Day 67: The aftermath...

Our "End of P1" Champagne Party was last night. If you were anywhere near campus, you would have heard the music blasting as we celebrated good times, friendships and the end of exams. Even if you didn't know about the party, you could probably have guessed if you were in school today and noticed a significant number of people walking around looking a little bit worse for wear after a pretty epic evening.

I was pretty impressed that we had about 90-95% attendance for first class of the day which thankfully was at 10.15am. Another section had an 8.30am class today and apparently only about half of them showed up for it. The emails have already been flying around today about lost bags/wallets/phones/IDs etc. My favourite email thread from last night though centered around a guy coming home with 2 extra pairs of shoes and emailing the class to find out if anyone had by chance arrived home barefoot and puzzled!

To all my "walking wounded" classmates, I salute you and thank you for a fantastic evening and a memorable P1. Here's to more good times ahead! Oh... and remember to drink a lot of WATER! ;)

Day 65: P2D2

So P2 classes have officially started and some members of my class have yet to return to SGP. I guess if you're going to skip a class, the "best one" to skip would be the first one given that it's the one that will likely have the least content.

What this also means is that the possibility of chalking up a "fine" begins again after a one week break for exams. Fines are the financial penalties that one has to pay into the Section Champagne Fund should one commit any of the following "misdemeanours" in increasing order of financial penalty:

• Being late for class ($5)
• You're late if you walk in after the professor starts speaking 
• Taking a taxi from Dover/Heritage to INSEAD ($5)
• Someone needs to catch you in the act
• Exemption when it's raining (or if you're in a suit?)
• Word vomit ($5)
• Saying something that the class feels is out of point / irrelevant / disrespectful / overly corny OR
• Demonstrating that you have not been paying attention (e.g. asking an identical question to one that was asked before)
• Generally voted on by the class on the spot
• To be fair, it can be somewhat subjective but it is done in good nature and with good faith
• It is by fair the least common fine
• Sleeping in class ($10)
• Photographic evidence needs to be provided
• Forgetting to switch your phone to silent ($20)
• The ringtone needs to be heard for the infringement to occur. Vibrations do not count

You would think that we should be able to stay within these pretty reasonable boundaries with perhaps just a handful of exceptions here and there. You would be wrong...

In the last Period alone, over a period of ~7 weeks, we collected a whopping ~$2150 for the Champagne Fund! According to our social reps, this exceeds the previous record for a period by over 15%!

I doubt this record will be broken this period as about 1/5 of it came from various wagers/bets that we had in class vs. our professors. Let's just say that the subject matter in 1 of the core courses lent itself particularly well to setting up bets and our professor was also keenly aware of that. ;)

Looking forward to a pretty darn amazing champagne party tomorrow to technically officially celebrate the end of P1. =)

Cheers! Salud! Prost! A Votre Sante! Mabuhay! Kam Pai! Skål! zdrowie! L’Chaim! Yum Seng! Saúde! Oogy wawa!

Day 64: Back to school

Back to school again after a 4-day break (essentially just a glorified long weekend).

That being said, not all of us were back today. Given that today's schedule consisted of a career coaching session by an external speaker, many classmates of mine chose to take an extra day of holiday instead of coming to class. I know a large handful of them were still in Borocay today (although they are probably back now as I'm typing this). Not a particularly bad idea I must say, squeezing that little bit extra out of what was already a very short break.

A couple of classmates of mine did a quick calculation regarding the money you "waste" by not attending classes/lectures. I think it came up to ~€130 per 1.5 hour class/lecture*. Given that today's session was roughly 6 hours, my classmates who didn't attend essentially forfeited ~€520 of their tuition. Whether that was worthwhile or not, only they can really answer.

The session today was by Daniel Porot (www.porot.com) and he's an INSEAD alumni. The talks centered around "Making a a radical career change" and "Networking and the art of the unsolicited approach". I must admit that there wasn't much that I heard today that I didn't already know (but I guess that is usually the case at such events).

One thing I did get out from it though was how to gather information about the job you think you want. Essentially you want to reach out to as many people that you know (or that you can get to know) who are in the position you think you want and then ask them the following 6 questions:

1. How did you get this job?
2. What do you like most about your job?
3. What do you like least about your job?
4. What are the key tasks/challenges that you face in your role?
5. What skills/talents does one need to perform those key tasks you mentioned earlier?
6. Could you give me the names of 3 people who like this job as much as you do?

As with most consultants (and I know this from first hand experience), you tend to tell things that your clients already know. Where I think he was most effective was in framing the issues and solution in a way that made it easier for us to remember what they are and to hopefully inspire us to act upon them.  I already knew that you should be asking these questions but I guess by the sheer force of repetition (and perhaps some slick framing), these 6 steps have drilled their way into my head.

Presented like a true consultant if you ask me. Additionally, he has a penchant for drawing multicoloured pictures on his tablet PC to illustrate his point. VERY much like a consultant then (~Partner level) with regards to the use of visuals high on dramatization but low on actual content (unless you paid attention to his stories). If you looked at the pictures alone, you'd think he was playing Pictionary with us.

Still, must be nice to be him. He gets to do something he really enjoys, gets to travel the world to speak about a subject he cares about passionately and gets paid for it.

Picked up my course packs today for P2. Boy do they weigh a lot! Time for the "fun" to begin in earnest tomorrow!



*assumes 25 classes at 24 hours per class over the course of a period. Additional talks/lectures assumed to be a negligible proportion and has the same cost/hour