Grades at INSEAD are calculated based on the z-curve, centered on a mean of 2.5 with a standard deviation of 1 (a curve all students will be intimately familiar with by the end of P1). This means that if you get a 3.5, you were 1 standard deviation above the average grade of the class. A failing grade is one that is 3 standard deviations below the mean (i.e. -0.5; yes, we can get negative grades here...)
INSEAD also has a policy of not revealing grades, and strives to make sure no one fails (or at least very, very few people).
So far, so good.
The result, however, is that professors put every effort into crafting impossibly difficult exams, that have very little, if anything, to do with what we actually studied in class. This, they tell us, is for our own good. With these types of exams, the average grade is ridiculously low, and the standard deviation very high (since some students get abysmal results, while others - who used to be Nobel-prize-level experts in advanced statistics or option pricing models - do quite well). This way, no one fails. For example, if the mean is 50, and the standard deviation is 20, even getting a 0 means you pass (since you are only 2.5 standard deviations below the mean).
Not failing is a good thing, don't get me wrong, but the (unintended?) consequence is that a) students are affected by severe depression after exiting an exam and b) (and this one surely is unintended) there is little incentive to study what we did in class. So basically we finish a period needing happy pills and having learned quite a bit less than we should have.
Of course I'm exaggerating, but still, there's a reason why I'm writing this instead of studying POM right now...
Showing posts with label Exams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Exams. Show all posts
Dec 10, 2007
Big girls don't cry
Much has been said about the lack of time at INSEAD. Lack of time to sleep, lack of time to exercise, lack of time to catch up on the Kilimanjaro-sized packet of reading materials... There's a much bigger problem, though. Lack of time to deal with your personal life, and whatever happens to be going on in your mind, heart or body. Family problems? Relationship trouble? Feeling blue, heartbroken, deathly ill? Tough. You still need to study accounting. And finance. And and and... We always say INSEAD is a bubble, where we live cloistered and protected from the real world. But sometimes the real world comes knocking, or prefers the more subtle approach of smacking you about the head with a baseball bat, and there's really no time to do anything about it.
So back I go to exam prep. And since it's exam prep time again, I suppose it's also wrap-up time again, where I tell give all you avid readers the skinny on classes this period. So here goes:
Corporate Financial Policy (Pascal Maenhout): Pascal is a great guy, a great teacher, has tremendous school spirit (can't believe I embarrassed myself at Cabaret in front of the Finance prof!) and all around a superstar. Finance, on the other hand, I'm less enthralled with. Especially the derivatives part (which is about half the course). As I was discussing with a fellow finance-averse student today, it's not so much "WHAT???" as "WHY????"
Managerial Accounting (Jake Cohen): Jake is an INSEAD legend. Everybody loves him, and half of Cabaret is devoted to imitating him. Personally, the guy leaves me cold. However, we did learn something in his class, and he actually got me over my visceral hatred of accounting, so that counts for something.
Process & Operations Management (Taylor Randall): I don't think anyone was expecting much from this class (except maybe the cement guy). At first blush, it seemed like it was going to be pretty boring. But hats off to Taylor, who made it entertaining and relevant, and who is now largely responsible for the whole class wanting to work for Zara. My only concern is that the class focused mostly on qualitative analysis of processes, although apparently the exam is going to be mostly quantitative. We'll see how that goes.
Strategy (Andrew Shipilov): Sure, some people dislike the more "fuzzy" elements of the curriculum, but for me this is what business is all about. The case method approach worked really well, the Blue Ocean Strategy portion of the course was entertaining, and Andrew is a very engaging professor. So two thumbs up from me on this one.
Foundations of Marketing (Xavier Dreze): I'm going to risk creating controversy here, but I liked Marketing. Yes, I know this is not the majority opinion, as most of the class expressed a clear distaste both for the subject and for the professor. Not me, though, which is a pretty good thing considering I've got "Marketing" at the top of my future careers list!
Leading Organizations (Tom d'Aunno): I don't want to be mean, but honestly, what a let-down after GP's course in P1. I think the subject is quite interesting, but something about Tom just rubs me the wrong way. He definitely tries hard, so I give him credit for that, but I just don't feel he's sincere, and he has a tendency to pick on people in a way that is not always appropriate.
There you go. All 6 courses in under 100 words. Next period, which comes after a week of exams (#§%&!) and a much-looked-forward-to long Christmas break, I'll be taking two core courses ("Macroeconomics" and "International Political Analysis") and four electives ("Corporate Entrepreneurship", "Market Driving Strategies", "Strategies for Product and Services Development" and "Mergers, Acquisitions, Alliances & Corporate Strategy"). Probably not much time then either for a personal life.
