The INSEAD MBA Experience

The INSEAD MBA in Europe

An MBA at INSEAD Business School provides candidates with a global perspective and cultural diversity. Balaji Ramaswami, a merchant navy professional, a GyanOne client and now an INSEAD student, has shared his insights on life at INSEAD, the INSEAD MBA experience and campus environment.

1.     The INSEAD MBA experience

The MBA program and our class has a very diverse environment, with students from 84 countries and an average work ex of 5 yrs. Each person is a reservoir of information, knowledge and energy.

Also, the professors here are experts in their subjects, who relate theories to practical experience, and make every class really interesting.

2.    What you like most about the campus.

There is a lot of energy on the campus. The Break Out rooms and Library are open 24 hrs, and you find people working on something all the time.

This environment motivates you and you don’t know when you start moving along with the flow! There is also a very healthy and cost effective food court where the food is diverse and delicious, a well-managed gym where you can turn in during breaks, and a resident psychologists, whom you can turn to improve yourself emotionally.

3.    Any word of caution for prospective students?

An MBA at INSEAD is lot of hard work as well. Do your homework and pre-reads about your course topics and subject before you arrive at the campus, to cope up with studies and concepts easily.

This will also allow you to focus your energies towards networking with peers, faculty members and corporates, a very important aspect of thriving in an international bschool environment.

4.    Interaction with peer group and faculty members

The seniors, alumni and the faculty members talk at the same level. We lose our sense of hierarchy. And everyone wants to interact, about experiences and about their plans and dreams.

You get to know so much about scope of work, potential jobs, industries and business dynamics, technologies, and the list just goes on. Again, I guess it’s worth repeating, networking is a very important aspect of the program, possibly the most important!

5.    Living costs / any other expenses

Apart from the tution fees of 62000 Euros, all other expenses including housing sum upto 4000 SGD per month.

6.    Course and curriculum curriculum

The course curriculum is very rigorous. If you are not from a core finance background, you need to buck up and be well prepared with the fundamentals before you start with the program. Many engineers and others from technology backgrounds make the mistake of entering the program without prior preparation. While they do survive, they could do better with some preparation beforehand. INSEAD has also introduced multiple new electives in areas like sustainability and digital business now, so the curriculum is quite cutting-edge.

7.    Any other program / activity that you are part of.

I have joined consulting, industry and social impact club. Am really looking forward to a port trip that I have organised for the club members, beginning of 2015.

I have also taken up a live project with a company, where am learning and working with the organization to solving their visibility and funding issues. Read more about the story of this Navy professional and how he made it to the top MBA porgrams: INSEAD MBA and HKUST MBA programs Admit for Merchant Navy professional

GyanOne Admission Consultants provide comprehensive Application Review service to help applicants gain admission in top MBA programs around the world. Check out more details here.

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