According to the majority of the MBA aspirants, starting salaries determine the business school that students would choose. In this context, B-schools climb for reporting impressive salaries. Most often, students tend to forget that post-MBA starting salaries of students are commonly dependent on their capabilities and background.
Even the leading B-schools possess a big disparity between their lowest and highest salaries. However, students will get their answers that are hidden in their backgrounds. It is also important for them to observe the “delta of improvement” which the school has managed to bring forward.
Some thoughts related to the matter of choosing an MBA school are as follows:
- Alignment – Now, if you are a physician who is aspiring to take the role of a manager in a hospital then a conservative one-size-fits-all MBA won’t meet your requirements. MBA students must keep this in mind that not all the MBA programs that students come across would be able to align with their career goals. Again, only some will put effort into personalizing the learning. So, while you select the ideal MBA program for yourself, you must begin by mapping both your desired outcomes and profiles with each B-school’s offerings.
- Faculty and curriculum – As students differ from one another, so are schools. There is a huge difference in the manner in which B-schools teach, the method of teaching, and lastly, who they teach. For instance, Harvard University utilizes case studies in all the classes. Again, other schools possess presentation-driven and faculty classes. A few reputed schools make use of computer-aided multimedia simulations due to the manner in which they copy the actual corporate world. So, it can be said that all the students have got their preferred method of learning and there is no method in which it can be learned without experiencing it beforehand. Hence, before students proceed further and decide what is ideal for them, they must sit in the actual class and observe whether or not the method of teaching excites or engages them. Additionally, students must remain mindful that faculty plays a huge role in their learning experience and so, they must go through their profiles very well to get an idea of how they are going to explain the significance of global business.
- Global jobs – Many B-schools have excellent domestic placements and a reputed business school does help students to attain global internships and global placements. They can accomplish this job properly due to a worldwide network comprising corporate and alumni partners that create both internships as well as full-time worldwide opportunities for all the students. Hence, when you select an MBA school, you have to keep in mind whether you wish to work in India or abroad.
- Peer group – Students must also observe the diversity in the classrooms and whether there are students from various nations. Additionally, they must also see if students hail from different industry verticals or backgrounds. Diversity in the classroom has become hugely helpful in bringing in optimistic learning results because learning occurs over discussions and in student groups both in as well as outside the class. The MBA programmes of the US have got a regular in-class work experience of seven years. On the contrary, Indian schools do report a regular in-class work experience of only 1.5 years. Most often, IIMs are criticized for the shortage of diversity in their classrooms because an impressive CAT score isn’t always the finest indicator of the quality of a student.
- Support – You must also see whether the Dean is accessible when you need an assistance of any kind. It is pretty natural for students to stumble in their journey of MBA and during these moments, they will require a school which proposes timely nurturing, support, and care. No matter you are a powerful tech enthusiast or a budding entrepreneur, you must see that your school has been nurturing you. If you need an entrepreneurship club that you wish to join or a Blockchain/Neuroscience lab where you would be able to set your desired start-up’s foundation, then you can ask your school to share more and more information regarding the support that you are likely to receive. Again, you can also have a talk with your previous as well as current classmates.
- One-year versus two-year programmes – Students need two years to complete full-time MBAs and there is a huge demand for the one-year MBAs as the ROI of these MBAs is better. So, when you making comparisons of the ROI of two kinds of MBA programmes, then you will observe that one-year MBAs habitually outperform. The students of one-year MBAs pay off the majority of their education loans while the two-year MBA students graduate. So, it comes as a surprise that students only observe the average starting salary but forget to notice the programme’s length.
- Rankings – This is a fact that rankings are hugely helpful in developing the reputation and brand of the MBA schools and these happen to be independent validation of the performance of a school in the hugely competitive surrounding. So, appropriate care must be taken for using only the topmost international publications or journals because a few rankings of India suffer from the view of getting sponsored.
- Combination of higher technology in the MBA programmes – Earlier getting comfortable with the newest technology was important but today it is mandatory and tomorrow it will turn critical. Practically, all the aspects of the business have been stuck by technology. Hence, students need to be adept technologically, else they run a chance of getting left behind.
The above-stated factors can be viewed as a wider framework to select an MBA programme. Students must remain mindful that the salary that they get commonly depends on them as most companies possess online portals from where students can apply and it is obtainable to students of just any school.
So, it is vital for them to align their learning with their objectives and career goals and then they will find this world to become an oyster to them.
Stay connected with fellow students on PaGaLGuY for CAT Exam 2020 Discussion
Source: India Today