Life in a Chateau

Despite my initial frustration, I managed to find a great place to live this year in a large shared place outside of Fonty. Maybe I was just lucky, but in the end, I can honestly and completely objectively say that I live in the best large house this year...

It seems that there is a theme among this years bloggers; many of us live in one of the large (8+ ppl) shared houses scattered throughout the French countryside. I'm in one, I’m pretty sure that D.T.L.F. lives in Monty, Res I(p)sa is in the newly christened "Club 16". Living in these large shared places adds a lot to the INSEAD student experience. For example, at most of the houses, there are regular dinners where all houseguests invite 1+ other INSEAD participants over for dinner & drinks. We have done a few of these already; they are a weekly tradition at my house. Since my housemates are scattered throughout the 4 sections (our Fonty intake is divided by 4 and we remain with the same group of 70 for the first 4 months of classes), these dinners are a great way for us to meet new people from the other sections.

The large houses provide a non-stop social element that is an important part of my MBA experience. If I ever need a break from the studies, there is guaranteed to be one of my roommates up for a drink. Every night, there is at least one of us out at a party or some sort of late night event. There are lots of house activities going on throughout the week; movie nights, “family dinners”, sporting, etc. The best part is, each roommate is completely different from the next, together we represent N. America, Europe, & Asia with equally diverse professional backgrounds. Of course not all of the large houses are as cohesive as this one, but I would probably take a spot at any of them rather than to live alone.