National Weeks at INSEAD are unique occasions when students can learn about a different culture, try some amazing food, pick up new skills, etc. Last November, the Italians won the bid that allowed them to hold their own National Week. I’d like to tell you how it went.
Apart from the pleasure of introducing fellow students to their culture and traditions, National Week organisers get hands-on experience managing their own business and teams, planning budgets, making sales pitches, etc. It might seem easy to organise a week like this, but it’s totally not true! It’s a very tough, though rewarding task.
The structure of various National Weeks at INSEAD is usually the same:
- Monday morning and afternoon the amphi “stormings” take place where the week’s organising team come to the amphi at the end of a class, show a promo video of the week and persuade students to buy tickets for various activities.
- A national breakfast is served followed by a selection of national lunch options at INSEAD’s cafeteria every day of the week.
- During the week, various entertaining activities take place like belly dancing from the Lebanese or the Tiramisu cooking class from the Italians.
- On Wednesday night specifically, a big dinner outside the campus is held.
- On Friday night, there’s usually an all-INSEAD party.
- There are also wine-tasting sessions and various other educational activities (language lessons, etc) that take place.
- Another compulsory feature of every National Week are T-shirts with sponsor logos and national symbols on them. These come in handy when students run out of clean clothes
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.So let me now show you our Italian Week!
This is the main organisers’ booth decorated with various Italian items and the location where students can buy their tickets.
The T-shirt hanging in the center is the shirt of a famous Italian soccer player Balotelli, personally signed by him. It was the lottery prize for those who bought a ticket bundle, including access to the dinner and the party.
The price list:
Italian breakfasts – Pan di Stelle, Abbracci, Baiocchi, of course, by Mulino Bianco (Barilla), my favourite cookies. During one of the days we served Kinder Bueno, and some people were surprised to hear that it’s an Italian brand as they though it was German or Swiss.
The men in the team wore togas. This is a picture of them ready for the amphi stormings on Monday morning!
Right after breakfast, INSEADers joined us at the Keria Desk for some food:
In the afternoon, we held a Tiramisu master class:
Our famous cook Davide is sharing his culinary secrets woth fellow students:
Now that the sweets are ready, it will have to spend a minimum of 12 hours in the fridge.
Tuesday afternoon was pizza time!
On Tuesday evening, we held a proper Italian winetasting with around ten types of true Italian ham and cheese:
Here you can see the Italian branded T-Shirts:
On Wednesday we had a Ferrari day. First, we got a full-sized Ferrari on campus:
And second, we had a Ferrari driving challenge (with the mini versions):
This is the chart with the challenge results:
On Wednesday we held a true Italian dinner! I didn’t take pictures because I was too busy EATING! We went to the best Italian place in Singapore and finally took advantage of the incredible authentic pizza, burrata, sweet tomatoes and gnocchi!
And on Friday we held the insane toga party:
Stay tuned for the future National Weeks to come with the new J class soon to be on campus!
