MBA student

CONSCIENTIOUS STUDY: At what cost an MBA?

Last updated: January 26th, 2019

There’s been increasing hype about the value of an MBA in India recently. With the global economic outlook still gloomy, rising unemployment rates, an MBA has become an increasingly attractive business degree. When I met a few young graduates from India at a leading business school in Canada, they shared their desire to obtain an MBA as they felt they wanted to do something different. Has the craze for an MBA in India gone too far? Is an MBA the only option to obtain a career or to do something different?

In the West, an MBA is a degree that is acquired mainly to become an entrepreneur, obtain promotion, or to extend business skills. But in India, MBA graduates receive special social recognition. It has become a huge step up the social ladder in India to be able to claim “I am an MBA.” It’s unfortunate that many young graduates and their parents are not asking the right questions before making the choice. Obtaining an MBA is just a means to an end and not an end in itself. It enables one to learn more about those basic business nuances; it is not a career, it is merely the next step in an already existing career. Although many business schools in India do place emphasis on first acquiring a minimum number of years of work experience before going back to studying, there are many that don’t.

It’s extremely important for students to ask the appropriate questions before making the decision to spend thousands of dollars on something they may never need, and work experience comes in handy to make those choices. A few years of work experience helps you understand the basics of business and decide whether this is what you really want to do for the rest of your life.

Studying full time for an MBA is a huge investment in time, costing thousands of dollars and often requires moving to a new city or country. It takes lots of hard work and money, which adds stress to the uncertainty of a post-MBA career.

Can you justify the cost of obtaining three letters behind a name while losing out on experience? Is it worth risking your money, time and hard work?

by Maithri Menon


Image: obtaining degree via Shutterstock