Et Voila... Le Fin de Business Foundations Program!

Poets and engineers in the strange land of ‘Biznistan’…

A kick in the pants, a rude awakening, a preview of horrors to come, too fast paced… Call it what you want, but there is no getting around the fact that the Business Foundation Program proves to be a very useful preamble to the intense MBA program.

After a rather chilled out introduction and dinner last Monday, the group of 60 or so poets and engineers (INSEAD lingo for students with non-financial backgrounds) were taken on a fast ride that accelerated into high gear from the first session of day 1. The course consists of 3 modules that are supposed to level the playing field when the actual MBA program starts. The modules are Financial Accounting, Finance, and Quantitative Methods & an Introduction to Statistics; all very useful in rekindling one’s love for numbers and analysis.

Group work is the name of the game and my group had an American-French-British Chemical Engineer who worked in pharma, a Vietnamese-Belgian-American lawyer, a Canadian wind turbine engineer, a Lieutenant in the French Army, and a nationality-challenged me… The group dynamics are always interesting, and it is amazing to see how the people responsible for putting the groups together make sure that group members complement each others’ strengths, in the majority of cases.

For me, Finance has always been a necessary evil, and it was no different this time around. The class was the fastest-paced of all and covered essential concepts of ‘time value of money’, ‘stock and bond valuation’, ‘investment evaluation’ (using net present value, internal rate of return, payback and their respective pitfalls), in addition to a basic introduction of the notion to capital budgeting.

The Quantitative Methods course is taught by Mrs. Michele Hibon, a very maternal figure who took a liking to me, memorized my name and called on me whenever she was short on volunteers. I honestly felt like a ten year old in her class, and was somehow hypnotized into understanding subjects I have always hated. It is also nice to know that she is responsible for the tutorials required for the upcoming Uncertainty, Data and Judgment course (a euphemism for Statistics).

Surprisingly, of all three courses, I found Financial Accounting to be the most interesting. I know the words ‘accounting’ and ‘interesting’ do not usually co-exist within the same sentence unless there is a qualifying prefix of ‘not at all’ before ‘interesting’, but this week changed my mind, partly thanks to Professor Liz Demers, a very sharp but accommodating expert/consultant in the field of firm valuation. After getting past the tediousness of journal entries, posting and closing, I can now see (a bit) past the numbers in the resulting financial statements. And after getting past the idiosyncrasies of debits and credits, I found the analysis very intuitive and logical.

It’s a shame I will not be in Prof. Demers’ class next semester, but I also hear lots of good things about Professor David Young, a start-status faculty member at INSEAD who wrote virtually all the case studies we worked on. I actually met him during the Open Day back in October ’09 and enjoyed his mock lecture as you might have read that previous post.
In retrospect, I made the right choice of choosing to attend this primer course as it has set the pace, and broken the ice between me and the modus operandi here at graduate school. The additional 1500 Euro paid for this course was money well spent; and I hope to reap benefits come the beginning of a very busy P1…

…. And 7 hours after I wrote all the above, here I am coming back from a crazy night out with the INSEAD crew… So it all starts at Le Shaker in downtown Fontainebleau at about 9pm… The place is too crowded for comfort, but I am really enjoy it… I guess I owe this in part too a legend who also goes by the name Mounir… A fellow Lebanese, Mounir Doumani was apparently the life of the party in the last promotion, and he got Le Shaker great business from INSEAD’ers. I have some big shoes to fill, especially that I am now on first name basis with the owner, and his side-kick/bartender at Le Shaker… I am actually quite proud to be the first guy in my promotion, along with Rami (whom I just met), to go behind the bar and pose for a picture with the pub “emblem”, whose nature I will only disclose in person, and to a select few (and I am not posting the pic, in case you are wondering)… :)

Orientation week starts on Monday, so I hope I get to run my errands during that (bank, ADSL, phone..etc)

A plus mecs!
MooN