Dear Prefrosh,
I’m getting some interesting search terms that land hits on the blog, so let me dish out some advice. It will make me feel important. I know I’d said before that this blog wasn’t about you, it’s about me, but I’m feeling particularly generous at the moment. So here’s a bunch of stuff from the top of my head:
-You can bring your Mac. It will work fine.
-Are you the toolbox who’s posting “what kind of calculator should I get?” on the MBAConnect boards? Get one with an IRR button. Three days before the Finance exam you’ll learn what it is. The day before the exam you’ll finally learn how to use it. On the exam you’ll still screw it up.
-You’re not going to get an international guarantee from a US bank for your French loan. Period. Give it up.
-Campusfrance is a worthless, infuriating organization, and the experience is great training for all sorts of things you’ll deal with here (Carte de Sejour medical exam, setting up a bank account, getting a phone plan)
-Fontainebleau in the winter sucks. Avoid at all costs.
-Fontainebleau in the spring and summer is magical. It’s even more special if you were in Fontainebleau over the winter.
-Get the April Mobilite medical insurance everyone else is getting. Everything else is more expensive.
-If you’re a woman from the US, don’t waste your time with the scholarship apps. They’re not for you.
-Worry about who you’ll live with, not where you’ll live.
-If you have things that are induction charged at 110V (toothbrush, razor, etc), don’t be an idiot and expect them to work at 220V.
Okay, I’m bored. Advice dispensing session is done.
…and don’t buy any textbooks apart from the corporate finance one.
Don’t even buy the corporate finance one.
oh c’mon. buy the micro and macro though. I <3 Mankiw
Study like a maniac because even though everyone else says they are taking it easy, the reason they have bloodshot eyes and generally look like shit every morning in the 2 weeks leading up to the exams is not because they have been partying but because they have been reading onscreen PDFs of books they should have purchased.
oh, cute! you miss blogging.
pleeeeaasse, i look like complete shit because i’ve been partying.
Fair enough, Mankiw’s books are better than the rest. If you must splash out on books then buy Mankiw, although you will have enough dead tree to carry around. Little known fact just for you prefroshors: INSEAD was built right next to the largest forest in Europe so that it would have a steady supply of wood for the Harvard Business Case sponsored pulp and paper mill factories located directly beneath the campus.
P.S. I am not entirely sure who you are so can’t tell if you are one of the ones who looks like crap prior to exams.
oh. NB is not the same person as NB2-4?
No, I am now NB 2-5. Whoever you are…keep blogging. Back to Macro studying…
Whats a prefrosh?
Hey how come you deleted your explanation of a prefrosh. The plot thickens.
dude… who is this?
Yeah, I’d like to know what’s a prefrosh, too. And WTF is Campusfrance?
pre-frosh = pre-freshmen = P0s. we called the new admits that in undergrad.
Campus france: http://mbamrs.wordpress.com/2008/10/26/un-bras-dhonneur-for-campus-france/
I just discovered your earlier posts. Cool. Campus France sounds delightful.
you can get mankiw in the library. they will be earlier editions but it doesnt matter as the core is the same – load of bs…
i bought no books in insead – wait – i bought cf as the german prof asked for that. i bought it used and sold it used with 0 loss
sci calculator – waste of precious money and time to learn how to use them. only engineers and straight a folk could use’em. i could not and still managed to get above average.
calculator with 1/x and x^y is needed though.
where u live is imporant – if u get to a posh place, you have posh parties, if you get to tavers like, you have loads of parties. if you get to some shithole apartment with smelly roommate in fonty or god forbid somewhere far far away – you are doomed(((
so book a famouse place and get ready for the party