to the shallow pitches of beer companies and tobacco companies. I know that drinking their lager or smoking their cigarettes won’t win me friends and make me sexier to chicks. Yet somehow I totally fell for the Amsterdam hype– the proposition that sex, drugs, and bicycling are somehow vastly superior here or alternatively, that Amsterdam has something unique to teach me about each.

It took me a full 3 days of being here to realize how I had been taken. It hit me when we rented bicycles and the non-country-specific generic EU national employee in the bike shop started “teaching” us how to use the two-wheeled contraption, and later when the… uhmm, ‘coffee’ in the coffee shop came with instructions. “Aha!!!” I thought to myself. “If you had never had sex, smoked pot, or bicycled in urban traffic, then maybe you would find this all awe-inspiring.” To be sure, Amsterdam is a beautiful city, and the architecture of the canal houses is striking, but just as surely as you’ll find McDonald’s, Coca Cola, and mediocre sushi for sale in every city, Amsterdam doesn’t exactly have a monopoly in the sex, drugs, and bicycling department. But you needn’t take my word for it. Even some Dutch political leaders have tried to shut down the red light district and curtail the drug trade. They recognize the disadvantages of branding oneself as the world’s sex and drugs capital when the two aren’t exactly in short supply elsewhere, and when moreover, the commercial trade in each carries a negative stigma.

Thankfully, once I set aside my preconceived notions of what differentiated Amsterdam from other places, I really enjoyed the city. My favourite attraction was the Van Gogh Museum. The paintings seemed to come to life and jump off the canvas. I got all giddy when I spotted several oil landscapes inspired by the Fontainebleau forest and Barbizon (INSEAD Moment #1). Later, to escape the cold rainy weather, I found myself in an English-language bookstore reading Chan Kim’s Blue Ocean Strategy (INSEAD Moment #2).

My holiday buzz started to wear off on the train back to Paris as I pulled out my pre-MBA Stats material, battled fatigue and delved into the minutiae of the Central Limit Theorem (INSEAD Moment #3). So now it’s back to Fontainebleau for the final week of my pre-MBA prep. But first, I shall enjoy the final day of €3 movie days in Paris. For 3 days only all the Parisian cinemas are selling all seats for €3.

The Blogger Plays Paparazzi and Spots Bill and Chelsea in the 6th Arrondissement

Another Million Dollar Spatula exclusive! Yesterday while walking down St. Germaine in Paris, I spotted a pack of paparazzi taking pictures. I pulled out my trusty Olympus to join the fray. I was hoping for Esther (the Artist Formerly known as Madonna) or maybe Britney, Christina, or Paris (The ex-con, not to be confused with the city named after her). Instead I was treated to Bill and Chelsea Clinton. Chelsea was, as you all know, a consultant at the world’s #1 strategic consulting firm between 2003 and 2006. She left to join a Hedge Fund. Bill is her dad.

There you have it. Proof again that MDS is the best INSEAD blog around, well certainly the only INSEAD blog that provides you with exclusive celebrity photos.

The Blogger Arrives in Fontainebleau, Sets Up House, and Plays Tourist in Paris

“Of course there’s a bathroom; Europeans go to the bathroom, don’t they?”

-Clark Griswald played by Chevy Chase in National Lampoon’s European Vacation

Arrived at CDG 2 on Thursday morning. As I exited the baggage area, I spied a driver holding a bright green sign with the green INSEAD logo. I approached him and asked if he had extra room in his car to squeeze me in next to his (VIP?) passenger. He said no. Bummer because in most parts of the world, the next words out of the driver’s mouth would have been, “How much are you willing to pay?”, damned if his original full fare paying passenger would be inconvenienced. And so I resigned myself to a 2 hour roundabout journey to Fontainebleau via 3 trains.

My living arrangements are perfect. A bright studio apartment in the center of Fontainebleau, with a jaw-dropping private garden view from my window. The agent picked me up at the train, and brought me to the apartment where the elderly French landlord was waiting to eye me over.

Settling into Fontainebleau has been remarkably smooth. I breezed through my interactions with landlord and bank because I speak fluent French. A word of caution here… I don’t know how I would have managed if I didn’t speak French. Every sign and map is in French. The stores and restaurants are for the most part French. I wonder how non-French speakers manage at INSEAD. Every conversation I’ve had has been in French. On one or two occasions they have switched to English because I violated some cultural norm or local custom. (For example I tried to pay for a Pariscope magazine with a 20 Euro note, not realizing that it only costs 0.40 Euro), but I feel that I would be completely lost if I didn’t speak the language.

