While speaking to our MBA programme manager Aaron this afternoon I learnt that BusinessWeek 2008 rankings are just out, and INSEAD has moved up to third place in the international MBA category!
This is great news; we’ve been moving up the Financial Times rankings over the past few years and are current #6 on a worldwide MBA scale.
Well done, everyone!
I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my post on the INSEAD Dash has been featured on Tomorrow.sg. For those of you who don’t know what it is, it’s Singapore’s premier blog community portal. It’s possibly the equivalent of getting linked from BoingBoing (for want of a closer example).
My analytics is now reporting an overwhelming number of visits from Tomorrow.sg readers.
Thanks to Tinkertailor for the link love :)
Breaking news tonight - the Bush administration is proposing a rescue plan worth $700 billion to buy bad mortgages. To quote Bush:
”In my judgment, based upon the advice of a lot of people who know how markets work, this problem wasn’t going to be contained to just the financial community,” the president said.
You’d have thought a guy with a (ahem) Harvard MBA would already know that on his own…
Finally, INSEAD is in the local newspapers today! The Straits Times has a feature article called “The Business of Getting an MBA”. INSEAD, Chicago Graduate School of Business and Singapore Management University (SMU) are mentioned.
Excerpts about INSEAD:
At renowned French business school Insead, which has a campus in Singapore, enrolment for its MBA programme here has tripled in eight years.
‘The size of the starting classes here in Singapore for the first class in 2000 was 53. Today, this number has grown to over 150,’ said the school.
Well, over here it’s 151 to be precise. And I wonder what Frank Brown is going to say when he hears we’ve been called a ‘French’ business school. In last year’s Business Times article (a sister paper) it was noted that he was quite particular that INSEAD was recognised as an international school.
Continuing on, regarding the payback value of an MBA, it’s not just financial:
But while an MBA is designed to help anyone looking for more dollars and sense, interested students should be ‘most motivated by the opportunity for career advancement as well as career change’, said Ms Gopika Spaenle, associate director of Insead’s MBA Programme Asia Campus.
And to answer the question:
Should I aim for a top-tier school, or settle for a second-tier one?
‘To some extent, brand recognition and school ranking can impact your career prospects as some companies recruit only from the top-tier business schools,’ said Ms Spaenle.
She added that consulting giant McKinsey recruited more than 100 MBA grads from Insead last year - a quarter of its graduating class of 450.
Woot!
[ Note: The Straits Times has a policy whereby after 7 days a lot of their articles may not be available anymore. So read it while you can! ]
The Business Foundations course at INSEAD was challenging, but I have come out stronger for it. However, in the process, I neglected another important subject which now needs drastic attention - Sleep Foundation (i.e. a mattress).
I have not been spending enough time on this subject, and require remedial lessons. Already, the lack of focus on Sleep Foundation has resulted in numerous Breakout Sessions on my face. I hope they will not grow to become serious Group Discussions. If they do, I may need to apply pressure to force a conclusion.
It’s time for bed.
This ZDNet article on what Asian employees are looking for in a job, isn’t too bad. To quote,
It is the total package that counts, by that I mean salary, plus challenging work, a competent and understanding supervisor, great coworkers, and opportunities to keep learning and to move up the ranks.
Recruiters say finding good talent and keeping them is a challenge. I will not argue with that, but I believe more can always be done, and earlier rather than later. In fact, I believe employers can take proactive steps to preempt resignations and to give their staff a reason to stay, way before their staff even start to entertain thoughts and offers of employment elsewhere.
However, I don’t agree on Facebook being classified as simply a distraction to real work, because it’s part of my job :) Or at least, I made it part of my job. It really is a matter of trust - not just for this issue but for everything else as well.
It’s really clear that while it’s nice to have more money, there’s no point staying on if you’re miserable or have no career prospects.
