MB around or MBA round: Orientation Week keeping INSEADers busy

What's up Orientation Week? Kept me busy, uh?

After arriving in Singapore on the 23rd of August, I still haven't stopped. Met my housemates, put up a house together, filled it with healthy groceries (thanks Gorda!), got myself a new cell phone number, opened a bank account, took some medical exams required for my student visa, and more bureaucratic stuff. And that was all non-INSEAD stuff. On top of it, attended INSEAD 17J opening session, met my 200 classmates in Singapore (there are another 300 in Fountainebleu), was introduced to the career services, met my personal career coach, was assigned to one Section (i.e. a class of 1/3 of the Singy students) - Section 03 - and to a Study Group - Group 12.

My group is composed of an Indonesian guy, super cool and sociable, who has been running his family business in the food processing sector - Narendra -, a very outgoing and talkative Indian guy who has been working in different positions within the hospitality business - Raghav -, a Canadian/ Chinese who is the shiest and nicest guy, with background in accounting - Anson -, and a German who works for Mckinsey and with whom I identify myself a lot - Robert. Robert almost joined BCG instead of Mckinsey and is a very laid back and friendly guy. Quite a multicultural group! We are going to work together for two periods, until December. We've started sharing experiences and working styles and we're ready to rock this MBA! I'm happy that everyone is quite committed to doing well in class, and that we seem to be reasonably compatible.

We've had a few interesting sessions, as well. We had a one-day class in General Management, where we practiced all working methods that we will experience in Insead (e.g. Case discussion, role playing, group work, active participation, etc.). We had a few sessions on organizational behavior, business ethics and also in career topics. We've already been contacted and visited on campus by a few companies, mainly consulting ones for now. Recruiting processes for clubs have started too, which definitely kept us even busier! Most importantly, we spent one day helping a charity organization. It was a 3-day project, one day for each section, in which we (literally) built a small market and indoors living area where autistic kids and ex-criminals will now be able to sell the organic vegetables they grow. It included lots of real DIY work and team bonding, and it could not have been a better experience. My hands hurt on the following day. Dad, you can now count on me to repair and build stuff at home!

On top of it all, since Tomas is still in town, orientation week also included some sightseeing, and even more dinners and drinks than usual, usual being quite intense as well. Everyone wishes Gorda was staying with us. Such a popular guy that I got!

Looking forward for this year ahead. There's something special about INSEAD and its people.

Love from Singapore,

Marta