Mohan is an engineering student in his final year of college who has been selected by a leading IT (Information Technology) firm. He is confused if he should attempt CAT now or get two years of experience first, and then attempt it.
Assuming the fee of the college he would get into two years later does not go up, he is effectively choosing between making Rs 12.6 lakh in two years and doing an MBA or doing an MBA, and then making Rs 52.5 lakh in two years. Mohan would have earned more if he had gone for an MBA first.
- The fee for the B-School has been assumed to remain the same. However, it is likely to go up with every passing year.
- For getting a promotion, his work experience as an MBA would be more relevant & valuable.
- With a job, it would be difficult for him to start his preparation for an entrance test, as his job wouldn’t leave him with much time.
- If he has prepared earlier, he can definitely find time to brush up on the concepts but not otherwise.
- Most importantly, the amount of post-MBA learning that Mohan would have got on the job would be many times more than the learning that he would have got by working pre-MBA.
- To top this, the learning being of higher quality, it will be aligned to the kind of work that Mohan is expected to be doing going forward in his career.
- If we look at the weightage given to work experience in the IIMs, it’s not more than 10% for most of the IIMs. So, it’s not as much of a difference as it is hyped up to be.
- Even during the placements at B-schools, the added incentive for every year of work experience is not much in monetary terms.
