To MBA or Not?

The most common question I get asked is "Should we consider an MBA"?

In all transparency, I never went to B school. Did I consider it? Yes, of course. Could I crack GMAT? Of Course?not. My score was 530. Exams were never my forte. Neither were qualifying tests or anything which was time bound.?Infact all my ranks sucked. My IIT screening score was -1. AIEEE was 100k+. In engineering I had a couple of backlogs as well as in masters. So I realized very quickly I need to figure out my career organically without any help from schools.?

But I was not technical either. I did finish my electronics engineering with a great GPA and also interned at one of the most advanced RF component makers building diplexers and communication modules. But I hated it. Engineering as a career was just not my calling. I had no coding skills or even basic VBA knowledge after 3 years of engineering. So how can someone who sucks at coding, general technical skills and excel modelling become something meaningful in tech was a question that was always top of mind for me. MBA made logical sense to me at every step of my early stage career so it was always top of mind. But I needed GMAT.

But, the one thing Google enabled us to do was move internally across any role you desired except engineering without any real formal training. You were assessed purely on skills rather than education and anyone could move anywhere in the world. In my 5 years there, I worked in operations, sales, partnerships, program management and maps. I never held onto any role sacrificing promotions and stability every year to just keep learning new things. They also let us shadow anyone in any team and you could sit on meetings just to understand what teams do. I learnt about product management, UX research, finance, sales operations and even procurement. I still vividly remember shadowing a procurement call where suppliers were bidding live for a paper cup project. Not every company gives this sort of mobility and transparency that Google had. I just made the most of it. So when I could not crack my GMAT, I played on my ability to crack any role so I relocated to Mountain View to join a then startup within Google and my career took a different turn ever since.?

Now coming back to the main question, should you pursue an MBA?

Yes and No. The most important question you should ask yourself is "What do I really want to do after my MBA". There are some roles like consulting, VC/PE etc that absolutely demand you to have an MBA from a top tier school. Call it unconscious bias/fancy HR jargon. It's true. Research by Indeed shows?that 43% of C-suite executives believe that the best performers graduated from highly reputable institutions, and as many as 35% of managers and 34% of senior managers agreed. So no point in riding against the wave.

So if your intent is to crack a specific role in a specific company, do deep research, understand what schools are known to offer the platform to get into your dream role and make a career switch. The other reason to do an MBA is to fully switch your career path. Consulting to product management. Banking to tech. Operations to Sales. MBA is a great springboard to do something totally different and start over. See which schools really give you a springboard rather than give you a better path in the same career?ladder. If you were at Google, moving to Amazon post MBA for a bit of salary hike and role improvement, IMHO is not good ROI.?

Another unpopular opinion: If you can afford it and crack a top school without taking massive?debt then do it for the network and experience because you can truly use this to build on your existing family business/startup etc. If your company is paying for it and you get it, absolutely do it. But if your overall thought process does not fall in either bucket and you are doing it for other reasons, I would seriously reconsider. Another important factor is the age in which you get out of B school which should ideally be 30-32. This opens up a lot more options because you are neither too experienced nor too inexperienced and have enough flexibility in the career journey to take on a variety of post MBA roles. Risk appetite is also high with no family pressures etc which a lot of us face in mid 30's.

Let's talk about the finances of an MBA. I'm taking Harvard, which I consider one of the worlds best MBA programs as an example.?

Assumptions:

• Total cost of attendance for a Harvard MBA is $225,000
• The borrower takes out federal student loans with an average interest rate of 6.0%
• The borrower enters a 10-year standard repayment plan
• The borrower's starting salary after graduation is $160,000

Calculation:

1. Total amount borrowed: $225,000
2. Total interest over 10 years: $99,997
3. Total repayment amount: $324,997
4. Monthly payment: $2,708

Based on these assumptions, the you would need to make monthly payments of $2,708 over 10 years to repay the debt in full. But according to a 2019 report by U.S. News & World Report, the median starting salary for HBS graduates was $145,000, with a median debt load of $90,000. Based on these numbers, the estimated ROI for a Harvard MBA is around 6 years.

Remember MBA is an expensive decision. 2 years and a lot of money. You also have to spend the next 5+ years paying off loans. There is a lot of subjectivity to this decision but I hope the above framework helps in some way. Everyone has a different story and there are exceptions across the board. There is no right or wrong time to do college and no right or wrong time to upskill and get formal education but most of us fall in the general bucket and usual profile so it's crucial to make decisions with proper counselling. Another trap you should not fall into is educational consultants or folks who have incentives aligned to get you into schools. India unfortunately has a massive network of these middlemen who are paid to convince students to go abroad, take massive debts with the promise of highly paid jobs. So be careful!

Do I regret the fact that I did not go to B school? Absolutely not. But would I have gone, if things fell in place? Absolutely yes. If nothing, I would have enjoyed making new friends, building a great network, reliving the campus life all over again, maybe partying a bit and while learning something new :)