So back I go to exam prep. And since it's exam prep time again, I suppose it's also wrap-up time again, where I tell give all you avid readers the skinny on classes this period. So here goes:
Corporate Financial Policy (Pascal Maenhout): Pascal is a great guy, a great teacher, has tremendous school spirit (can't believe I embarrassed myself at Cabaret in front of the Finance prof!) and all around a superstar. Finance, on the other hand, I'm less enthralled with. Especially the derivatives part (which is about half the course). As I was discussing with a fellow finance-averse student today, it's not so much "WHAT???" as "WHY????"
Managerial Accounting (Jake Cohen): Jake is an INSEAD legend. Everybody loves him, and half of Cabaret is devoted to imitating him. Personally, the guy leaves me cold. However, we did learn something in his class, and he actually got me over my visceral hatred of accounting, so that counts for something.
Process & Operations Management (Taylor Randall): I don't think anyone was expecting much from this class (except maybe the cement guy). At first blush, it seemed like it was going to be pretty boring. But hats off to Taylor, who made it entertaining and relevant, and who is now largely responsible for the whole class wanting to work for Zara. My only concern is that the class focused mostly on qualitative analysis of processes, although apparently the exam is going to be mostly quantitative. We'll see how that goes.
Strategy (Andrew Shipilov): Sure, some people dislike the more "fuzzy" elements of the curriculum, but for me this is what business is all about. The case method approach worked really well, the Blue Ocean Strategy portion of the course was entertaining, and Andrew is a very engaging professor. So two thumbs up from me on this one.
Foundations of Marketing (Xavier Dreze): I'm going to risk creating controversy here, but I liked Marketing. Yes, I know this is not the majority opinion, as most of the class expressed a clear distaste both for the subject and for the professor. Not me, though, which is a pretty good thing considering I've got "Marketing" at the top of my future careers list!
Leading Organizations (Tom d'Aunno): I don't want to be mean, but honestly, what a let-down after GP's course in P1. I think the subject is quite interesting, but something about Tom just rubs me the wrong way. He definitely tries hard, so I give him credit for that, but I just don't feel he's sincere, and he has a tendency to pick on people in a way that is not always appropriate.
There you go. All 6 courses in under 100 words. Next period, which comes after a week of exams (#§%&!) and a much-looked-forward-to long Christmas break, I'll be taking two core courses ("Macroeconomics" and "International Political Analysis") and four electives ("Corporate Entrepreneurship", "Market Driving Strategies", "Strategies for Product and Services Development" and "Mergers, Acquisitions, Alliances & Corporate Strategy"). Probably not much time then either for a personal life.
Dec 5, 2007
What? Exams again?
So, I was feeling pretty good about myself.
- I handed in the final version of my CV for publication in the INSEAD CV book (apparently this best-seller, complete with mugshots of us beautiful people, will help us land a job to pay back all those loans; not sure how many recruiters still read books, though...)
- Our top-notch L'Oreal team submitted all decisions for the first round of the game, launching what promises to be an innovative, aggressive, blue ocean strategy of our own.
- My group finished the last Finance assignment due tomorrow (moral of the assignment: shareholders are not to be trusted) and has made good headway into the Strategy assignment due Sunday (moral of that assignment: the airline industry sucks).
- After many, many rehearsals, both performances I'm involved with for Cabaret tomorrow just about pass the giggle test, and I have a mask for the ball on Saturday.
But then I remembered we have exams. Again. And they start next week. And in the midst of all that working on group assignments, honing my acting skills, figuring out what to do with my life and attempting to sleep just enough not to get deathly ill, I completely forgot to study!
At this stage, it's best I just forget about all this exam malarkey and focus on the Christmas break...
PS: A quick personal thank you to all the people (from inside and outside the bubble) who made last weekend very special.
- I handed in the final version of my CV for publication in the INSEAD CV book (apparently this best-seller, complete with mugshots of us beautiful people, will help us land a job to pay back all those loans; not sure how many recruiters still read books, though...)
- Our top-notch L'Oreal team submitted all decisions for the first round of the game, launching what promises to be an innovative, aggressive, blue ocean strategy of our own.
- My group finished the last Finance assignment due tomorrow (moral of the assignment: shareholders are not to be trusted) and has made good headway into the Strategy assignment due Sunday (moral of that assignment: the airline industry sucks).
- After many, many rehearsals, both performances I'm involved with for Cabaret tomorrow just about pass the giggle test, and I have a mask for the ball on Saturday.
