This is INSEAD Time
Before leaving for school, people told me about the phenomenon that is called "INSEAD FOMO", and that I should learn to fight it. I was also told that the FOMO is a by-product of INSEAD time: time that is both too fast and too slow. I’ve caught myself, more than a fair number of times, telling people I’ve been living in Fontainebleau for five months, when it’s only really been two. At the same time, everything still feels so new and I’m still getting settled, and I’m not sure where the period has gone.
This is INSEAD time:
It is racing through the bustle of welcome week, filled with introductory classes and career coaching activities. Team-building exercises by day and there was also something every night: we had house parties and barbecues and meet-the-study-group drinks and just-because late-night walks through the city center. Anyone will tell you that the first week is one of the most exhausting times in INSEAD, and for good reason.
It is going to classes and waking up at different times every day, because classes are not given a traditional pre-set schedule (to prepare us for unpredictability?). It is thinking that the homework is due “next Tuesday,” and forgetting that today is already technically Monday.
It is "dropping off the face of the earth" because you're busy settling paperwork and legal work and going off to view houses so you can move to a new house after what feels like forever in your first home. (Pro tip: settle housing and settle it early.) Then you check your messages and realize that it only takes three days for people to point out that you've gone MIA.
It is becoming good enough friends with people you had just met, whom you would be willing to expose your most shameful secret: not knowing how to ride a bike at the ripe old age of 29. It is people becoming good enough friends with you that they will volunteer their time, their bikes, and their patience, just to help you learn. It's natural, you'd think, for people you'd known for so long to be so generous. But in INSEAD time, "so long" is three weeks.
It is buying tickets and planning a trip for the end of September, because P1 had just begun and we haven’t gotten into the swing of things yet. Except the end of September is the equivalent of mid-term season, and as one profound classmate put it: "Chia, 10% of our MBA has gone by."
And it is now nearing finals week (five days), and nearing the end of October. It’s hard to believe 20% of my MBA has gone by. While I would like to think I’ve done pretty well for myself these past two months, INSEAD time has consumed me thoroughly and I wouldn't have it any other way.