Some thoughts on Fontainebleau:

1) Half the stores are closed for the month of August, and the other half take these ridiculously long siestas every afternoon. One hair salon had the nerve to boast that it was open “Nonstop” on Fridays and Saturdays, but a closer examination revealed that it had closed for les vacances until September.

2) Leader Price has a very limited selection. I much preferred the Monoprix.

3) Say what you will about Starbucks, but the French are incapable of preparing coffee to go. I was served a latte in a plastic Heineken cup. The coffee came from an automatic machine with push buttons. I’ve been served far superior cappuccino in Thailand, the Middle East, and North Africa.

4) If you want to go clubbing in Paris on weekends while at INSEAD, then you need to get a hotel in Paris or a place to stay with a friend. We went out on Friday night and experienced first-hand the logistic challenges of going to Paris by train… The last train to Paris leaves at 9:53 pm. The last bus from Fontainebleau to the train station leaves an hour earlier, so you it’s conceivable that you will need to leave Fontainebleau at 8:30 pm. Most of the clubs open at 12:00 am to 1:00 am, and the parties run until 4:00 am to 5:00 am. So when you arrive in Paris, you will need to kill 2-3 hours in a restaurant or bar. Drinking coffee might be a good idea. Speed is another option.

By 4:30-5:00 am if you feel like leaving the club, you will realize that the first train to Fontainebleau leaves at 6:00 am and arrives around 7:00 am. Even if you drive by car to Paris, if you’re like me, you would be in no shape to drive back to Fontainebleau at that hour. Getting to sleep at 4:00-5:00 am in Paris, makes a big difference in your ability to wake up at a decent hour the next day and be able to function, play tourist, or come September– study! So start making connections with friends who live in Paris and can provide places to crash.

5) The weather is FREEZING! Cold and rainy. And this is August?! I arrived at CDG in shorts and flip flops. Quickly changed into jeans and New Balance. Maybe we can organize a beachwear collection drive, whereby all the Fontainebleau students send their swimsuits, flip flops, and shorts to our peers in Singapore. We won’t be needing them anytime soon.

6) Playing tourist in France feels different knowing that I will be here for a year. I look at concert billboard, theatre posters, and festival guides with genuine interest, knowing that I will be around in Fall to enjoy them (assuming I can escape the intensity of P1 & P2).

7) It could be my advancing years, but I find myself cringing at the sight of drunk 18 year-old Americans in the Latin Quarter. These are supposed to be the cultural elite… the famed 20% of Yankees who hold passports and travel abroad. And you can’t blame it on the fact that they’re 18. Their French peers who also frequent the same student hangouts seem way cooler and more chilled.

The Blogger Creates His Own Pre-MBA Boot Camp

It’s no secret that students choose to study law, economics, and arts because their math and science skills are not good enough for med school. I am no exception to the rule. Having suffered through SPSS for Unix during my undergrad degree, I was keen to never crunch numbers again. I still have nightmares involving my baritone-voiced African stats professor talking about Chi-Squared and Regression Analysis.

I chose INSEAD in part because I wanted to avoid quant jock factories such as the University of Chicago, where the weakness of my math skills would be precariously exposed. That I managed to score over 700 on the GMAT, is a feat worthy of admission into the GMAC Hall of Fame, or alternatively a testament to the inherent bias and favoritism towards Western test takers who are more likely to score hi verbal + low quant, than their low verbal + high quant peers in Asia.

I may have more charisma than the engineers and computer scientists in my intake who spent their childhoods solving Fermat’s last theorem and can perform long division in their sleep. However, when it comes to stats and hardcore finance, they definitely have the advantage.

Because €48,800 is such a modest sum to charge MBA students for a 10 month program, INSEAD is kind enough to only ask €1300 for its week long pre-MBA quantitative boot camp. Lunch is included in the first day, but after that you’re brown bagging it. Would you expect any more for €1300? If I seem crossed, it’s only because there are much better ways for us non-quants to prepare for the INSEAD MBA program.

I have developed my own pre-MBA curriculum, and so without further ado, I proudly present the exclusive Million Dollar Spatula pre-MBA Boot Camp:

Vest Pocket MBA

GMAC MBA Survival Kit

Cliffs Quick Review Statistics

Statistics Workbook for Dummies

Texas Instruments BAII Plus Calculator with Guide Book

I’ve been working slowly through this material over the last few months. I am especially happy with my progress in statistics. It’s clear to me however, that my success in the core MBA classes will depend as much on my own skills and effort as on the structure of the evaluation. Let’s hear it for class participation marks and verbal presentation skills.