Wednesday, January 28, 2009

The Economy & Other stuff

I had the financial crisis explained to me real nice in my P3 Macro-economics course. The only reaction I had to it was, WTF! I understand that things look real simple in retrospect, but the sheer volume of greed that realtors and bankers engaged in just shocked me. I seriously began to question some of the principles of the capitalistic system we live in. I started reading some Marx just to get some hope that there may be alternate ideologies that are rooted in something more substantial.

Am I saying that an MBA is a waste? I am not sure. However, I feel that there are definitely some lessons towards learning how to make tradeoffs between pure financial gain and long term sustenance.

5 comments:

Rohit Nalgirkar said...

Hey,

Thanks for writing very useful tips about the INSEAD experience.
Ifins myself in a very similar boat as yous (Indian, Male, IT, sufficient foreign experience, INSEAD July 2010 class admit etc).
It would be great if I could write to you and ask some practical questions.

BTW< really interested to know what happenned to the L'Oreal schol. Did u get it? Also where did you manage to get a loan?

Hope I dont take too much of ur time.
Cheers,
Rohit

Creative said...

Rohit,

Feel free to post the practical questions here. I'd be happy to respond pretty quickly to them. I should also state that I do think that an MBA is useful. My previous post was in a moment of weakness :-)

I did not get the L'Oreal scholarship as the competition was pretty intense. I got my loan from Sallie Mae in the US. The only problem is that the interest rate was 6% which is not bad, but definitely not that great either.

Cheers,
IA

Rohit Nalgirkar said...

Thanks for the quick response.
Here are some of the questions that I had:
1) I assume you had to provide a co-signer for the Sallie Mae loan. I have a US co-signer available. What exactly does a co-signer have to do? Just sign a document stating that he is willing to pay if I default? Or put in some security (eg a house) as a collateral? As you can imagine, my co-signer would be willing to sign for me but not put in any of his assets on the block.
2) In your blog, I find that you are paying 500 odd euros for rent. Can you please tell me which place are you staying and how do I contact the owners to book a place for me. Also if you can tell what kind of place is it and how far is it from INSEAD. I have read ur post regarding apartments on Rue Royale, Rue St Mary, Avon etc., but not sure where exactly are you staying.
3) Do you think working abroad went against you for winning scholarships(I mean financially it is difficult to justify that you need scholarships)? I heard somewhere that all Indians win some scholarship in INSEAD. But that doesn’t seem to be the case with you?

I hope it doesn’t take up too much of your precious time ! Thanks very much again !!

Creative said...

1) The US Cosigner does not have to put in any collateral. But he does cosign the fact that in case you default he will pay.
2) There are several places in town where you can pay 500-600 euros per month for rent. I stay really close to school and found the apartment by getting on MBA connect. If you're starting in August, the best time to look for these good deals is June onwards. I stay on Rue Royale. It's just a block from school.
3) Working in a developed country does go against you in scholarship decisions. I think it helps if you keep 'informing/sharing' with the school that you need the money then it really helps move the process along in your favor. I would say that 75% of desi's have a scholarship here. Most of them are pretty qualified. I happen to be from the US with a regular profile (nothing super exceptional going on here).

Rohit Nalgirkar said...

Thanks a lot for your valuable comments.