Quite well written, I am an IT consultant myself. I was toying with the idea of doing an MBA but was more of averse to it. This post of yours gives me some insight of what one gets to do in a B-School. Especially your point on 'Problem Solving', meeting diverse set of people, learning how to handle people are good.
One thing that I would agree with you that folks doing MBA are encouraged and enabled to do is 'lateral thinking' which is sort of missing in others say an IT consultant.
Again, please remember that this is a computer engineer's way of reasoning why MBA's are suited for management consultancy. I think more than the knowledge we get and the skill sets we develop, the companies (read Consults, iBankers) look at the top b-school grads as output of a filtering process that has already been done. So they dont need to go in scout of talent again in the open world. How else can you explain an investment bank, Lehmann brothers taking an IIT Mechanical engineer, who has specialised in Systems and Marketing, for a financial analysis job? No skill set is going to remain with you for ever and if you are smart enough to learn, you are the one I want. Esp. true for consulting jobs where you need to be a jack of all trades. Forget about the microeconomics et al. courses that you zip through in one year under tremendous time pressure. I really wonder if MBA's really "study" any course properly.. Ask any Ph.D guy about this, he will be able to vouch.
disagree... i think the fact that bschool grads from India are not valued on their specialization and education but only only looked as a few who were succesful to pass through a tough filter is a disservice to all the education that happens in India. How many harvard graduates who specialize in marketing and information sciences get picked for financial services by lehmann? It reflects a total disregard to the education system in the bschool and importance being given only to the tough selection process that students go through, which ensures that students are academically brilliant and pick up things fast... lack of prior work experience and the resultant flexibility of the MBA grad to take up a post in any field for the pay packet and the company offering a job is also a reason... That is something that has to change... It better do...
Regarding learning, depends on how you look at it... It doesnt make sense to compare PhD courses and MBA courses... MBAs are expected to be good at applying the knowledge, say interpret the results of a statistical model you built, rather than know how to construct the model or improve it or produce a better model that can change the way the industry works... the whole point and focus of MBA and PhD courses are different... I will never compare them... I will be applying soon for my PhD and I have personally spoken to many profs and this is the resultant reflection...
Commenting by HaloScan
