The Unbearable Lightness of Being an MBAAspirant (How to stop freaking out about yourchoices?)

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This is the time of the year when thousands of young people across the country are on thetenterhooks, waiting for this B school interview call and that shortlist, and then waiting somemore – for the final results, hoping that they can make the cut at one of the top business schoolsin the country. Their anxiety is understandable and yet somewhat misplaced. This piece is an

attempt to alleviate some of that anxiety and share some of the experiences that inform myopinions on these issues.

So what are the most common dilemmas that plague aspirants -

When: Should I quit my job and go for an MBA? Should I work for a couple of years and then go to Bschool or join as a fresher? 

Where: Given my percentile and my calls, which college should I pick? How important is the choiceof an MBA stream? Can you switch from one stream to another after graduating? What is the valueof a college brand in the corporate world?

Why: Is there something specific that I intend to elicit from my MBA experience or is it a steppingstone to greater, yet uncertain and undecided things in my career? Am I joining it for the learningexperience or for the benefits of being in the system?

I believe aspirants spend most of their time fretting on the first two questions and forget thatthe answer to the third clarifies matters significantly. People come to a business school for allkinds of valid reasons – good placements, career shifts, for the college experience, businesseducation before launching an entrepreneurial venture etc. and keeping that purpose front andcenter helps resolve the many doubts that might creep in as you go along. This clarity is noteasy to achieve. For instance, I joined School of Management, IIT Bombay after a very eclectictwo years post graduation. I graduated from IIT Madras in 2012 and joined Teach for India. Iwrote and failed to clear the Civil Services Mains Exam in 2014, worked briefly as a contributorat an online newspaper and then decided that I needed to make long-term career choices soonerrather than later. I had always looked at a business degree with a healthy dose of skepticismregarding the value-addition that they provide. However, the last eight months or so haveforced me to revise that assessment and I can assert that an MBA degree from a good institutionis worth the time and money and opportunity cost without being disingenuous. So if one wantsto answer the “Why MBA” question, one need not look further than learning opportunity andpersonal growth. An MBA ideally equips you to handle the professional business environmentand is an easy route into the industry. If you do well, your rise can be meteoric. Once you haveanswered your why question, you can figure out the choices for when and where pretty easily. Iwanted to be financially independent as soon as possible and hence I needed to stopexperimenting with my career trajectory, put my foot down and make a definite choice. So mytime was last year. For some others, pursuing their interests, discovering some hidden talentsmight have a higher priority and they can take the MBA plunge later.

A simple rule of thumb for those who have recently graduated could be — if you are not gettinginto your dream college this year, then it’s better to work for a few years and then try again. Iknow plenty of my engineering peers who didn’t make it into their desired B schools in theirfirst attempt but made it through later even though they had lower percentiles, on the back oftheir work-experience. Also, a penny today is better than a penny (and loan payments)tomorrow! A few good years working in a professional setting also gives you an edge in the

interviews because you are considerably wiser than the green fresher. The choice is moredifficult for those who are not satisfied with their current job profiles and intend to make acareer switch via the MBA route. The competition is stiff and they need to get the scores andbuild their profiles in order to make it.

Which B school to pick once you have a few choices is another googly that stumps most of theaspirants. There is no right way to answer this question, hence the profusion of professionaladvice on the subject. B School Rankings can be an indicator but their reliability is often inquestion. A college can be judged on a long list of parameters and there is a lot of subjectivity inthe process. Some of the key factors I would ask aspirants to consider when picking their collegeare — placement reports, batch sizes, student-faculty ratio, infrastructure, reputation amongpeers and industry, location etc. The best way to answer these questions is to do some research,talk to that friend of a friend in a particular college, go beyond the official story and get a senseof the ground reality. I believe most of the colleges fall into certain segments, some collegeshave a rich history and pedigree and the pecking order is clear, but there are more similaritiesthan differences in the rest of the schools. It is hard to separate two colleges without accountingfor personal choices. Any interested aspirant can probably find out these tiers of B schools andmake his own call depending on which parameter he values the most. The stream you pick isabsolutely essential for your career since it is hard to switch once you get into the industry.General Management degrees have the advantage of giving you the ability to defer your choiceand make a decision later when you have more information. The skills needed for finance arevery different from those needed for marketing and if candidates are not clear on what theirstrengths are, they need to do a lot of soul-searching before they chose their MBA stream. Youcould go about this process by interacting with students in B schools, reading up on theirexperiences in online forums like this website and finding out what the job actually entails andif you are up for it. Consultants have to travel constantly, finance guys work on excel sheets,operations people will have to sweat it out in manufacturing plants and so on. This groundworkis essential before you make your decision. Hence, the wiser choice would be to go for a GeneralManagement Degree if you are unsure.

All I have said so far must be fairly self-evident for any serious aspirant. So what was the pointof this piece? I want to convince people that the incredible levels of stress that people haveregarding MBA choices is unreasonable. Eventually, if you work hard, you will get into a good Bschool (and there is not much to separate the many schools from each other) and you will land agood job. Aspirants often work under the perception that getting into a good school will meanthat everything else takes care of itself. But the battle lines have only been drawn once you arein a good school. All of this is training and the real test lies ahead. There is no point in stressingbefore the D-day arrives and burning out. Your first job post MBA will influence your careerdirection much more than any choice you make at this stage. If we want to get everything out ofour MBA degrees, we must look at the longer-term objectives, realize that your B school choicewill be relevant only in the first few years of your first job and ultimately it’s how good you areat your skills and what attitudes you have developed towards business thinking and problem-solving over the years, that matter in the workplace. Let’s not mistake the starting blocks for thefinish line.

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Oscar Wilde once said that “A cynic is someone who knows the price of everything but the valueof nothing.”  For too long have aspirants taken the cynical approach to making life choices —calculating returns on investment, scouring through summer and final placement reports for thecompensation details etc., it’s time they look at the value they are seeking from this experience,clearly specify their long-term aspirations and then take an informed call. I believe that such anapproach would reduce the stress and anxiety levels and considerably increase their confidencelevels when they face the next interview panel.

This is not a sprint which is decided once the admission results are out. This is a marathon. Youmust hunker down for the long haul, rid yourself of myopic reasoning and prepare for life.  SoCheer up!

Good Luck.

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Ashish Kashyap is a First Year student at Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay(2014-16). He holds a Bachelors and Masters Degree in Computer Science from IIT Madras. Inhis free time, he likes to delude himself into thinking that one day he will be able to write likeMilan Kundera. Some people think that he is pretentious but to them he quotes Julian Barnes –“Yes, of course we were pretentious –  what else is youth for? ”  (Sense of an Ending)

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