Spring is in the air

Spring has arrived in Fontainebleau, and, like the birds and flowers and sun, my blog is re-emerging. It has been such a long time since I last updated my personal patch of cyberspace that I can't even remember what I last wrote. My intention was that this blog would serve as a regular diary of my INSEAD activities, and thus make a nice souvenir to look back on a few years from now. Clearly, failing to update it for 4 months of a 10 month program somewhat undermines that aim. Unfortunately I don't have it in me to go back and recap the last 4 months, so I'll have to simply take up from the present, and rely on the oldest form of media, the human memory, for the intervening period.

So to the present. As I said, Spring has arrived in Fontainebleau. In Australia we don't have much of a winter, which is nice, but it denies us the soul restoring pleasure of a true spring. A few weeks ago it was dark, dreary and cold here, the forest was little more than a haunting collection of bare trees and sickly looking pines. On the rare occasion the sun came out it arrived late and left again with the population still indoors, struggling through lectures or work. Then, one day, the sun came up, and the thermometer broke into double figures. And now, suddenly, everything has changed. Seemingly out of nowhere the sun has not only returned, but seems to have set up permanent camp alone in the sky, unbothered by clouds for days on end. The footpaths are suddenly adorned with yellow and purple as once dead nature strips turn into flower beds, and slowly but surely green is returning to the forest. At the same time wintercoats have disappeared and t-shirts are re-emerging. A few brave souls have ventured to shorts and flip-flops, and its impossible to deny the enjoyment provided by the natural shortening of skirts and lowering of neck lines that accompanies the rise in temperatures.

While Spring is wholly welcomed, there is another season in full swing at Fonty, and it has a more bittersweet flavour. It's recruitment time for our class, and while it's a time that offers plenty of excitement for the myriad opportunities that seem just over the horizon, it is also a time that drives home the sad fact that, sooner or later, the INSEAD sleep must end. Recruitment is the real world, rudely knocking on the door while we try to grasp the last, fleeting moments of a pleasant dream.

An upside of recruiting at INSEAD is that it is accompanied by much less of the soul searching moralizing that marks an undergrad law student's job search. Few people indeed are wracking themselves with guilt over whether to the sell their souls in the corporate world or instead try and change the world working in low paid but meaningful non-profit or public service roles. Being older, and I think a little wiser makes the average MBA quite comfortable with selling his or her soul. The question is who is the highest bidder for that soul, and how can one ensure a good resale value for said soul a few years from now.

The downside is The Fear. Other than the lucky sponsored few, all students are haunted, to some extent at least, by The Fear, in a way that an undergraduate student, particularly in 2006, never worries. The Fear is that the job will not come. That one could invest all this time and money and effort into an MBA and then freeze when asked to figure out how many ping pong balls fit into a 747. Or that one's CV will only be compared to other INSEAD students, each one of which seems to have a more amazing previous career than the next one. And that in July, when the real world takes your classmates back into its well paid embrace, you will be left with a debt hangover to match the Greek budget, and the employment prospects of an Irish property developer, and your international outlook and diverse class mates will be of little consolation. No one talks about The Fear, but it's there. And the only way to deal with the fear is to ignore it steadfastly, and listen to the warm and fuzzy promises of the real world as potential future employers line up to dangle promises before you.

The consultants have made their pitch, all slick presentations and fancy dinners. Intriguingly, each of the consulting firms informs us that what differentiates them from the others is 'the people' and the focus on results/impact/solutions (choose your synonym). A natural cynicism aside, they did make compelling arguments, and consulting fever has hit INSEAD, sweeping all in its path. Barely a break out room can be found that isn't occupied by eager students practicing their case interview skills, gripped by excitement at the glamorous 'Up in the Air' lifestyle and the promise of 'a new challenge every day', and of course, gripped also by The Fear. It would be dishonest to leave you with the impression I was above all this, so I openly admit that mine is also one of the annoying voices floating around the west wing, distracting all those trying to study, reasoning its way to the annual income of a taxi driver, or the feasibility of entering the Norwegian broadband market.

In the next few weeks industry will strike back, seeking to lure back the seduced aspiring consultants with promises of fast career progression, real responsibility and a more friendly work-life balance. One of the major energy companies presented a few days ago, and arguably got industry off to a bad start, with one of the stranger openings to a recruitment presentations I have seen. "At our company, we take safety very seriously, so I'd like to begin our presentation by pointing out that this room has two emergency exits, one here and one there" she said, as pointed out, to a bemused looking group of MBAs, the locations of the doors to their own lecture theatre. The same doors through which they had just entered.

Recruitment aside, INSEAD continues at its usual fast pace and somewhat surreal rhythm. National Weeks have come and gone. Heart of Europe week, where I donned my German face for a week, was a great success, and ran with impressive, and distinctly cliched, efficiency. The beer was plentiful, and the fun was had by all. Following the Heart of Europe week was always going to be tough, and it fell to the Russian and Eastern Europe crowd to organise the next one, with the interestingly titled 'Iron Curtain Week'. It's not for me to tell people what to call their national weeks, but I have to admit I was surprised that the Poles, Czechs and Hungarians wanted anything to do with an Iron Curtain week, or the Friday party and its Red Army theme. True to its name, the Red Army party left carnage in its wake. For reasons unknown (but quite possibly connected to the name of the week), Iron Curtain had a hard time attracting sponsorship, and in the end Russian Standard Vodka was the lone sponsor. But they sponsored in kind, not cash.

As it turns out, even at a party where the average age is approaching 30, and the guests are amongst the most expensively educated people on the planet, serving free, unlimited and unmeasured shots of straight vodka for an evening is a bad idea. The full repercussions are still emerging, but while a nasty hang over was all that most people had to overcome, others were left with more long term damage. Of course, it would be indiscreet to recount that here.

It's hard to believe, but I think I may even be getting sun burnt out here, and my laptop is running out of juice. Aside from that, I still haven't tired of the INSEAD cafeteria, and lunch is calling.