Ours is a country which is plenty of
everything and the number of MBA institutes makes no exception in the same
light. We are a nation that offers about 3900 MBA institutes across demography’s.
I can well understand the plight of a prospective student in choosing the right
institute having gone through the same muddle and confusion myself. For the sake
of making an argument let me attempt at what’s called drawing an analogy which
is as follows-
I was a student having completed
graduation and was working with a company till about last to last year waiting
for my right ship to arrive at this side of the shore. I had a lot of choices
which I can’t complain about but here’s a thing about having too many choices
it leaves you muddled. So, like everyone else my dialogue with everybody
revolved around whether I should be sailing the brand ship or the program ship
which would glide me smoothly over the troubled waters. On the other shore lay
my dream career and the next 40-50 years of employable life that I was to lead.
I want to clear at the outset that this was not an easy task, definitely ship
with a brand appealed to me more until there was a chance encounter on the
internet while causally surfing -an institute which just resonated instantly.
The artifacts of SOIL, the alumnus , the culture , the faculty that visits ,
the specificity of the program, the depth and width of learning per say were
just some of the many factors that drew me towards its ideology and intrigued
me to learn more about the structure and
function of this very institute. Like a child full of curiosity I began my
voyage on unraveling the mystery of SOIL and my learnings were immense, the
marketing team of soil was needless to say very proactive and perfectly in line
with what was mentioned on the site. The coffee chats with alumnus were very
assuring and encouraging who were more than willing to share their experiences
in the institute and their now employers. As is the law, in these kind of
decisions head takes the front seat and like everyone else I took to the role
of analyst peculiarly analyzing, cross checking every fact that SOIL propagated
on different social media sites etc. I remember my colleagues at my previous
job who were also playing analysts in choosing their ship to reach the other
side and these were their priority list in no particular order
· Quality of Student Life,
· Prestige of the MBA School,
· MBA Starting Salary,
· Teaching Methodology (Case vs. Quantitative),
· Reputation of Quality of Teaching,
· Faculty Orientation (Research vs. Teaching),
· Net Cost (Tuition Less Financial Aid),
· Size of Program (Number of Students),
· School’s Location (Attractiveness, Activities) and
· Salary post completion
It is
the precedence of one factor over the other which is more or less linked to an
individual’s career anchors that makes them choose an MBA institute. In my case
Reputation of quality of teaching, faculty orientation and size of the program
in terms of duration took the precedence. Hence I applied a funneling approach
to clearly examine the best cultural and aspirational fit for zeroing down to
Soil. It is a one year programme with esteemed panel of faculty; Leadership
transformation from ordinary people whilst imparting the teachings of a global
mindset by the visiting faculty, immense cross cultural trainings and most
importantly it just resonated-something felt very right deep down the heart. So
dear aspiring MBA professionals I took the three level analysis methodologies
to fix on the ship of Soil which I’d like to add has sailed smoothly-Starting
from as broad as choosing the vectors and what my goals are-applying the first
funnel to carefully examine pros and cons of brand vs. Program dilemma – to
applying the last funnel of which vector takes precedence over what after
thoroughly analyzing the authenticity and growth prospects. I sincerely hope
that basis my experience and if you can drive your learnings from it, you would
put on your thinking caps to decide on the right institute and more so the
right program. I hope you will choose the path of self leadership and weigh the
pros and cons of the decision you decide to tread.
http://i.imgur.com/LukCRQz.jpg
Gurleen Dhillon
HRLP – School of Inspired Leadership