Should I go for an MBA? Pros and Cons of doing an MBA, In depth analysis.

If you are a commerce student and want to gain respect and status in society, there are only a handful of options at your disposal. Narrowing them down, you need to have either a govt job or you should be a CA/CS or should be operating a reputed business. But there is one other option for you to accomplish this desire, MBA.

 

 

MBA is a degree whose name in itself, if done from a reputed college, is enough to impress anyone. Because in India, MBA is considered a golden ticket to the rich lavish lifestyle of the corporate world. But people are often confused if they should pursue an MBA or not. 

 

 

I was no different, so I tried to find a solution to my dilemma on the internet but only ended up with more doubts at my table. So, after thorough research and real-life observations, I decided to write this article to provide answers to the readers, to at least my part of the confusion. 

 

First, let's look at some basic and well-known pros and cons of doing an MBA.

 

PROS

 

 

1. Access to a well-paid job: MBA is most famous for providing direct access to a well-paid job right after completing the degree. Even freshers, who do not have any corporate experience can secure a 15-20 l.p.a job.

 

2. Personality/skill Development: During the 2 years of your study, you will be going through a rigorous schedule of regular case studies, presentations, social interactions, and extracurricular activities in such a way that after the end of the course, you will come out as a different person with enhanced skills like leadership, networking, marketing and so on. 

 

3. Networking opportunities with industry professionals: Networking effectively with others is a skill that is required in almost every industry. MBAs need to be at the top among all of them. Students of MBA are taught how they can communicate in a manner as to maintain long term and useful relations with people.

 

4. Skills to run your own business: Anyone can start a business with a great idea and a couple of thousand bucks in a bank account. But to keep a business running in today's competitive market, you need certain skill sets and business acumen. While it ultimately comes down to how practical and ambitious a person is, MBA can help that person to reach that level to a great extent. 

 

5. A well-reputed degree: The degree in itself says that you are a qualified person. After getting the degree, you are not required to prove your worth at every meeting you attend, the degree speaks for you. You will automatically start getting more attention and your words will carry more weight than otherwise.

 

 

CONS

 

 

 

1. High fees: The worst part about doing an MBA is its fees. The fees in most MBA colleges around the world is more than the placements they provide after completing the course. This acts as a major setback on why people hesitate before choosing this course. 

 

2. No fixed return on investment: A person who pays such a fortune just to obtain a degree wishes to have some guarantee that his future will be secured after this. But it is not the case with MBA. There are some chances that even after getting the degree, you will still find it difficult to get a suitable job. 

By looking at the above comparison of pros and cons, can you conclude that the pros outweigh the cons? It's not so simple. There are lots of other factors that depend on the prevailing situation. We have to consider the fact that we live in India, and this country is not as simple and straightforward as it may seem.  

 

 

Below are some more cons with some more analysis:

 

 

* Fees outweigh the placements provided: In India, more than 80% of the MBA colleges ask for fees which is more than the placements they provide. Knowing that the fees itself is too high, students have to take a loan to pay it. After this, it takes them 10-15 years to repay the loan with interest. 

 

*The numbers on the placement reports provided by good MBA colleges look pretty magnificent but they are CTCs and people mistake them for in-hand salaries. Suppose a college provides an average placement of 15 LPA and has a fee of 15 lakhs as well. Looks pretty decent, right? But out of the 15 LPA salary, the actual salary that will be credited in the account will hardly be more than 12 lakhs, remaining goes to your PF, company shares (if any), HRA, special allowances, and incentives.

 

* Only a handful of colleges with good reputation and placements: Only a very limited number of seats are there at Ivy league and tier 1 colleges when compared to the number of applicants. By doing MBA from an average college, you can gain respect in your neighborhood but you won't be getting the same treatment in your corporate life. It does not matter if you paid 20-22 lac rupees as fees for your MBA, if it is not from a reputed college like IIM or Xavier's, you will just not get the chance to sit at the high table. Colleges that are below tier 1 league do not hold much scope. 

 

* It takes a considerable amount of time and money just to prepare for the competitive entrance exams for MBA. People face a dilemma in this situation as they can either choose to continue their current job/study or leave their job and spend months just to prepare for an exam which has no guarantee of showing the required result.

 

*Burden of expectations on students: Because of the huge population problem in India, there is a cut-throat competition to achieve almost anything. This puts a burden on students to achieve targets and start earning money early in life to support their families. Going for an MBA in such a situation is not really a feasible option for them. 

