embeeyay-schmembeeyay

Should I do my MBA in the US?

This is a question that quite a few people will be looking at right about now. This question will get really important for those who have already written the "CAT" one of the most erratic exams possible, and undergone the IIMs' strange application process and come out without the elusive admit. The first time I wrote the CAT was in my final year of Engineering. We took a train ride to Calicut as there was no center at Surathkal, and scored some kickass 'green' after successfully making the auto guy understand what it was that we were looking for.

I woke up the next day, smoked 2 blunts because the one I had made for a friend was refused by said 'friend' and took the auto ride to the center with a pen instead of a pencil, I had never seen the paper nor had I known how many sections it carried.

I scored a 97.7 percentile.

ha! and my classmates who are now working for McKinsey & Co after graduating from IIMB had studied for 2 whole years and scored somewhere in the 98 percentile range.

Anyway, I was disgusted after a few more attempts where I did poorly in the ENGLISH section *facepalm* and decided to write the GMAT where I scored 760 ;D

Now coming to the question I have asked and which is why you might have landed on my blog in the first place.

Should you do your MBA in the US paying so much money, and raking up so many loans?

NO.

Here is why:

Now you might say that I have vested interests in saying that, after all, i am here already and I would like fewer people to get here to compete for jobs. I could. But you'll just have to believe me, right?

I met a senior of mine a few days ago, he had graduated in May 2009, a bad time I agree, and he left back to India. He was generally frustrated at the way things had turned out for him. A near perfect GPA and with consulting experience and still no job. But he was lucky, he had a GA and was from a very rich family, so he could afford to go back, but I know other Indians who are working for free because they can't go back with the kinds of loans that they have. They are still struggling, a fact I see when I find then loitering around the campus in desperate need of a job.

it is very frustrating when all these companies state that they are equal opportunity employers and then state that they do not hire international students. You might think it is not that big a deal but it kinda hurts and then I suddenly realize how people subjected to racism might have felt.

There seems to be a sort of Anti-India sentiment that is brewing up within the general American populace, they won't say it out loud and in fact I have some extremely friendly and caring American classmates, but in general, they resent us coming here and 'taking' their jobs away.

The MBA is a strange degree, you learn so much in so little time that you have hardly the scope to understand what it is that you are learning. Employers recruit them not because of what they have learnt but because being selected by the schools and completing the course implies intelligence and hence employability. In this economy however, they don't want to experiment and are taking only those people who already have experience in the field that they are looking for. Which means that the MBA which is traditionally a career switching degree, has now become useless.

With the drop in jobs this time the H1B visa quota might have gone unfilled, but the cap is still way too low. The American people under Obama, who is ironically more conservative that the republicans in this issue, seem to have forgotten what it is about this country that makes it so great; its willingness to accept any one from anywhere and the opportunities it provides them to achieve their goals and benefit everyone else. But with the populist decisions that Mr. change is making, I really don't know if it will not come around and bite them in the ass somewhere later down the line. Limiting the flow of talent from other countries to your's is not a good thing. Do they not know this?

I have a lot more to say, but I do not have the time. So unless you have a huge scholarship or a GA do not come to the US, or else you will be left second guessing yourself everyday, like I do. And for that apply early. The guys who have GAs in my class have fewer years experience, and lesser grades and scores in the GMAT than I do, the reason they were selected was because they applied in the first round and I in the third. Do not delay.

If you come from a poor family, write the CAT again and again until you get the seat. I will be getting back to India with an EMI of about 70k per month, how do I plan on repaying this? I have no clue and it scares me.

Now, don't get me wrong again, I like this country a lot, but I feel that they are losing their way and I don't want that to happen.


The sign, for foreigner, on the door to america