The Blogger Hits the Books

The welcome parties are all over and the first semester at INSEAD is in full swing. I had heard varied opinions on the difficulty of the MBA program, but now I am qualified to express my own opinion on the subject. The first semester is crammed into 2 months and includes a lot of quantitative material. Nothing especially complicated, but if you’re like me and have never taken microeconomics and are not 100% comfortable solving linear equations with time constraints, then the workload is tough.

Most of us are used to mastering concepts and subjects, either in school or on the job… but the INSEAD program doesn’t give you enough time to feel entirely comfortable with any one topic. Each lecture moves quickly onto a new subject, and participants are forced to prioritize and extract the main points. You are only expected to perform in the middle of the pack, but of course here you are running with the wolves so the standards are high. I am retaining the key concepts, but I need to spend more time brushing up on my technical skills in order to pass the exams.

The Wall Street Journal MBA Recruiter’s Top Picks Rankings were just released, with ESADE on top of the international rankings. I am preparing a blog posting on the methodology and utility of the survey, but I’m finding it difficult to collect accurate data on ESADE’s recruiting stats. So far the most recent numbers I’ve been able to find, show that in 2004, McKinsey and Company hired only 2 ESADE MBA students, Citigroup another 2, and BCG 1. These numbers significantly trail INSEAD, where last year as you will recall, McKinsey, Bain, and BCG together hired 150+MBAs! I have e-mailed the Career Services office at ESADE, asking for a copy of their recruiting numbers, and I hope to share them with you in the near future.

Today I met my fellow blogger Res Ipsa for the first time. I had hoped to speak to her longer and swap stories about our past lives and discuss INSEAD blogging, but I had to leave for class.

P.S. That’s not my picture above… I look far more stressed out