 

*Ambiguous environment: India's social, political, and economic environment is still fluctuating a lot because it is a developing country. The required level of job security is still not there. You can only find job security in Government Jobs, otherwise, you can never be sure when another fluctuation might come and your job will be gone. 

 

 

Finally, it's time to take a look at some answers too. So without further ado. let's jump right in:

 

If I could sum up all the lines that I am going to write down below into a single one, it would be, "if you are curious and hard-working enough, you do not need an MBA degree." 

 

Now some will say "this is not the answer I was looking for, this is only what they write on the articles we find on the internet, I am a college student in my final year and wanted to know if I should go for an MBA, I am an assistant manager and wanted to know if I should leave my job, it was all a waste of time, etc, etc." 

 

 

But hear me out first. I won't leave you hanging like this. A couple of advice and ज्ञान incoming:

 

* First, the actual purpose of doing an MBA is not simply to get a high paying job. Doing MBA will give you something which is very hard to attain in real life (unless you are born with it), leadership skill. One of the most difficult tasks in life is to make someone listen and/or do something to turn a particular situation to your advantage. Most people simply say that you are either born with it or you are not. Here, your hard work and determination come to play. If you have the deepest desire to achieve some goal, learning leadership skill won't be much of a pain for you, with or without MBA. 

 

* Getting into MBA is difficult. But after you get in it, life gets pretty hectic but you will be able to cope with all the stress and work because you will have plenty of industry professionals, teachers, and seniors to guide and correct you on your path. I simply can't say that MBAs are spoon-fed, but it won't be as hard for them as it will be for someone who is purely running on ambition as his fuel to reach their level or keep a business alive. 

 

* Not having an MBA will prove to be a hindrance for you if you seek promotion in a particular type of job but life can teach you much more than an MBA. These are not my words, prominent personalities like Raghu Raman, Ronny Screwwaala, Alok Kejriwal, Harsh Mariwala, Vivek Bindra and Kunal Shah have said it several times in their interviews. Some are CEOs, some founders of big companies, and some great motivational speakers. Each one of them has all but one thing in common, none of them have done an MBA. You need to keep your curiosity up and your mind open all the time and you will be able to see hidden opportunities at your present workplace as these gentlemen did. 

 

* Another gyaan, Knowledge can be accessed at several places. I will mention some of them for you. The obvious ones are personal interviews, workshops, seminars. Some sources which are often ignored are podcasts, novels/books, your current work/study place, observing the environment around you, observing professionals and their work style, personally asking industry professionals. Only the impulse to learn needs to be there.

 

* You should not run away from your work, you should do 1.5x of your work, you have to get your existence noticed among the top professionals, you have to do work not just for the sake of completing it but also learning from it for a better future. Ask for more work, make yourself useful to other people so that they can be useful to you one day. People will indeed try to misuse this habit of yours by making it their habit to give you their part of work regularly but these people lack vision and are only looking for short term ease. What you are looking for is a long and permanent package of enjoyment and safety. 

 

* This one is for a particular group of people. If you are an egoistic person, life can get pretty tough for you. This is coming from a person who has probably aced in looking like an egoistic moron in conversations. YOU HAVE TO LOSE THE EGO. This advice can be a gem for those like me as I know exactly what goes in the mind of an introverted egoistic person. 

 

* At times, you will face many situations in which you will have to do something important which will put your ego on the line, do not give it another thought, just do it. Just know that what other people think of you hardly matters. 

 

SO, we have talked about what MBA is, its pros and cons, ADDITIONAL cons, analysis, deep thinking, Gyan, and what not!

 

 

 

What is the conclusion? The hard and actual bound truth:

 

* Not having an MBA degree will be a disadvantage as you won't get promotions and job opportunities easily. In some cases, it is impossible to obtain a promotion without the degree. Solution: Just keep your ambition and curiosity up and follow the above guidelines and they will definitely see the value in you one day. And as for the sake of degree, there are plenty of open MBA programs which you can do while working for the job even from reputed colleges like IIMs and NMIMS. Then you will be good to go.

 

* If you have a family business waiting for you, even of a small scale, already established by your elders, then there is no need to put so much effort into doing MBA from a top college. Any college will do. All you will need is knowledge and as you know, knowledge is everywhere. 

 

*If you are a student in your final graduation year with no support from anywhere, you have lots to learn right now, you will be the one who will have to struggle the most as there are millions like you in India sitting idle or doing underpaid jobs/internships. If you want to get ahead of them, you need to stand out of the crowd and think outside the box. You have plenty of time at your hand, utilize it well. Keep meeting new people and stay away from toxic relations.

 

 

And yeah..

 

NEVER SETTLE