Being a lawyer didn’t make the MBA a logical move. I had left the law firm industry quite early in my career, spending the six years before INSEAD in asset management. However, the assets I was working on were still legal by nature: my fund provided the financial means necessary to companies taking part in lawsuits to cover all related expenses in exchange for a share of the proceeds in case of success.

• Read more about Ex-lawyer the First Day, but Full and Unique INSEADer Thereafter

I am not your typical MBA candidate. For nearly seven years, I was a staff writer with TIME Magazine in New York City, where I covered music, culture, and entertainment. (I also worked remotely during the pandemic from a small town in the western U.S., writing about the economy and generational politics.) Journalism kept me busy, but as I watched the media industry crumble around me, I wanted to understand the business context more fully. As the type of person who loves school, I decided it was time to go back.

• Read more about A Former Journalist at Business School - Experiences of a "Non-traditional" MBA Candidate

Dear All, I joined the Business Foundation Programme in December 2018, prior the beginning of the school in January 2019. This programme is designed for those who are not yet familiar with finance and accounting. With an engineering background, I thought that it would be better for me to enhance my knowledge, and to "catch up" with my classmates who already did business-related work before joining INSEAD.

• Read more about Business Foundations Programme and Getting to Know Singapore

What a start! Period 1: the balancing act! Whooiii what a first period it has been! Even though I have been at other learning institutions, this is the first time I feel as if my horizons have truly been opened. There are different clubs for almost everything, recruiting events, and industry introductions, on a weekly basis. But my peers are the true horizon openers, which is exactly why I applied to INSEAD in the first place. So many things are happening, everyone talks about FOMO in reference to trips and parties, but my FOMO is not getting to know my peers…

• Read more about INSEAD is a Team Sport

From the decision of doing an MBA, to sitting for the GMAT, and staring longingly at your mobile phone to see if I would get the admissions call, it has been quite a journey to get here. With the official opening of school for 19J, the whirlwind has been slowly picking up speed.

• Read more about A Foundation in More Ways Than One

As a liberal arts major, I’ve always lived with a massive phobia of numbers. But business is all about numbers – if you can’t understand them, you literally can’t manage a firm. And more pressingly, with the influx of CFAs, CPAs, CAs and Management Consultants on campus, it’s going to be a really tough fight against the curve (yes, you can’t get away from that even in Business School). Fortunately there’s the Business Foundations Programme (also known as BFP) to the rescue! As the Executive Summary goes:

• Read more about The Business Foundations Programme - Quant Demystified!

During the application process, I have always been curious that what INSEADers find the most rewarding during their one intensive year. One common answer is PEOPLE.

• Read more about Warming Up for the Coming INSEAD Life

Hello, all the wonderful readers of our blog. I was recently given access to blog like many of my 18J classmates. We all are super excited to share our stories and journeys with you and hopefully inspire some of you and quell your insatiable thirst for information (been there done that).

• Read more about The Road So Far and the Road Ahead

In short, yes. Long answer, definitely. There are three foundations that the doing BFP lays for you: academic, social, and omgwhatisgoingon. These three foundations won’t make or break INSEAD by any means. But it’s a fun week that is an academic kick in the butt, gives you a bunch of friends, and let’s you start to figure out what’s what.

• Read more about Business Foundations - Should You Do It?