L’été de hog

Work has been over for more than a month. I’m currently in a very beautiful setting taking a several week intensive language course to satisfy my 3rd and final language requirement for INSEAD. Are there students who actually take the language classes during the MBA? This is a possibility in principle, but with the intensity of the 10 month program as it is, I have got to believe that this would be a huge mistake. Then again, not many of the students actually need to worry about languages.

Yes, life is good. Outside of 4 hours of language class per day, I’ve got beautiful beaches, beautiful culture, beautiful food, and beautiful women (but of course a more beautiful partner back home!). After all of this, I have no fewer than 3 trips to look forward to where I’ll visit future INSEAD colleagues in their home towns/countries. I am enjoying the summer and have got to wonder if life can ever resemble this post-MBA.

I see other students fretting about the pre-reading. I’ve gone as far as to look at the list of suggested pre-reading material. That’s as far as I’m going to take it. Fortunately for me, I feel confident enough in finance/accounting/econ to not feel the need to do this sort of prep work. Instead, my best prep work is going into even more self-reflection as to why I’m doing this MBA and what it is that I want to walk away with. More on this later.

I’m happy to report that my INSEAD housing situation has worked out better than I could have expected. I will be living in the French countryside with around 10 fellow students in a semi-famous INSEAD house…exactly what I was looking for! In addition, the roommates are fantastic…well at least the ones I’ve met. There are 1 or 2 wildcards that could make for interesting stories down the line. All in all, it will be a very social living situation…lots of fun!