Ten myths and realities of MBA life:
Myth 1-MBA offers plenty of opportunities to change your future roles.
Reality 1- Companies want people from same profile, its really difficult to change your experience to suit the company profile except for IB and Consulting, where nothing other than networking works.
Myth 2- MBA fosters team spirit
Reality 2- Its a dog eat dog world out there.
Myth 3-You learn a lot from the classes and team discussions.
Reality 3-You keep struggling to finish the assignments, stay on top of the curve and fail to be awake in the class.
Myth 4- MBA provides you a great diversity.
Reality 4- Yes there is diversity in the class but hardly 10 % of the people build lasting relations with other communities.
Myth 5- The professors are oceans of knowledge
Reality 5- Yes some of them absolutely are - but that does not mean the knowledge is transferred.
Myth 6- You can participate actively in various clubs and learn lots of new things
Reality 6- 2% of the class is able to do this and assuming you are like an average me, would be begging for that 7.5 min of extra sleep.
Myth 7- There is no dearth of jobs after an MBA.
Reality 7- Yes that's true but only if you want to work as an intern in Career management center of the school.
Myth 8- People who come to the MBA program are superstars in their life.
Reality 8- 99.9% of the class is average Joe. The only thing that makes them superstars is the "resume". If i had already been the president of Fortune 50 company, ran a multi-billion dollar charity, served in the armed forces, started a rock band and climbed Mt. Everest.....question why do i need MBA ?
Myth 9- You learn how to define the strategy of businesses.
Reality 9- You learn how to impress people with your MS Office skills and business jargon picked up during the 4.5 min you were awake in the class.
Myth 10- MBA life is a challenging experience.
Reality 10- Yes this one is completely true. You may not learn great business skills or have great opportunities but the whole experience of - working really hard to keep your grades up, keeping your cool when people BS in the class discussions, keeping your confidence even when you get a reject from a company is what makes you tougher in life.
I'm not sure if that works out economically but two key things you learn are time management and judgment of people- the two most important things in life.
At the end of the day you have only two options - quit and go back home or stay and find your true calling. Yes, all i said above definitely makes MBA seem a foolish choice.
But what makes it worth is the constant questioning of all the choices you have made in life, all the things you really liked and the constant introspection of what you want to do.
Nobody - yes nobody in the whole batch has a clue of what they really want to do - 70% don't know that even after they graduate. If you can think about your life and what you really want to do without getting bogged down by peer pressure of people running crazily after consulting and investment banking then i think you would definitely gain something from this crazy experience.
