Story goes that long long ago, so long ago, nobody remembers how long ago, there was a guy called Ramu. Now Ramu was just like any other Rahul, Rohit or Karthik that most of our run-of-the-mill engineering colleges produce by the thousands. And Ramu wasn’t just satisfied with whatever he had “learnt” during his engineering days. He felt that his “education” would be complete only if he buttressed his engineering skills with a , u guessed it, management degree. But pray, why a management degree Ramu. You could very well have gone for some M.E. or M.Tech Program in any of the dozens of “premier” technical institutes in India. Or, You could have chosen the ubiquitous path of GRE/TOEFL and flown off to the land of promises- the US of A just like your nearest cousin or his friend or your next door neighbor or like any second guy on the street !!! That would have given your parents that much more leeway when talk of brides arises… They could, for example, harp on the fact that you were the first person from say charminar/saidapet/borivili/dariya gunj/god-knows-where to get an assistantship in the very first semester and that too at an Ivy League school!!! Why were you so bent on depriving your parents and your neighborhood of such lip-smacking gossip?? But like they say, human nature has this unique knack of working against all favorable odds at the most unwanted of times ;) and as time would have its say, Ramu finally decided that he has had enough of “technical” training and its only a management degree that would satiate his thirst. The thirst here translating to quite a few tangibles like hefty pay packets and a few intangibles like being able to flaunt an “M.B.A.” in front of all his videshi desi cousins…

Okie…Now that Ramu has decided that a management degree is his beckoning, there lies a gargantuan task ahead of him in trying to decide where to do it, in which field to do it, what are the procedures, what are the loopholes that he should be aware of, and more importantly, what are the relative standings of each institute ;) …..now, while questions are aplenty, answers ain’t that easy to come. So, what does Ramu do first?? He approaches his dad’s colleague’s son who has already done an MBA from one of the so-called Premier institutes of management. With humility personified, Ramu asks this archetypal know-all “I’m planning to do an MBA, could you please advise me on the same ?”….And lo, before Ramu could realize what has happened to him, he is blasted out of the milky way by a volley of questions from the dyed-in-the-blue MBA. Why MBA, for what MBA, Do you really think it is your inner calling, do you know which field you want to end up in, do you really think you have it in you to become an MBA, do you understand the vagaries of what i-banking or consulting or equity research or business analysis is…. Have you done a SWOT analysis of yourself. Think of the number of MBAs that are being churned out, do you really think you have even half a chance to stand apart from the crowd. Poor Ramu had discounted a lot, or rather all, of these when he had decided to embark on his MBA journey. For him an MBA was nothing but a beautiful way of escaping from the rigmaroles of designing circuits or writing bits and pieces of code. Faced with such a barrage of questions, Ramu was, as was to be expected, shaken to no ends. But before he could gather his wits and try to answer him, our good ‘ol MBA friend already had the next set of questions up his sleeves. Have you applied for the CATs, XATs and the rest of the _ATs. How much have you been scoring on the SIMcat, AIMcats, MOCKcats, FLTs, and what-have-you…do u have a swell undergrad gpa, if not forget applying to A….No, if nothing else prior, these statements had a profound effect on Ramu. He withdrew from there and started digging around to see if all the people that he knew were planning for an MBA actually had answers to half of these questions…. And that was when he realized he wasn’t exactly alone in his quest for an MBA….Most of his friends, if not all, have themselves come up against this wall….from where they weren’t exactly sure of the direction to proceed and have paused to consider if the direction that they have indeed chosen to tread is right for them or not….This undoubtedly lead to a fair amount of introspection amongst Ramu and his friends. All of them shared their experiences of their initial days of their MBA journey…and ultimately, most of them came to one broad conclusion…..an MBA, irrespective of whatever, has been, and will remain, a degree of higher studies. It does not purport to be anything more or anything less. Infact a startling fact that they realised was that the halo sorrounding this MBA has been something that was attached to the degree by those wanting to deceive themselves that they haven’t plunged into the wrong field, by those who believe the only way of increasing their self-worth is by taking extreme positions on their MBA education and thereby add a size perspective to their hollow arguments, by those who feel that the only way to justify their existence in an organization to their bosses is to cry aloud about their credentials rather than their actual worth…. Indeed, Ramu and his friends realized that asking for advise from MBA pass-outs and MBA students was something that they could ill-afford to, for they were convinced of the worthless replies that their questions would generate…..This was when Ramu started to look at things in a “holistic” manner. He tried to visualize his MBA mentor actually getting a job done, he tried to understand how things work in an organization, how he would fit in the scheme of things, and most importantly, is “being” an MBA more important than “being” yourself….Ramu now had more questions in his mind than he had before he embarked on his journey….problem is, he has not many good samaritans to guide around……….But thankfully, he now has his own rock-solid self to back him up …. :)
Disclaimer: All that is not said cannot be the only truth and all that is said cannot be said to be the only false ;)