But then I remembered we have exams. Again. And they start next week. And in the midst of all that working on group assignments, honing my acting skills, figuring out what to do with my life and attempting to sleep just enough not to get deathly ill, I completely forgot to study!
At this stage, it's best I just forget about all this exam malarkey and focus on the Christmas break...
PS: A quick personal thank you to all the people (from inside and outside the bubble) who made last weekend very special.
Nov 11, 2007
A Week in the Life of P2
Sorry it's been a while. If you knew what a typical INSEAD week looks like these days, though, you'd understand. In fact, let me give you a guided tour of a fairly standard week in my life:
Saturday: (we start here because all good things start on a Saturday, in my book)
No class today. This is very exciting. Lots of reading to do, though... slightly less exciting. Plus there's rugby practice (and trust me, it's cold). Then there's the frantic last minute shopping for essential accessories for whatever themed party is going on. Tonight, it's the Montmelian Ball 7 Sins extravaganza. My sin of choice for the evening: greed. Goes very nicely with all the champagne. Mmmmm...
Sunday: The day of rest. Well sort of. Very little time to actually recover from last night's party before I realize I better finish the reading in case Jake Cohen (accounting superstar and my worst nightmare) decides to call on me. And you know he will.
Monday: We kick off the day with Accounting at 8.30 am before running off to Finance and an all-afternoon-long CV workshop. By this point I'm already exhausted but I have rugby practice again. (Yes, dear friends, you weren't misreading earlier, I have actually joined the women's rugby team. Laugh all you want). It's even colder now than it was on Saturday.
Tuesday: Long day of class today largely spent discussing power tools, until it's time for our section's long-awaited champagne party. As co-organiser, I naturally feel obligated to get there early and drink as much champagne as possible. According to all those surveyed, as well as the tell-tale glazed expressions the next morning, the party was a huge success.
Wednesday: L'Oreal comes to school today to present it's e-strat business game. My team is now all set and ready to shine in the glitzy world of cosmetics. We quickly come back down to earth in POM and Accounting. In the evening, my study group spends a couple hours playing with single-server queue theory before devouring a delicious meal at a local Michelin 1* restaurant (La Table Saint Juste, I recommend it).
Thursday: Heavy class schedule today, and I'm determined to go to bed early tonight. But first we have to learn about Black-Scholes and apply it stock options for our group assignment in finance. And then there's people having drinks at Aussie Bar and, well, life is short, I'll sleep next year.
Friday: Today is big scary exam results day. If you want to know how I did, well, I can't tell you. INSEAD non-disclosure policy, you understand. Things have been happily coordinated, and we end up having our exam results distributed in a 1-hr window from a single, small office during class time. Needless to say there were suddenly quite a few empty seats in what is usually a packed amphi for Taylor Randall's one-man-POM-comedy routine. And then we still have to sit through 3 hours of LO until 7pm before finally being able to run screaming through the halls on our way to the closest bar (seeking either celebration or comfort...)
And then it starts all over again...
Highlights for the upcoming week include: the INSEAD Dash on Wednesday morning (8am), two group assignments to prepare, auditions for Cabaret, more rugby practice, and a weekend trip to Barcelona with the team to play against LBS and IESE...
Saturday: (we start here because all good things start on a Saturday, in my book)
No class today. This is very exciting. Lots of reading to do, though... slightly less exciting. Plus there's rugby practice (and trust me, it's cold). Then there's the frantic last minute shopping for essential accessories for whatever themed party is going on. Tonight, it's the Montmelian Ball 7 Sins extravaganza. My sin of choice for the evening: greed. Goes very nicely with all the champagne. Mmmmm...
Sunday: The day of rest. Well sort of. Very little time to actually recover from last night's party before I realize I better finish the reading in case Jake Cohen (accounting superstar and my worst nightmare) decides to call on me. And you know he will.
Monday: We kick off the day with Accounting at 8.30 am before running off to Finance and an all-afternoon-long CV workshop. By this point I'm already exhausted but I have rugby practice again. (Yes, dear friends, you weren't misreading earlier, I have actually joined the women's rugby team. Laugh all you want). It's even colder now than it was on Saturday.
Tuesday: Long day of class today largely spent discussing power tools, until it's time for our section's long-awaited champagne party. As co-organiser, I naturally feel obligated to get there early and drink as much champagne as possible. According to all those surveyed, as well as the tell-tale glazed expressions the next morning, the party was a huge success.
