Fontainebleau living spots

Good locations in Fontainebleau city to live in:

1. Rue Royale Apartments on Rue Royale. This is probably the closest place to campus and also happens to be very comfortable living.
2. Rue St Merry, Rue St Honore, Rue de France, Rue Grande: These are streets that are within 10-15 mins walking distance from school. The quality of apartments varies widely, so you really want to see pics and take your time to choose. Lots of people pressurize you into believing that there is a supply problem. IMO, this is pure BS. There's sufficient housing until say 1 month before school starts. After that things do start getting tight. Also, the Round 1 and Round 2 folks get the cheapest housing off the table so if you are Round 3 or Round 4, just chill and take a short term lease upfront. Once you get here you can find better places.
3. Avon: This is a little further away but very doable by bycycle. It might get kind of nasty with the winter, but still doable.

Then there are more villages in and around Fontainebleau (Samoreau, Veneux Les Sablons, Barbizon, Samois etc etc). Those are options for the automobile-ready

The good, the bad, the ugly

The good:

• Consulting recruiting is hardcore. Mckinsey, Bain, BCG, Booz, AT Kearney etc etc have a very strong persence on campus.
  
• Students are hardcore
• Social scene seems to be good, however, there are cliques galore..
  

The bad:

• 10 months is short especially if you're not the quantitative types. Highly recommend January intake over September, especially now.

The ugly:

• It's easy to get sucked in by academics. Time management and prioritization is crucial. If one cannot master this art, then you can be left out of several loops.
  

I'd have to say that the September intake is ideal for folks with 5+ years experience.

Accidental choices

1. Staying close to campus if you're poor is a very smart thing to do.
2. Having your CV ready before you come to campus would be brilliant.
3. Actually doing the pre-reading is worthwhile. Accounting at the very least.
4. Getting done with the language requirement is priceless.

I did 2 out of 4 and found some mileage out of it.

The first few days

Made it here and trying to survive on a budget (introduced by several constraints). After a few weeks, I believe that it's quite reasonable to survive here on about 800 euros a month. Ofcourse, you won't live in a chateau, you won't drive to school nor will you get to head to Paris every weekend to watch Coldplay, but you can get by.

The specific break down for me has been

Rent = 510
Electricity = 30
Food = 200
Social = 60
Total = 800.

I've been a little low on social expenses this week mostly because I've been at school all the time reading up. Hopefully, can change that a little bit.

Week 1: Went fine

Lots of stuff going on, but consensus exists: Lots of parties, lots of networking and some very intelligent folks on this campus.

I also got introduced to my classmates
1. An american lady who almost qualified for the US Olympic swimming team
2. A French guy who worked in China and knows everything there is to production.
3. A chinese girl who worked in HR
4. A Chilean brand manager with Proctor and Gamble
5. A Peruvian investment banker.

Pretty insane, but good.

Fontainebleau Survival: Tip #2

Bring them bags. Grocery stores in France charge for plastic bags (which is great, increase the price, I say). This just means that it would be good to carry with you either some plastic bags or some regular bags with which you can do groceries. It makes a lot of sense to get plenty of them.

Fontainebleau Survival: Tip #1

Since I'm getting ready to pack up and get started @ INSEAD, I thought I'll start posting survival tips as soon as I get them. The first one is thanks to a peer of mine (Vivek Peshkar) and is about eletric plugs. Basically, France supports type E plugs.

http://www.kropla.com/!e.htm
http://www.kropla.com/electric2.htm

The most important learning for me atleast: Standardization is friggin hard.