Tuesday, August 09, 2005
One more day in France.
With about 10 days gone after arrival, France still seems beautiful to me. Thats new for a country I have visited. Things like laundary, Pre-reading etc have taken up their space in my life (healthy sign?). That ought to be good.
Let me start with answering my loyal reader Wannabe's question on First Impression about Fontainebleau.
I had a map to arrive at fontainebleau and a phone number of a "navigator" who was sitting in INSEAD just in case I got lost. I drove from CDG in my rental Clio (yes, I replaced my Kangoo to a Clio - details in the "offline post" that doesn't seem to go online until end of this month). My Clio after navigating through a painful Paris Peripherique traffic got into a very very scenic drive of farms for about 60 Kms. About 5 kms before I got to Fonty, it actually brightened up (with dense forests and trees). Then came the landmark my friend had mentioned to me (an obelise - excuse spelling). A board read fontainebleu. I started following the directions in the map and within 3 minutes I had arrived at AVON (and had passed through the entire town of Fontainebleau). The town is tres tres petite. Its very charming. Most people seemed rich. After about 10 minutes of phone conversation with my friend, I got to the campus. He showed me around. The place is deserted thanks to the summer vacations. I had seen the campus about 2 years back. The only difference is that INSEAD is actually building a couple of 4-5 storied buildings (in progress) and that seems to be the only change. I got to meet a few Phds but no MBAs.
I got to speak to a few people (mostly non-teaching staff) and they all seem to be bored because of the summer. Looks like life seems to be a little "off-beat" when the MBAs are away (considering its ONLY a b-school and not a university with a ton of other things happenning)
My first impression? Middle of nowhere - yet so close to Paris, charming, expensive, elegant, laid-back, and lifeless (without the MBAs around).
This is certain to change after I meet my classmates around so take it with a pinch of salt.
With about 10 days gone after arrival, France still seems beautiful to me. Thats new for a country I have visited. Things like laundary, Pre-reading etc have taken up their space in my life (healthy sign?). That ought to be good.
Let me start with answering my loyal reader Wannabe's question on First Impression about Fontainebleau.
I had a map to arrive at fontainebleau and a phone number of a "navigator" who was sitting in INSEAD just in case I got lost. I drove from CDG in my rental Clio (yes, I replaced my Kangoo to a Clio - details in the "offline post" that doesn't seem to go online until end of this month). My Clio after navigating through a painful Paris Peripherique traffic got into a very very scenic drive of farms for about 60 Kms. About 5 kms before I got to Fonty, it actually brightened up (with dense forests and trees). Then came the landmark my friend had mentioned to me (an obelise - excuse spelling). A board read fontainebleu. I started following the directions in the map and within 3 minutes I had arrived at AVON (and had passed through the entire town of Fontainebleau). The town is tres tres petite. Its very charming. Most people seemed rich. After about 10 minutes of phone conversation with my friend, I got to the campus. He showed me around. The place is deserted thanks to the summer vacations. I had seen the campus about 2 years back. The only difference is that INSEAD is actually building a couple of 4-5 storied buildings (in progress) and that seems to be the only change. I got to meet a few Phds but no MBAs.
I got to speak to a few people (mostly non-teaching staff) and they all seem to be bored because of the summer. Looks like life seems to be a little "off-beat" when the MBAs are away (considering its ONLY a b-school and not a university with a ton of other things happenning)
My first impression? Middle of nowhere - yet so close to Paris, charming, expensive, elegant, laid-back, and lifeless (without the MBAs around).
This is certain to change after I meet my classmates around so take it with a pinch of salt.
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Good luck. As you might know your chances are 70% as against the applicant pool chance of 25%. So good luck and keep me updated.
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