It’s June. The month when roughly 15 lac engineers graduate in India every year! Let’s understand what are their plans ahead.
But before that, there’s one thing that I have noticed about working away from home. I know this could be a bit out of the blue but please bear. The people back in the hometown consider you an achiever. By working in an alien city whether you have achieved anything is a separate discussion altogether. Not that I am complaining but this giant-societal-expectations-cloud hovers over your head all the time and occasionally results in the showers of unnecessary stress and fear of failure. Not that everything is bad. Far from it. But since you are considered someone who is doing good for himself, there are times when an acquaintance may reach out for some career advice and hence pop my favorite question,
Should I do an MBA after BE?
Giving it a second thought, why MBA after Engineering? What are the benefits of an Engineering degree with MBA?
Let me be honest – I have absolutely no idea if there is any right or wrong answer to these questions. Just because I did my MBA after BE doesn’t give me any authority to suggest it to someone. In fact MBA and BE present two totally different perspectives. An analogy could be how Engineering wants you to take an accurate vernier caliper reading while MBA expects you to get on the stage and present a PPT you’ve seen 5 minutes ago. By the way, both of these, when seen as a part of the larger picture, are extensively important career skills.
But can I tell all this to someone looking for an advice? Of course not. They are looking for advice not words of philosophical wisdom. And thus the question still remains.
I have another answer. Probably a simpler one. Did you have a girlfriend back in Engineering? If yes, you are definitely good at managing stuff, you are made for MBA and should go for it! 😁 I mean, just ask any budding Engineer, it is ridiculously difficult to get a girlfriend. And if you are from the Mechanical or Civil stream, forget it already! Now if in such a ‘dry’ engineering college environment you are able to convince a girl to be with you, it illustrates that you excel in marketing, sales and presentation skills. You must go for an MBA!
But not everyone is made for that and if you, like most other engineering grads, go through your 4 years without a girlfriend, my suggestion would be to look out for a job. Yep,
It is easier to get a boss than a girlfriend 😉
So go get a job and if you end up in IT you can start the by-default journey of every engineer in the Indian IT scene, which is of course, hunting for an opportunity to go onsite (in the Indian IT dictionary, onsite is almost always equal to USA or Europe where your facebook checkins will earn tremendous amount of likes). If that is not possible and you are not working in IT, you can take the alternate path and start preparing for GATE for higher studies abroad (in case you are interested in those likes that I just mentioned)
But hold on. Can I suggest this to someone asking the simple question – Should I go for an MBA after BE? Not at all! I am no one to question someone’s ability to get a girlfriend and equate it with the decision of pursuing an MBA. I mean there are people who fall in love for the first time during MBA too! 🤦♂️
Bottom line – Decide for yourself! No, really, decide for yourself. Nobody in the World knows you better than the person in the mirror. Trust yourself in the process of choosing “vernier caliper” or “powerpoint presentations” and own up the decision.
PS – This blog is written in a light taste. Do not expect mega life changing decision techniques!