Why the heck do people do an MBA?

Okay storytime Non tech grad, starting job 3.5L grew to 4.2L Desperate to get out, did t2 MBA Placement of 6.5L, desperate to move but Covid happened, was just grateful to have something coming in two switches later, at 18L It is still less, considering post-MBA but numbers are huge in comparison. 6 days of today is worth 1.5x of first job monthly salary I don't recommend MBA if you are smart enough, but it helps in growth. Had I not, I would have grown to 10L max.

I can share, I was working abroad post my T1 engineering. So you can imagine it must be > 1L. Like all those confused 20+ engineers, I asked one of my skip levels that how should one plan the career path. He gave me a simple framework, “Look at your boss or bosses boss. If you are ok living that life, you’re on the right path else time to think more”. I got my answers, maybe try finding yours rather than seeking majority “votes” :)

Was earning good prior to my MBA. Went and did MBA from a relatively new but growing Tier 2 college. Had the best social and sex life in past two years. Could have pulled more through bumble but those bi*ches be dumb.

Why the hack people do* MBA? - Please correct it.

Because everything doesnt boil down to money at the end of the day. Today you may feel that 1LPM+ will probably make me happy but honestly a lot of the jobs wont even let you have the time to spend it. Whats the point of accumulating heavy numbers in the bank account. I was making 2+LPM at 2+ years of workex but still didnt get much satisfaction out of that, hence changed the career trajectory

There is a very different way to look at it other than money. Especially in a country like India where the default thing for a smart person to do is engineering or medicine, your fate is pretty much decided when you are 18 which is far too young for you to know what you want to do with life. MBA is generally a second chance to redeem that. It opens career options in banking, consulting, general management, sales, supply chain, marketing etc etc which engineering wouldn’t open up and switching between some of these remain a choice as well into your career. If you choose entrepreneurship, then MBA comes in even more handy. You know the basics of almost all aspects of running a company that no one can make a complete fool out of you. It’s not only money.

Tier 1 College here. You are just comparing the starting salary of the first job of a fresher out of MBA. With the Network, Career Projection to Leadership and Job Shifts, the Growth never ends. Any 20 yoe post MBA grad earns 2 cr+ easily in most of the companies. They wont tell you about it. Without an MBA, you can never reach that kind of potential, across industries.

Signalling. Networking. Bridge the confidence gap ( ie I am a tech person don’t know much about business handicap). If it is tier1 international MBA, then global exposure etc

I was like you actually. Working in early stage start-ups 4-5 years ago was the best business learning one could hope for but with experience I realised that I don't want to work in hard-core tech or in the Indian ecosystem because of a number of reasons, chief among them is however good you're at your work you'll always be trumped by another kid from IIT who did consulting for two years and went to Wharton. Also the returns that LPs expect here are unreal which translates into fuckall culture overall l. Added to the fact that now I want to switch countries and move to a different industry altogether and I'm left with no option but to join the MBA bandwagon. No one is gonna entertain my profile if I don't have the brand of a top b school since my undergrad is from a Tier 2 college. Degrees open doors and an MBA degrees have the master key. Whether that's objectively actually good or not is another debate but that's the truth and I don't want to fight it.

You can get into leadership roles sooner. There are so many CTO and VP of engineering who might have never written a production code But they are able to understand the tech, manage people and handle the business. I think if you look at yourself in a leadership role. I suggest you do an MBA. Not everything is about ROI

Just cos they are earning 1lpa pm writing Java or C doesn't mean they like it, and see themselves doing it going forward. I have seen plenty of pure techies doing an MBA to shift to a core finance or operations field, and I'm not talking PM sorta role. And it's India bro, everyone wants to do a master's, the top option is MS outside, the next best thing is a tier 1 MBA.

My 2 cents - Do an MBA only if you get through tier 1 top 5/6 colleges and if you want to switch into domains such as consulting, investment banking, general management and finance. If you want to go into Prod Man or Data science roles which again are high paid jobs for now it's better to do MS from US or Europe. MBA wouldn't help then

I would like to add one more point. you can go for M.Tech in CS from t1 college, the average salary is 1+ lpa, additionally you will be getting 12400 per month. with arpund 3l fee for entire mtech including food and hostel rent, you are paying nothing. You need to have good gate rank which is also the case in CAT. There are few IITs and NITs that allows non cs grad in CS or DS or IS branch.

