We were in Tirunelveli on the 16th of June to meet with my Periyamma and also to meet a potential beneficiary of ShikshaDaan. My Periyamma is almost bed ridden and this lady, Selvi, helps by giving her a bath, cooking food, getting the house cleaned. Selvi is a neighbour and her husband works in a courier company. They have two children – a boy and a girl. The boy went through an allergic reaction to a medicine that nearly wiped out their entire savings and suddenly from being able to comfortably manage their lives, they were struggling to get the children educated. The girl, Padmavathi is studying in college, doing her B.Com 3rd year and the son is studying in his 8th.

My Periyamma had told us about this situation and we were happy to fund Padmavathi’s B.Com 3rd year. Since we were in Tirunelveli, we wanted to meet her and understand her plans better. She came with her father and Krishnan asked her what she was planning to do after completing her B.Com. Pat came the reply, “MBA” !

Krishnan and I then gave her advice about not doing her MBA right after her degree… Something we have been saying to many many young people. In May, we were invited to address a batch of MBA students at the Himachal Central University and again there we found the entire batch doing an MBA with no work experience, right after their degree. An MBA done without any work experience is somehow unpalatable … how do you engage a colleague, motivate your team, work on a budget, do an appraisal, resolve a conflict, through just reading or hearing about these things ? Many folks can understand these concepts, but experience makes you appreciate the various frameworks and concepts that are part of an MBA course even more and know when to apply them.

Many students just do an MBA right after their college with the hope that they will get a better job, but they end up starting at the entry level jobs that a non-MBA does. Krishnan was associated with a private MBA college and a few months back he met a student from that college in the metro-train. The boy’s parents had sold off their land to pay for his MBA and this boy was earning just ₹8000/- which he probably would have earned without the MBA !! This is the sad reality of this craze for an MBA. Please speak to students from the lower income group and the less aware sections of the society, guide them to not pursue this dream of an MBA till they work for a few years and get them to fund the MBA themselves.

Our suggestion to Padmavathi was to do a short course at NIIT along with her 3rd year B.Com and get a job, infact to start working part time right now. We gave her the example of Manikandan at Madurai who is working alongwith his hotel management degree and funding his education himself. We impressed upon her the fact her parents should not be burdened with supporting her education constantly – the experience of standing on her own feet is very valuable. The good news is Padmavathi’s father called just now to say she went and enquired at NIIT and has found a 2 month course that she can pursue, and she has managed to get a discount on the fees too !!.

Please share this blog widely and also help mentor college students to first gain some work experience and then fund their own MBA. This craze for an MBA right after college is misplaced – an MBA after some work experience is very valuable. The shift also needs to happen at the Management colleges, they should insist on some work experience as an admission criteria. The American management colleges insist on work experience, and that is right. High time, we did the same in India too.