Why MBA?

It is year 2020 and one of the most popular questions which prevail amongst the minds of youngsters is, ‘Should I do an MBA’? Another popular question is ‘Why MBA’? After asking these questions, people start to calculate the monetary value of various management courses, the return on investment, the time required and what not.

We had a conversation with Mr. Digvijay Gagneja, who has done his engineering from IIT Kharagpur, MBA from ISB Hyderabad and has also worked with a lot of top-notch companies such as ITC, Mckinsey and is now working for Leverage Edu as a COO. He shared his valuable experience with us which answered almost all the relevant questions regarding this topic!

He says that doing an MBA is a choice which a person makes when he wants to. Although one’s decision might be affected a lot by their surroundings, but it is ultimately the decision which is made by that particular person.

Is it worth it?

After taking the decision to do an MBA, a lot of people wonder is it really worth it? Will it add any value to my life? Should I put my time and money in it?

The short answer to those questions is- Yes!

Doing an MBA is definitely worth the investment as it is not only the monetary value that will be gained, but the overall experience which shapes up the personality of the person. It enhances the way in which a person presents himself, the way he/she speaks and a lot of other soft skills as well. It teaches you a lot about leadership, how to work efficiently under stress and how to manage a lot of other things. Doing these management courses also increases the chances of getting a good corporate job.

Return on Investment

Those who are still wondering about the return on investment, doing an MBA from a good college will not only increase your monetary value, but also your value as an individual by at least 2-3 times of what you were before doing an MBA.

A lot of people also wonder whether one should do an MBA directly after his/her graduation, or should gain some work experience and then head for their post, which leads us to our next question:

When should I do my MBA

This question is very subjective and its answer depends from person to person. While most of the people would want to directly jump into IIM’s after their under graduation, there are a lot of people who want to get some amount of work experience and then enrol for an MBA. While both the options are completely alright, but a person with some amount of work experience will be able to extract more from an MBA as they have faced some real life challenges and are therefore able to make the most out of it. In fact, there some colleges which give some weightage to work experience and some have work experience as a mandatory requirement for admission. ISB Hyderabad would be the best example of such college. Anywhere between 2-4 years is considered to be a decent amount of work experience after which, people usually opt for an MBA. When you join a college and are surrounded by people who have some amount of work experience, you get to learn a lot from their experiences as well.

Also, doing an MBA after some amount of work experience gives you a chance to switch your career stream and still not lose much. Yes, you heard that right!

An individual working in the field of marketing might realise after a couple of years that he is not enjoying his work life or de does not want to do marketing and therefore wants to switch to the financial world. An MBA might help him/her to make that shift without losing much. It will help the person to make that switch and get a good corporate job, which would have been really difficult without an MBA as it teaches you a lot about various fields.

A lot of people might argue that they could gain experience from their current jobs and ultimately make it to their dreams without an MBA. While some part of this statement might be true, but doing an MBA will still help you as it could help you to achieve a goal comparatively faster than you could have achieved it by not doing an MBA. It also helps you to learn a lot of things faster than what an employee would learn with experience.

This is the reason why MBA acts like a catalyst in an individual’s performance and helps them to get a job at a higher position in a shorter duration of time.

Start-up vs MBA

One of the questions that people have in mind is that, ‘Shouldn’t I invest in a start-up business rather than paying such a huge amount for an MBA or any other management courses’?People are aware of the successful start-ups, but let me ask you a question, are they aware of the ones that weren’t successful? No, they do not. While some of them do make it big, the success ratio is very less. In fact, a lot of people do an MBA after a failed start-up.

However, if you think that you have the skills and abilities to do what it takes to run a start-up, then definitely do so.

Also, some of you might wonder that it would be difficult to study for entrance exams once a person starts doing a job. Well, keeping in mind the perks that an MBA from a good college provides, one should set their goal accordingly. There are a lot of programs which guarantee your admission in colleges like ISB Hyderabad, while you are doing your under graduation. For more details, you can check out the Young Leader Program (YLP) offered by ISB Hyderabad on their website.

We can conclude that while doing an MBA is totally a personal choice, it is definitely worth it. It prepares and shapes your personality in a way which is better suited for the corporate jobs. It might be a little costly, but the experience it provides is priceless and it will definitely help you in the long run.

-By Rishi Raniwala for Young Engine