When someone opts to go for MBA, there are primarily two things on his mind. First, a major salary hike after 2 years of MBA. Second, an improved profile to leverage upon in the future. For a select few, networking is part of the agenda too, which surely is a very important aspect of MBA. Everyone knows that the way through these two years is hectic. However, a new entrant is not exactly sure what ‘Learnings’ are going to be there in this journey. You talk about getting value addition through an MBA course. But you do not know how exactly is the ‘Value’ going to get ‘added’ to you? That newcomer was I, around 10 months ago.
The first lesson came quite early. Just after the induction program, we had to prepare for the Fresher’s cultural night. The senior heading the induction team had a word of advice – “There is no limit to the number of events in which you participate, but it would be advisable to go only for one”. I took his word and became a part of fashion show only, but there were others who participated in 2 events and found it difficult to manage time. MBA course repeatedly makes you figure out what you want to do and what you don’t want to do. It’s an epic lesson in ‘Self Awareness’. You realise that the strengths and weaknesses asked in interviews are not just random HR questions. A more self aware person is likely to adapt quickly to the demands of MBA.
Linked very closely to choices in MBA is the whole scenario of ‘Decision Making’. During your work, your managers make the decisions for you. In college, as members of clubs and teams, you take many decisions and implement those on your own. You drive events in the college, be it organizing workshops, business fests, academic sessions, alumni sessions, media interactions, admissions etc. The learning and networking through these activities are immense and these activities also form the core of the senior junior bonding. A select few become the Heads of Clubs and Teams and if they do good work, this Position of Responsibility often becomes the highlight of their college life. Your decision making ability helps you make the right, or for that matter, wrong choices! But this is one aspect which really enhances your personality. More so in a place like my college, where anything and everything is driven by students, the admission process being a testimony to that claim.
One very important thing that you do is that you learn to stay busy. You leave behind that comfortable life of a software engineer (a fair generalization I think, considering the number of software engineers who go for MBA these days). In that comfortable life, you find that two new movies ‘Die Hard’ and ‘Twilight’ are releasing on the same Friday. You can’t miss ‘Die Hard’ and your girlfriend will break up with you if you don’t take her for ‘Twilight’. Thankfully, you have two of your best friends called ‘Saturday’ and ‘Sunday’. So you watch one movie per day! These best friends go for a vacation during your 1st year of MBA. You would be beyond yourself with rage if your boss called you for work on a Saturday. However, it is a pleasant surprise if you get a Saturday off during MBA. Working on Saturdays and Sundays slowly and surely gets into your system. This is the part where you learn to stretch your limits. After all, a high profile manager needs to learn to walk that extra mile.
Read Part 2 Here