Side Effects of an MBA

I had this sudden urge to start a series of posts on what life actually is like in a B-school, and what this life does to a person. This is the first of such series of posts..

Here I try to explore the side effects of an MBA which are carcinogenic and start breeding in the blood of every MBA student the day he/she puts his/her foot on the revered B-school campus, but the symptoms of cancer are visible sooner than the actual cancer. Even after this nobody does anything to remove these tumors which lead to an explosive growth in their sizes hampering the normal course of life of everyone around an MBA student and the student himself.

People going to a B-school start thinking of themselves as no lesser than a demi-God, simultaneously forgetting about other 120 odd (batch mates) self professed Gods. This leads to ego clashes between every one, where in everyone thinks he/she is correct and the other person is a moron who has no right whatsoever to speak in the presence of His majesty.

People become short tempered ready to blow the fuse at the slightest of provocation. They become intolerant of other students, simply intolerant of their mere presence around them, looking frantically for the pettiest of reasons to rip each other off. Even a slight error on someone’s part is blown out of proportions thinking that as the only chance in the lifetime they have got to get the better of the other person.

Forgiveness is a forgotten virtue and is considered a vile by many. There are no friends there, only contacts and batch-mates which may help you bargain for a job sometime down the years when you need one, that too not because of friendship but because of alma mater ties.

It may be purely because of being more mature and practical than each of us was in our undergrad days, when emotions were strong and lifelong friendship really blossomed amongst fellow batchmates. Or for some, maybe having worked for some time in the harsh and unforgiving corporate world would have changed us. Each of these can be a reason, independently or as a combined package.

One very peculiar change I personally observed in fellow MBA grads is the ever declining ratio of emotional quotient. People lose their sensitivity and become hardened; which may be appropriately called stress hardening in pure engineering terms. Personal and intangible issues take a backseat and life of almost everyone becomes mechanistic to its extreme point. Humans turn into machines churning out PowerPoints and word reports at the pace of Brett Lee bowling on WACA pitch. This murder of the child within each of us may also be one of the reasons of the perceived hostility amongst almost everyone.

Other thing people forget coming to a B-school are their pre MBA relationships. It is a widely accepted fact that almost 50% of pre-engaged couples break up within the first 6 months of their MBA and start afresh with someone inside the campus. Now is this due to lack of time to spend with the first fiancée or plenty of time spent with someone else on the compulsion of assignments or projects, I have no clue. The funniest part is that people who are surrounded by so many people get so lonely that they don’t have a soul to talk to. Maybe that drives people near to each other and the sheer distance from the original loved one takes the relationship away. I am no authority to analyze the issue morally since it is a totally private matter of the involved parties. But certainly I can observe and look at the issue as a neutral connection.

Studying in a fully residential course, I can relate some causes to these side effects. Group assignments and projects were supposed to foster team spirit in people working together, but here they achieve an opposite of that. People spend so much time together for work related reasons that they get bored of each other. Now generally if you don’t like someone in real life, you simply ignore him and things become normal, but here you have to work with the same person acting as a coherent team. The very thought of a free rider eating away the fruits of your hard-work can be very frustrating and disheartening and when you see that happening almost every day you just want to kill that parasite. These frustrations search desperately for a reason to be vent out.

The other reason can be simple pressure to do better than others, on whatever expenses it may be. Competition doesn’t end with cracking CAT, it actually starts from there on. People realize the laws of supply and demand and most likely they learn it the harsher way. The relative grading system doesn’t help either. People go to all extremes to stop the other person from getting a better grade or a better job, in fact even a better friend. Effect: no respect or gentle feeling for others since they all are your competitors before being anyone else. Sadism is the art which people acquire automatically, taking extreme pleasure in every small thing that can cause even the slightest of pain to the other.

I do not know if these changes are found only in a fully residential course or are just a common phenomenon with every MBA course. What I really know is that, there are not many friends out there, and if you can find some, you are a very lucky person. People believe that the only way to be on top is via someone else’s head. I believe that a B-school teaches us to be shrewd, unkind and diplomatic besides the other never ending boring theories and may be these are the learnings which will ultimately matter in your adventures when you step into the corporate life.

Hustling and jostling with these side effects of MBA, I have successfully finished off my MBA. If you just think of these as the side dishes in a multi course meal; “they add to the spice of the meal” and you have a totally new perspective of things. :)