National Weeks!

Life here at INSEAD is filled with diversity. Yes, I know that message is really overplayed by me.

But I have to say - where else in the world are you constantly bombarded by a set of principles that seem so strange to you, even after 2 months of being in an environment. That blows my mind. I am constantly finding new ways of doing things. New conflicts between people. New stereotypes. And the constant learning in the classroom and within social contexts, blows my mind.

To add to that - we have National Weeks every couple of months... Latinos, Israelis, the Iron Curtain, Heart of Europe, to name a few.

Let me explain. Every year we have a "Bid Night" when different groups of people get together and decide that they want to take over the campus for a week in the following semester. That entire week is filled with activities from dinners and dances to talks about culture and job opportunities in the specific region. For a week INSEAD becomes that nationality.

Sometimes people pair us, as is the case with Indians and Pakistanis, to create Desi Week (which I'm now heavily involved in). We are putting together a video to present to our classmates, figuring out catering of food & beverages for the "Bid Night" later in May, and trying to figure out the most unique "value proposition" we can present to our fellow classmates so they vote for us. There are several groups like this out there - apparently there's a PIGS group (Portuguese, Irish, Greek, and Spanish)... the Brits want to work with the Americans and Australians in an "Empire Strikes Back" theme and so on and so forth...

I'm quite looking forward to this. And I wanted to share the madness with you. We are currently in the middle of Israeli week FYI. And the food was GREAT last night (at their National Week Dinner). The Latinos sponsored a World Cup.

And I know what you're thinking - STEREOTYPES! But again, they exist for a reason and if they are addressed and explained as they are during these events, then people are so much better informed. And in the context of business, you gain a sense of cultural acumen.