Globetrotting

In P3 (May/June), for the first time I had the chance to pick and choose elective classes. Two classes, namely International Political Analysis and Macroeconomics, were mandatory, but for the remaining classes I had quite some choice. The INSEAD curriculum comprises at least 23.5 credits, 13 of with are covered by mandatory core classes, and 10.5 of which are freely selectable from the broad range of electives, which come as either full-credit or half-credit classes. In P3, I selected a total of 4.0 credits in electives, and in retrospect I picked classes that meant quite a lot of work load, more than in P1 or P2. However, this was also due to the fact that I found most of my classes very interesting and engaging and thus liked to put in some extra effort – but it meant that I had very little spare time, especially after factoring in the social activities which are not really mandatory, but nevertheless an important part of the MBA.

Here is my short wrapup and opinion on the classes I had in P3:

• Macroeconomics in the Global Economy (MGE, core class) I never had a macroeconomics class before, but I still had often wondered how many of the figures that are ubiquitous in newspaper and other articles such as GDP, growth, interest rates, inflation etc. are related and what the mechanics behind those numbers are. Especially in today’s economy, with recession looming in many of the developed countries and the Eurozone crisis being fundamentally driven by many strongly macroeconomic factors and interdependencies, I found it really interesting to learn about the theories and what solutions to the current state of global economy they provide and more importantly, which they don’t. Professor Daniel Traca steered the course along a very structured approach and in a clear pyramid manner, distilling the most essential insights but providing more details for anyone interested – he only sometimes struggled to find the appropriate pace.
• International Political Analysis (IPA, core class) IPA focused both on general non-market strategies that firms need to employ to do business (i.e., the impact that the political environment has on companies and vice versa) as well as the international political and institutional system and its relevance for global trade and business (e.g., the World Trade Organization and bilateral Free Trade Agreements). Professor Vinod Aggarwal, visiting professor from Berkeley, might be one of the most controversial profs I have so far encountered. His classes were no doubt entertaining, but his deliberately politically incorrect ways, a very strong emphasis on his own viewpoints, and a focus on discussion more than structure made it difficult for some students to like him.
• Applied Corporate Finance (ACF, elective) ACF, taught by finance profs Pierre Hillion and Denis Gromb, takes the concepts taught theoretically in FMV (P1) and CFP (P2) and applies them to case studies. Workload-wise, this course was one of the heaviest I have taken so far, with six group case-writeups due over the course of the eight weeks, but it was very well worth the effort: It is quite different to learn about things like the cost of capital, the valuation of projects, or optimal capital structures in theory, and to find a practical answer to the questions posed by a real business situation, where even the most basic parameters are questionable. Both profs did an excellent job at both steering the classroom discussion, highlighting the most important insights, and providing evidence for the practical relevance of the often technical concepts of finance.
• Negotiations (elective) Negotiations, taught by professor Horatio Falcao, is one of the most famous and desired classes on the INSEAD Singapore campus, one of the few which actually require bidding a substantial amount of bidding points to secure a class. It is based heavily on out-of-classroom negotiation case studies, in which two or four students get together (after a hopefully thorough preparation on each side) to negotiate, and then reflect on the process individually and in the classroom. While I think that the class content is very relevant for day-to-day management work, and that some of the concepts can certainly be valuable, the value of the negotiation exercises was sometimes a bit diminished by the fact that all participating students had learned the same concepts in class and the negotiations therefore went down a bit more smoothly than you would expect in a real-life situation – especially when there might be tensions and reservations pre-existing between the negoation parties, and not a sense of friendship and comradery as between INSEAD students. One out-of-class negotiation that was conducted with actors instead of fellow students, I therefore found particularly valuable, but also challenging to the point of frustration.
• New Business Ventures (NBV, elective) NBV was, unfortunately, the most disappointing of my classes. It is intended as a class giving the most important guidelines for founding and growing new companies. However, in terms of what I actually took away from the class, I found it to be not very rewarding, which might partly be due to the fact that I already had multiple entrepreneurship classes in my Master’s as part of my minor. In addition, in my view professor Hongwei Xu was not fully able to convey all of the passion for entrepreneurship he has into the classroom, and so many of the discussions lacked in energy. In addition, the class had a very heavy workload, with a 20-page group report plus venture presentation, an entrepreneurship interview, a simulation assignment and multiple individual case questions. The most rewarding part of the class was the group project, but if my sole intention of taking the class had been working on a potential business idea with other students, I might as well have taken Entrepreneurial Field Studies (EFS) instead, without 16 full class sessions. On the plus side, the many guest speakers we had over the course of the class were mostly very intersting and insightful.
• Market Driving Strategies (MDS, elective) The MDS class is a very compact class, revolving around a full weekend running the simulation program Markstrat, which was developed by two INSEAD professors and is used at business schools across the world. Markstrat is a game-like simulation (but based on theoretic principles) in which teams of 4-5 students run a manufacturing company over the course of 9 simulated years, making decisions as to which products to produce and how to advertise and sell them. 5 teams of students competed against each other, which meant that each team not only had to keep a close eye on the customers and its own performance, but also anticipate actions of competitors and act accordingly. The class was a very interesting and fruitful experience, and professor Ziv Carmon did a very good job at both introducting the simulation and providing valuable tips during the course of the simulation without distorting the actual outcomes.

Looking back at my experience in P3, I have learned a few things for how I will pick my electives for P4 and P5: Firstly, I will attend more classes than I actually want to attend for the first few sessions in order to get a feeling for whether I like the class or not. Secondly, I will pay closer attention to the previous promotions’ evaluations of the classes. Lastly, I will read the syllabus carefully before making my final choice to understand how much work is involved in each of the classes – while I expected the high workload of some of the classes (like ACF) I was taken more by surprise by some of the others.