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.

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.

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” :)

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

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.

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.

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.

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