IT is just about the midpoint of summer break; July is nearly done and classes start on August 25. Sitting in an empty house in rural France, Lucky spots an opportunity to take a deep breath and take stock of what is to come.
The year thus far has been, on the whole, spectacular. Insead, for its many faults, does get many things right, and luckily, they coincide with my rationale for attending. The course material has been interesting and extremely diverse; not as deep as expected but certainly enough for general managers. The vaunted student body is every bit as international as advertised; I run out of fingers and toes when counting the nationalities of my good friends. The two weak spots, consistency of teaching and the performance of CMS (Career Management Service), are glaring but undergoing improvement efforts; updates to follow.
Standing at the beginning of P4/P5, only two core courses remain; the rest will be electives. It's likely that I will only take seven or eight more courses, and devote the rest of my time to the job search. Having taken 15 courses so far, academically the experience is well over two-thirds done; this is a slightly depressing realization. I have a feeling that years from now, I will look back on this experience as one of the greatest opportunities for growth that I have ever had. It's a shame that it goes by so quickly that you often don't have time to realize what is actually happening. I suppose such is the nature of change, in this context at least.
Next week Lucky will visit his old friends and family, and try to relate what has happened this year so far. I find it hard to explain, but that just means that my communications skills have far to go. My current favorite explanation is that now I have a much better idea of why the various and numerous failures in my business life happened, and know what I would have done differently had I known then what I know now.
Where to go from here? Networking, interviewing, research, preparation... thinking about the return to real life. Away from the bubble of life at Insead, necessitating a plan for where I will ultimately end up. So many options, so little time. But it's a great problem to have.
11:04:51 PM 
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