Living the INSEAD MIM Dream

During my undergraduate studies, I had the chance to spend one semester in Singapore in 2018. Every day, I would pass by INSEAD’s campus, and would tell myself: “Someday, I will be part of the INSEAD community”. At the time, the MIM programme had not been announced yet.

Fast forward to June 2019, I read online that INSEAD was launching its pioneering MIM programme.

As soon as I had read the (amazing) news, I started preparing my online application. INSEAD was my first and only choice, and there were so many reasons that attracted me to the school—in fact, listing all of them would probably take a lot of time.

INSEAD is definitely a top business school, but to me it had much more than just prestige to offer. I had always admired its teachers and had been reading the research work of Professors Peter Zemsky and Yves Doz for some time. I also wanted to combine Strategy, Research and Analytics in my future career, and enrolling in INSEAD’s MIM programme was the best way for me to do so.

I prepared the whole summer for the GMAT, but I also took the opportunity to attend different events to learn more about the programme. The Recruitment team was always very helpful, answering the tons of questions I had and giving me precious advice to successfully go through the very competitive admission process. I would not say that the application process was difficult. In fact, it was more interesting than that of other Business Schools, and the questions in the essays were a way for me to reflect on the past, the present and the future.

I received my acceptance in January 2020, and since then, I have been impatiently waiting—like a five-year-old kid—for the programme to start.

During the eight months that followed, a pandemic and an economic slowdown took over the world. Suddenly, Zoom became the norm for family gatherings, birthday celebrations, and random group video calls. I was away from my family and following online classes, while writing my undergraduate dissertation. Yet I kept looking forward to the start of the INSEAD MIM. Many people were asking me why I did not defer my admission to the next year. But why would I?

For me, this is the best time to enroll in a Master’s degree, especially the MIM.

So much change is going on, and I want to learn how to better deal with it. I want to become more adaptable and gain the skills that will help me become more confident about the future.

Despite the current pandemic and the uncertainty concerning the future, being at INSEAD has been the best decision I have made in my life. Everyone interacts together at INSEAD—while respecting social distancing, and we thus get to meet MBAs, professors, executive education participants, and staff members. All the people I have met here are inspiring, and they push me to give the best of myself.

The learning curve has been very steep, and I have learned so many new things from my professors, from my classmates, from the Career Development Center and even from MBA students. Every day here is an opportunity to learn and become a better person.

In only two weeks of classes, I have learned to become more structured in the way I think and present my ideas.

We also work a lot on case studies and simulations, and this helps put the theory in practice. The way INSEAD combines theory and practice is unique, and it makes the experience much richer.

Because of the pandemic, I have been spending a lot of time with home group members, and they already feel like a second family for me. We are very different, yet we get along very well. I think INSEAD is great at bringing different people together, and we all find our place in the bigger group.

Today, almost nine months after receiving my acceptance to the INSEAD MIM programme, my dream has finally come true. I have made 94 new friends, have been constantly pushing my limits, and have been on the road to becoming a better person.

The uncertainty in the world is growing day by day, but I am not worried about the future.

When I think about it, it is not really that surprising, because INSEAD has been arming us with the necessary tools to deal with everything happening in the world and succeed in strenuous times.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me on LinkedIn.