Wednesday: L'Oreal comes to school today to present it's e-strat business game. My team is now all set and ready to shine in the glitzy world of cosmetics. We quickly come back down to earth in POM and Accounting. In the evening, my study group spends a couple hours playing with single-server queue theory before devouring a delicious meal at a local Michelin 1* restaurant (La Table Saint Juste, I recommend it).
Thursday: Heavy class schedule today, and I'm determined to go to bed early tonight. But first we have to learn about Black-Scholes and apply it stock options for our group assignment in finance. And then there's people having drinks at Aussie Bar and, well, life is short, I'll sleep next year.
Friday: Today is big scary exam results day. If you want to know how I did, well, I can't tell you. INSEAD non-disclosure policy, you understand. Things have been happily coordinated, and we end up having our exam results distributed in a 1-hr window from a single, small office during class time. Needless to say there were suddenly quite a few empty seats in what is usually a packed amphi for Taylor Randall's one-man-POM-comedy routine. And then we still have to sit through 3 hours of LO until 7pm before finally being able to run screaming through the halls on our way to the closest bar (seeking either celebration or comfort...)
And then it starts all over again...
Highlights for the upcoming week include: the INSEAD Dash on Wednesday morning (8am), two group assignments to prepare, auditions for Cabaret, more rugby practice, and a weekend trip to Barcelona with the team to play against LBS and IESE...
Oct 21, 2007
The End of Chapter One
Last P1 classes were held on Friday, exams start tomorrow: this is it. The end of P1. I won't bore you with additional grumblings about exam prep because a) I've already gone into that and b) my fellow blogging classmates have already given a pretty vivid portrayal of the the whole ordeal.
But I do want to give you a quick run-down on my P1 profs since only the E1/E2 profs have been mentioned by other bloggers and I think their E3/E4 counterparts deserve a little recognition (besides Nikos, the Athenian Econ legend of whom much has already been said, profs only teach two sections each.) So here goes:
Gianpiero Petriglieri (aka "GP") (LPG): This guy is awesome. Future intakes take note: no matter what your preconceived notions may be about the value of organizational behaviour classes, you are going to end up loving GP. He somehow managed to make an entire class of finance-obsessed geeks delve into their dark, touchy-feely hidden depths to the point where, by the end of the final class, half of us were actually choking up (and the other half were squirming uncomfortably). Group psycho-therapy at its best, led by genuinely nice, Burberry-wearing Italian. What more can you ask for?!
Ioana Popescu (aka "Yo-anna!") (Stats): Statistics is not funny. Nor is it an easy subject to get your head around, especially if you've never done it before. And then comes Ioana, and with a little help from inspirational music, a sense of humour, and some brilliant teaching skills, statistics actually becomes cool. Or cool-er than you thought it would be, anyway. Hats off to you, Ioana, you actually made me consider becoming "the statistician" for a brief second (but then I took the practice exam and realized my skills might be better used elsewhere...!)
Jean Dermine (aka "The Dreamer") (Finance): I came in not expecting to understand anything in this class. And indeed, at first, my expectations were verified. But then some of it actually started making sense, and now I can calculate a WACC and unlever a beta like it was second nature (well, maybe third or fourth nature, but still...) Jean has a more traditional, "gallic" professorial style than the other profs, which did not sit well with everyone at first, but I think he did a first-rate job. And his cracks about other INSEAD-profs and their obsession with EVA are the stuff of legends.
Steve Baginsky (aka "Budweiser Man") (Accounting): I like Steve, I really do. He's a nice man and he clearly tries hard. I just don't like accounting. I could fill reams of A4 double-sided paper explaining how much I don't like accounting. Sorry Steve.
But now it's time to say goodbye to these folks and move on to the next batch of profs and subjects. Coming up in P2: Corporate Financial Policy, Foundations of Marketing, Leading Organisations, Managerial Accounting (groan...), Process & Operations Management and Strategy. But first we have exams, and a four-day group trip to Morocco (Marrakech and Essaouira, about which more later) which will hopefully do wonders to relieve tensions, make everyone happy and love each other again, and provide us with some much-needed warmth.
And so, from the sub-arctic igloos of Fontainebleau, I wish you farewell, for now.
But I do want to give you a quick run-down on my P1 profs since only the E1/E2 profs have been mentioned by other bloggers and I think their E3/E4 counterparts deserve a little recognition (besides Nikos, the Athenian Econ legend of whom much has already been said, profs only teach two sections each.) So here goes:
Gianpiero Petriglieri (aka "GP") (LPG): This guy is awesome. Future intakes take note: no matter what your preconceived notions may be about the value of organizational behaviour classes, you are going to end up loving GP. He somehow managed to make an entire class of finance-obsessed geeks delve into their dark, touchy-feely hidden depths to the point where, by the end of the final class, half of us were actually choking up (and the other half were squirming uncomfortably). Group psycho-therapy at its best, led by genuinely nice, Burberry-wearing Italian. What more can you ask for?!
