So P3 is upon us and there is only one word to sum it up: change.
The first big change is the people on campus. As one friend put it: “same school, same campus, different place.” The 12Ds who guided us in our first four months have moved on to start their new post-MBA lives, to be replaced by the new and eager 13Ds. We are now the “senior” promotion and have been joined by a horde of our classmates who started at Fontainebleau and now make up the majority of the 13Js in Singapore. There are familiar faces we recognise from our 13J facebook group (which is now over a year old!) yet they are also strangers at the same time. Meanwhile, friends who started with us in Singapore who we had grown accustomed to seeing in flip flops in our section’s amphi are now posting pictures of themselves bundled up in jackets and scarves enjoying ski breaks in the alps. While all this was initially a bit disorienting, what it means is there is a huge new group of people to get to know – people who could be new friends, new business contacts for now and the future, or both.
P3 also means the start of electives. For the first time we can actively shape the academics of our MBA according to our personal goals and interests. There is an array of excellent courses to choose from and the decision process is in most cases not an easy one. You have a limited number of credits and bidding points (depending on how many you already spent on the campus exchange) and most people struggled to whittle down their shortlist to the required number. I’m really happy with my choices but it’s inevitable that I hear stories about an excellent class that I had regretfully dropped, or even another I had initially dismissed but am now hearing about benefits I hadn’t considered. In this respect I’d advise any MBA candidate to speak to their senior promotion, or any alumni they may have access to, about their electives – specifically which ones had the most impact on them.
The last big change is that the sections and groups we were assigned to for all core courses in P1 and P2 are no more. It’s only now I realise how attached I had grown to my group and my section, who I had seen more or less every weekday (and some weekends) for four months. I miss the little quirks and in-jokes and, as I start afresh with new groups and sections, I realise just how far we had come as a team. It appears I am not alone in this, given the number of people from the original section A3 who greet me in the corridor like a long-lost friend. But on a positive note, it is this kind of bond that will live on beyond the MBA programme and I can’t wait to see where we all end up in the coming year.