Summary of week #4

Already halfway through Period 1! This means that I’m 10% done at INSEAD already! Time really does fly!

On Monday, I had a microeconomics midterm, which went quite well. I’ve attended presentations from Siemens Management Consulting. This internal consulting company helps different Siemens companies to outperform. Unfortunately, I don’t speak German or Mandarin, which only leaves the New York office as a possibility. And when I explored this opportunity further, I discovered that they are looking for 6 years of work experience for that office, since it is quite small and they have little time for training. My chances at SMC are therefore marginal. Damn… Fortunately, there was a nice BBQ/party at heritage when I came back from the presentation, and I was able to release some steam.

Tuesday was uneventful. On Wednesday night, we had the first idea generation session of the entrepreneurship club. Most ideas were pretty frivolous, but a few were mildly interesting. We will investigate some of them further in week 5. On Thursday, I received my grade for the midterm, and am proud to report a solid 92%! I then attended a presentation from the Standard Chartered Bank. I am surprisingly interested by their company, since it offers interesting international opportunities customized to your desires and strengths. After the presentation, I attended the Mexican BBQ at Heritage. After a refreshing swim and a few people being thrown in the pool involuntarily, we hung out on the deck until about 1am.

Friday morning was quite painful, but I survived the day. On Friday evening, I attended a presentation on Private Equity, which sounds like an exciting career opportunity, but arguably the hardest sector to get into. Statistically speaking, odds of succeeding seem less than one in ten thousand. I rapidly forgot about this obstacle when my INSEAD team went out for pepper crabs at No Signboard Seafood in Geylang. Geylang is the red light district in Singapore. After dinner, we went for a walk around the neighbourhood. It is extremely different from the “tourist” or “business” Singapore. There are hundreds of lightly dressed women all over the sidewalks and inside licensed houses. The licensed ones are identified by a red lantern and red numbers on the house. While we did not enter one, we understood that you look through a window and make your selection from dozens of ladies wearing number tags.

On Saturday morning, our team-bonding activities continued. We went wakeboarding in the channel between Singapore and Malaysia. It was awesome! We all managed to get up on the board rapidly. It is very similar to snowboarding, so the learning curve is extremely steep. I tried to jump off the boat wave, and even managed to land a few of them. Enjoy the pictures! We then went out for Sushi in Holland Village, and I then slept all afternoon. On Saturday night, Philipp and I entertained Magnus and Genevieve at our apartment. Magnus prepared some excellent oven-baked fish with a mango-based sauce. We held interesting conversations about various subjects. In the middle of dinner, we learned about the Bali bombings, and were happy to learn that our 12-15 INSEAD friends currently vacationing in Bali were unharmed.

On Sunday morning, I had McDonald’s breakfast and went rollerblading at the East Coast Park with some fellow divers from Dayang: Ryan, Bryan and Marcus. The trail runs for miles along the coast. We found a very cool remote control car racing track. The little buggers go around 110km/h and accelerate incredibly rapidly. They cost over $1000 and often break if you fly off the track, which is a common occurrence. It is therefore a very expensive hobby. Rain interrupted our pleasant skate so Marcus and I entered a nice restaurant and had Pepper Crab and dim sum. On Sunday afternoon, I managed to work on school papers and read for 10 hours straight. This helped me get ahead on school work, which is a luxury here at INSEAD. I am considering different vacation opportunities for next weekend, including Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok or Bintan in Indonesia. I may also stay here in Singapore. It will be determined in the next few days.