In another week’s time, it will be three months since I arrived in the town of Fontainebleau. There’s a bug going around the '18Js at the moment and I am down with a flu. Which is a good thing because it resulted in me sitting at home drinking soup, watching fall colours out of my window and generally musing about life. Time is a beautiful thing, for when keenly observed it seems to be barely flowing, and yet turn your back and it seems to fly by.

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The first five weeks at INSEAD have flown by so fast that I feel I need an Alcubierre drive to keep up. The Alcubierre drive was something I didn't even know existed before I talked with my classmate from NASA. In this lies one of my first realisations from the business school for the world; there is so much to be learned through the amazing peers one finds at INSEAD. And this comes on top of a spectacular faculty, personal coaching and career coaching. In order to make the most of it all there are three things you will benefit from bringing to your INSEAD experience;

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May means the end of P2 – buhbye internship stress! May means P3 for December class – electives! May means the beginning of transformation – into oneself!

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I was so occupied and pressured during April that I even forgot to write a post about April. :)) But many beautiful quotes talk about pressure, and many things actually turn ripe with pressure. There is a philosophy one of my mentors once taught me about diamonds: If diamonds can scream, they would scream, because the pressure a piece of raw diamond experienced until it turned to a piece of beautiful diamond is extremely high… until it transforms. And April, I suppose, as I now reflect it almost 4 months later… testifies a lot to that.

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The first period of the MBA programme at INSEAD raced by, as I imagine will all subsequent periods. With such a variety and volume of happenings, each day felt like a distinct three (in one): pre-lunch, followed by post-lunch and ending with evening-night. While I and my fellow classmates have already survived and thrived in a hectic professional environment, the INSEAD experience is of a rather different quality. More relaxed and absorbing than work-life, yet more productive - each day is chock-full of new learning, compelling extra-curricular events and an addictive, joyous social buzz.

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In finance, a plum is a choice investment, or an asset that outperforms other comparable assets. A plum is contrasted to a lemon, a disappointing investment in which your expected return is not even close to being achieved. (source: Investopedia) A plum sounds very much like an INSEAD student. It has been two months since I started my MBA journey at INSEAD, and one of the things that has really caught my attention is the outstanding intellectual calibre of my colleagues (and I am a picky person!).

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As the end of P1 is nigh, I thought it's about time I start recording my INSEAD experience. Overall, this first term has been chaotic, thrilling, perplexing, and a lot of fun.

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Return on Invested Capital, Return on Equity, Cost Opportunity. Here are some of the terms that we somewhat became familiar with, and that are used on a daily basis after two months in the INSEAD MBA. Actually, looking back, it’s quite incredible to think about the amount of material we’ve covered so far, and this is because the program is intensive. So intensive that you don’t ask for more.

• Read more about Should You Invest in Leveraged Buyout? Or in a Private Island?

For most people when hearing about Islamic finance for the first time, the new term usually begs the question, “What’s different about Islamic finance compared to regular finance?” I get asked this question quite often, and it’s difficult to know where to begin and how deeply to delve into the details. During our second week of P3 in Abu Dhabi, we had a guest lecturer from the Department of Economic Development for the Government of Dubai, Harun Kapetanovic, deliver a talk that I hoped would help me answer the question more succinctly.

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After 10 days of travelling through the relative wilderness of East Africa, my Etihad flight made a smooth landing at Abu Dhabi’s International Airport. My journey to a brand new continent had just ended, but another, entirely different adventure was about to begin. Aside from the sprawling lights from buildings and cars, I was greeted by a vast number of tower cranes erecting the new terminal expansion of the Abu Dhabi Airport - probably three times the number used to construct the new Vikings stadium in Minneapolis.

• Read more about The INSEAD MBA Experience Arrives in Abu Dhabi!