Foreign MBA from an Indian perspective..The Initial Introspection!!

I have been getting calls from quite a few people ( as I did when I started off a novice) who want to know the basics of a foreign MBA. And I have kind of become tired reiterating the same thing over and again. Not that I am not willing to explain it over the phone / email but that I think all these points, if solidly documented will help me save a lot of time. All these points are available on most forums and MBA preparation sites. But people get a whiff of satisfaction when they a get a personal response with all this data. So here I go!!! And yeah one more thing. I will write things from the perspective of an Indian student. So yo will find a lot of desi things..So now again..get set ...Go!!

The Initial Introspection:

This is the first step towards an MBA. The following questions have to be analysed and satisfactorily answered before one jumps into the MBA prep and application process. Because MBA is a seriously costly affair, any mistakes during the initial introspection can cost one dear financially, emotionally and mentally.


1. Determine if MBA is your cup of tea:


MBA should not be the choice of career just because the post MBA jobs pay astronomical pay packets. Answer if you have the natural ability and infinity to beat some neck wrangling competition. Or if they dont come to you naturally have you nurtured such qualities in you?
If the answer to either of these questions is a yes then move on to the next questions. Others do some serious retrospection on whether this definitely is a career for you. For example communication and networking are very important assets one must have inculcated to be successful in the business domain. If you are not great at it then probably it is worth reconsidering your decision.


2. Will it give you happiness?

Happiness is the emotion for which we really slog it out. But if this slogging does not give you happiness, it may not be worth pursuing. I believe that happiness is a sum total of many factors of which money is just one factor. Job satisfaction, spending time with family and so many other such things are the other important ingredients of happiness. So people who are brilliant at technical stuff who think will fare better in the booming IT industry, people with a spouse, parents and kids who cannot relocate etc need to think and rethink before they decide to shoot for your MBA. But if you are brilliant technically and still feel that MBA is where your future lies and family and other needs can cope with the pressure, then why wait..Get into it.


3. Do I have the resources at my disposal?

An MBA may cost anything between a 17L INR to 75L INR , assuming the worst case scenario of a zero scholarship/aid. So do we have the resources at our disposal to meet such a huge financial burden? Unfortunately most Indian aspirants will not be able to garner such huge bank balances to fund their education. So we will have to depend on an aid / loan to support the education. Getting an aid in a good school is the most awesome thing to happen, but not everybody will be able to secure an aid. So most of the students will depend on a loan. Getting a loan adds a lot of dependencies. Say you are 26 and you take a a loan fr 60L INR / 1,50,000USD. And a post MBA job pays you 1,20,000USD per annum.

By 28, the Indian tradition mandates that you get married. So your effective savings for the month will be 5000USD, of which you will pay back 3000USD per month. So it will take you about 4 years to pay back the loan that you took. So yo will be forced to work in the US even if you want to return to India. And as you must have realized, investing in USD and reaping in INR will be no fun.

To add to all this fun riot is the 65,00 US H1B visa cap issue that I will discuss in a different post. The baseline is you might be an MBA from a top university, in a top company, but still providence might have other ideas for you. Your visa might get rejected just because your fate was against you. So you may have to pack your bags to earn in INR!!

Once you have the answers to these questions, you can decide if you want to do an MBA abroad. And once the decision is a "Yes" . Get into the GMAT mode. More on the GMAT mode in the posts to come...