I worked at a Fortune 50 US firm (~90k pm pre COVID) for 2 yrs before going for an MBA at a tier 1B (the set just outside IIM ABC/ISB). Some things that made me decide on this 1. I wanted to be a generalist over a specialist. This was a personal preference. My 2 yrs were spent on Java spring boot based architecture, and I had barely scratched the surface in what I could uncover. And then there was the ocean of scalable architecture, security and everything. In a couple of years, say 2-3 at Max I would have to commit myself to some stack and hence an industry. 2. View on technical roles - the chemical engineers were paid insanely highly during the 60s to 80s. Plastics were coming up, oil refineries needed more efficiency etc. Similar was the case with electrical engineers. It just made economic sense to pay high to them - there was enough value to be captured in markets to share with them. But this didn't last long, today you don't hear many of these people earning insanely high amounts. Today it's the tech engineers. And with time, the tech revolution would plateau. You'd need to be really good to make a 30yr career in this. Again a personal preference that I'd want to work for 25-30 yrs from now. I don't want to retire by 40 and then chill on a beach Amazon pays high today, but it always knows that it pays above market and can squeeze some value. Think Microsoft, IBM etc - good American MNCs doing good tech work, yet pay closer to market than Amazon 3. The Indian growth story - like many others, i am bullish on India. As india grows, you'd have more brands, more consumption, more logistics etc. For sure you'd need brand managers, operations managers etc. with these. These are not as sexy as an AI startup, but there is some joy in understanding the brand placement of Colgate vs Pepsodent and how they operate. 4. Think of the big things in 30 years - AI, ESG etc., a generalist role would allow me to be closer to them VS a tech role in banking/ ecomm today.

Networking , business exposure , problem solving --> These are all bullshit reasons ppl convince themselves with to pusue an MBA Let me tell you the real reasons :- - Did engg, got an IT Job, sitting in the cubicle earning 20-30K thinking what else can we do, then started preparing for bank po, SSC, CAT. Ppl who get decent %tile --> chalo MBA kar lete h then crib after 2 yrs. - Took commerce in 12th , pursued B.com which is not even considered a degree now, then dont knw what to do --> Chalo MBA kar lete h finance me bcom kaam aa jaega. -Some ppl dont want to it but after 1-2 yrs in job they when they dont see any career growth --> chalo MBA kar lete h - Ppl with Tier-1 graduation --> 2 yr after working in a good role --> chlo MBA krte h, they crack tier 1 bschool ( basicaly top 10 ) and then dream of becoming CEO. Most of them are depressed in their job but IIM ki stories itni daal di h ki ab naurki nhi ho rhi to post kr nhi skte to chup chap friday daaru piyo bhul jaao sab. Fir tinder pr IIM grad likhne se match bhi aa hi jata h. Point being everyone has their own reasons to Pursue an MBA. Dont do it just bcz every tom dick and harry did it and now earning well. You dont knw their side of the story. They might have enough baap ka paisa u never knw. Be very sure why u want to pursue it bcz u will spend 2 yrs of ur life + 20L min , in an environment where only 30-40% ppl are there to learn rest all just drinking, smoking and ofcourse "mele babu ne thana thaya" thinking shayd patt jaaye pr vo assignment kra k katt legi. But well some ppl are happy doing that and scrolling reels whole day. So do what makes u happy but dont think of it as an escape for 2 yrs.

To avoid stupid and dumbass posts like these. MBA in most cases is a gateway to a better life. Not everyone can get into an IIM hence they get into MBA colleges that are tier 2 and 3. Seems like you are detached from reality.

Well, people around me do it for more money. You are comparing the avg salary from MBA with T1 salary engg. People who get avg salary from t2/t3 engg (3-6lpa) go for MBA to get 1.5lpm. People who get avg salary of >1lpm from t1 engg go for MBA to get >3lpm.

Or, the* MBA

Some do it to change tracks, mostly do it for the money. I want to do it to change my current track, working as a Software developer and would love to switch into core finance domain and for that mba is needed. Moreover here in our country, no work ex is req and most people straight away do the Engg+MBA track.

To relive the college life (but with money to spend)