#36 - Partnering With INSEAD: Insights, Support, and Community - Student Life Feature

Partners play a crucial role in the MBA experience, providing support, encouragement, and a listening ear throughout the intense and challenging programme. They are often the unsung heroes behind the success of MBA students, offering a sense of stability and perspective during a time of significant personal and professional growth. From relocating to a new country to managing a household, partners have to navigate a unique set of challenges while supporting their significant other in pursuit of their academic and career goals.

Pauline Agius

Pauline Agius
At INSEAD, no two people have exactly the same background: you’re just as likely to meet someone having spent ten years in the army as you are to find a fashion designer who became a business entrepreneur.

The most important lesson I learned at INSEAD

Talking to alumni before starting INSEAD, I was told that this year would be very intense. “The content of a full MBA programme is squeezed into ten months, but the intensity is not limited to the academic level”, they said. “You will meet plenty of amazing students, you will be taught by world-class professors and there will be great opportunities all over the place.” Several times, our discussions concluded with this unexpected piece of advice: “Sleep a lot before the programme begins, because you won’t have much time for that during your INSEAD year”.

Your MBA Starts Long Before You Set Foot on Campus

I don’t see INSEAD’s MBA as a one-year programme. The real MBA journey starts long before you set foot on campus. In my case, the period before arriving in Singapore was a transformative one. The application process initiated the change, as I dedicated considerable time to introspection (more on that in a previous post) to find out my core values and the person I would like to be. However, the transformation really picked up when I received the famous admissions call.

The Business Foundations Programme - Quant Demystified!

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:

Fonty '18J: It's Finally About to Begin!

I'm a bit late to the party myself, but it's been great reading some of the introductory blog posts from my fellow classmates the last few days; I can't wait to meet you all from tomorrow! It feels surreal to finally be here, in Fontainebleau and its gorgeous surroundings. I didn't do a campus visit, and I can vouch that you should; pictures just do not do this place any justice, it truly is a stunning environment within which to study and live and I'm feeling extremely fortunate at the moment!
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