Sunday, October 29, 2006

About latest Rankings and this blog's comments

Hi. A break during the break to write a long needed post.

First, sorry about my late replies to comments. I've just answered them all.

1. Comments on Business Foundations Programme:
I loved it, and believe it was worth €1,200. My main benefits were: Jake Cohen's introduction on Financial Accounting (for anything, it makes me believe Accounting can be real fun), Pekka's class on Finance. This is Fundations, ie. Classes will start at the level where you finish BFP. This sounds trivial, but many times we were bogged down in class by non-BFP people. On the non-quantifiable aspect, BFP enables you to start networking with classmates that you may not see afterwards. It is really valuable as you only have a couple of months to know who you want to hang out with! As with the MBA, be sure to know yourself: if your background is extensive on Business Administration/Finance/Accounting, maybe you won't need BFP for the hard skills. If you've been out of academic world for more than 6 years, maybe you need it. If you're an Olympic swimmer champion, definetely you need it (it's not my opinion, but hers).

2. To have answers on Admissions process, or classes at INSEAD, or INSEAD, please send me an email to DomoDomo74@gmail.com ; I promise an answer within 3 days. I'm terribly sorry for those who needed quick answers (InvisibleInk -I understood you decided to attend BFP Singapore, good choice!) but I'm still discovering the blog's functions...

3. I've been asked about the latest INSEAD rankings.
2006 rankings were: 8th in FT -equal (#1 Wharton), 18th in Wall Street Journal International (#1 ESADE, #2 IMD, #3 EPADE, #17 Wharton, #20 Harvard), 22nd in the Economist -down 11 (#1 IESE, #17 Wharton, #20 LBS).
Let's be clear, rankings only have limited value. Do not choose your school according to short-term changes (which sometimes result from marketing gimmicks). Choose it on brand, and long-term trend.
Let's be clear, the rankings are not good.
Let's be clearer, WSJ and EIU rankings do not count. I mean, if INSEAD had been on its own at number 20, there would have been some validity. But to have INSEAD, Wharton, Kellogg, and LBS between 15 and 25 discredits both rankings.
Yet, I do hope that the School does not turn a blind eye to it. I believe Franck Brown is very conscious about that, and has devised the School's strategy (I have no clear sign on this but though, just blind faith, and common sense). It is weird that the School did not communicate on the results though.

4. I've put in links INSEAD Singapore Blog (Zanatos) and Wharton Blog (Laurea). It is funny, if you have time, to get perspectives from the hearts of each schools.

5. Sorry, sorry again for late replies. Do keep up! Thank you for your encouragements.


All Rankings details and methodology in www.clearadmit.com

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posted by DomoDomo@INSEAD @ 12:29 AM 3 Comments

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Week 0: Business Foundations Programme

I have just completed the Business Foundations Programme at INSEAD.
That took place on campus, from August 13 to 19.
Financial Accounting Professor Jake Cohen was in charge of the module; he announced 66 participants in Fontainebleau, and 30-something in Singapore, which I think is quite a good number.

As a headline, BFP is a crash course to bring students to a par level in 3 technical/quantitative subjects and enable them to be fully operational come Periods 1 and 2.

The classes were: Financial Accounting, Finance, and Quantitative Methods.

1. Financial Accounting, Professor Jake Cohen

First, I loved the Professor. It was not a common opinion among my groupmates, but I really enjoyed his classes. The reason was, I felt challenged all the time, and his horrible habit of cold calling everyone must have played a part in this motivation to perform. Jake is very Wall Street type of person, read direct, demanding, and bright.
He focused on building Financial Statements and understanding their dynamics. One of his tag-lines being "I don't want to take away the magic of Course blabla in Period 3 so you'll see later", I will not explain in detail, but give impressions.
You don't need pre-readings for the class. The class is quite technical (Balance Sheets, Income statements, Statement of Cash Flows, entry journals, ratios), but is taught in an intuitive way. Jake's other tag-line "say it to me as if I were 3 year-old" sums up the approach.

2. Finance, Professor Pekka Hietila

Pekka comes from Finland, he is a long-time INSEAD Professor. Everybody loved him, as he is so very nice, helpful, and of course brilliant.
He focused on NPV calculations, Finance vs. Accounting. The class is a bit technical, but nothing impossible for people with a minimum business background.

3. Quantitative Methods, Assistant Professor Michele Hibon

This could have been an optional course. Ms. Hibon really is nice and helpful, and has to teach plenty of maths concepts that many of us already knew: derivatives, logs, stats. I don't know why, but all the teaching staff in this subject are so nice. Every day, a PhD student went from cubicle to cubicle to hand out Solutions sheets and see if any group required help, but everyday (at least my group) we kept saying thank you so much, but never did the exercices.

In conclusion, Business Foundations is valuable for either people who have been out of the academic world for a long period, or people without business background.
Positives: great teachers, great classes, opportunity to meet 20% of your class mates and bond before campus gets crowdy.
To be improved: all courses were taught with cases, but Quantitative Methods. And that was a shame as students sort of didn't take that class seriously.

My personal great plus: my group. They were absolutely fun!

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posted by DomoDomo@INSEAD @ 9:44 AM 4 Comments