Ioana Popescu (aka "Yo-anna!") (Stats): Statistics is not funny. Nor is it an easy subject to get your head around, especially if you've never done it before. And then comes Ioana, and with a little help from inspirational music, a sense of humour, and some brilliant teaching skills, statistics actually becomes cool. Or cool-er than you thought it would be, anyway. Hats off to you, Ioana, you actually made me consider becoming "the statistician" for a brief second (but then I took the practice exam and realized my skills might be better used elsewhere...!)
Jean Dermine (aka "The Dreamer") (Finance): I came in not expecting to understand anything in this class. And indeed, at first, my expectations were verified. But then some of it actually started making sense, and now I can calculate a WACC and unlever a beta like it was second nature (well, maybe third or fourth nature, but still...) Jean has a more traditional, "gallic" professorial style than the other profs, which did not sit well with everyone at first, but I think he did a first-rate job. And his cracks about other INSEAD-profs and their obsession with EVA are the stuff of legends.
Steve Baginsky (aka "Budweiser Man") (Accounting): I like Steve, I really do. He's a nice man and he clearly tries hard. I just don't like accounting. I could fill reams of A4 double-sided paper explaining how much I don't like accounting. Sorry Steve.
But now it's time to say goodbye to these folks and move on to the next batch of profs and subjects. Coming up in P2: Corporate Financial Policy, Foundations of Marketing, Leading Organisations, Managerial Accounting (groan...), Process & Operations Management and Strategy. But first we have exams, and a four-day group trip to Morocco (Marrakech and Essaouira, about which more later) which will hopefully do wonders to relieve tensions, make everyone happy and love each other again, and provide us with some much-needed warmth.
And so, from the sub-arctic igloos of Fontainebleau, I wish you farewell, for now.
Oct 14, 2007
Positive Thinking for Dummies
MDS is right, positive thoughts can come in handy during hard times. So here's my brave attempt:
Bad Thing: The finance group project is insanely complicated, and we have spent hours working on it already, thereby severely cutting into our exam prep time.
Good Thing: Little old public international lawyer me has actually valued a company. Seriously. How cool is that?!
Bad Thing: I hate accounting, can't seem to put the time or energy into getting my head around it, and as a result may end up failing that class.
Good Thing: I can now definitively strike off "accountant" from my list of potential drastic career moves.
Bad Thing: I am so behind in my studying I feel I would need an entire sabbatical year (yes, another one) just to get on top of things.
Good Thing: One of the reasons I am so behind is that I was dancing the night away at the end-of-Lebanese-week "Absolut Beirut" party. Pretty good trade-off, in my book.
Bad Thing: I didn't get a spot to go to Singapore.
Good Thing: I don't have to stress and lose valuable social/study time trying to find a new place to live. And I get to go skiing while all my classmates are exploring the beaches of South East Asia. (I'm trying really hard to find the positives here...)
Bad Thing: Exams start in one week.
Good Thing: Post-exam exhilarating madness in Morocco starts in ten days.
Bad Thing: P1 is almost over.
Good Thing: P1 is almost over.
Bad Thing: The finance group project is insanely complicated, and we have spent hours working on it already, thereby severely cutting into our exam prep time.
Good Thing: Little old public international lawyer me has actually valued a company. Seriously. How cool is that?!
Bad Thing: I hate accounting, can't seem to put the time or energy into getting my head around it, and as a result may end up failing that class.
Good Thing: I can now definitively strike off "accountant" from my list of potential drastic career moves.
Bad Thing: I am so behind in my studying I feel I would need an entire sabbatical year (yes, another one) just to get on top of things.
Good Thing: One of the reasons I am so behind is that I was dancing the night away at the end-of-Lebanese-week "Absolut Beirut" party. Pretty good trade-off, in my book.
Bad Thing: I didn't get a spot to go to Singapore.
Good Thing: I don't have to stress and lose valuable social/study time trying to find a new place to live. And I get to go skiing while all my classmates are exploring the beaches of South East Asia. (I'm trying really hard to find the positives here...)
Bad Thing: Exams start in one week.
Good Thing: Post-exam exhilarating madness in Morocco starts in ten days.
Bad Thing: P1 is almost over.
Good Thing: P1 is almost over.
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