Engineering Freshers Shud not be allowed to sit for MBA entrance

[CATastrophe_sam]

Originally Posted by shrikanthk @ Wed Sep 29, 2004 6:20 pm

This notion of making work-ex a pre-requisite makes sense in US and not in india.
In any good US b-school,we'll find people from different domains i.e guys with banking experience,IT exp,or even in some cases managerial experience.In sharp contrast,in India you'll find 80% of the work-ex would've been in IT.Despite their IT
backgrounds,many of these students (at least half) won't be opting for systems.Thus,their pre-MBA experience will be of little significance in their post-MBA assignments.For instance,sam, tell me how on earth coding experience in wipro/TCS *is going to help you in an I-Bank *say Goldman sachs?
* * As far as your prejudice against engineers is concerned,keep in mind that in India,unlike in US, the quality of commerce/arts education is abysmal.This is largely because most good students don't even consider commerce/arts as an option when they're in 12th. There are exceptions of course, but they're few and far in between.
Moreover it is not binding on every engineer to become a technologist.The engineering course helps you develop comfort with numbers and an analytical bent of mind which are essential to be successful in any walk of life.

Dear Sri,
great view point ra,
I mean for the record - I'm an engg as well and would have been working with Toshiba if not for an incident.
anyway i am now currently in Busienss Development and i know what Engg are exposed to. I agree coding in Wipro does not get you the relevant experience and Engg does give you an Analytical bent of the mind. But i guess u are being very unfair by saying the quality of commerce and arts is abysmal. Please don't quote such things, i dunno whre u got this data !!
But an MBA in India even today is driven mostly by the peer and family status pressure - same goes for Engg as well and that is why an Engg might make a good manager but only because a BBA would not be given an oppurtunity
Woudl u not agree you as an engg can understand Assembly Lang Progg more than say a BSC Electronics. It works the same way, at least it shouldn't be a pre requisite !!

[coolcataspirant]

i guess the whole problem in INDIA is that MBA is seen as the end rather than a means to acheive some other end.. In the sense a majority of people(read freshers !!) think that MBA is a key to some world full of riches.. Most people are not clear in their mind on what they wanna be !!! So if i wanna be an entrepreneur an MBA degree is one way, proper work ex and good self motivation( i can always hire some mba's !!) is another way and so on.. Once people start developing an holistic attitude towards their career rather then having a blanket goal of "BEING RICH or BEING SUCCESFUL " such debates abt engineers or (non) engineers allowed to do MBA would become meaninglesss !!!!!!!!!!!!!

[shrikanthk]

Hi sam,
I never said that engineering should be a pre-requisite. Any graduate(even a history graduate) can be considered good enough if he scores 99+ in cat.But the fact remains that a typical engg student is more competent than a typical commerce/arts graduate.
There are exceptions ofcourse like me. Managed 5.5 in quant-sim2 despite being an engineer.

[MurTuzA]

Originally Posted by CATastrophe_sam @ Wed Sep 29, 2004 4:52 pm

Dear Murtuza,
I am not trying to catch wat u are saying buddy - it was for Kunal - the Engg advertiser - he was under the impression that enng is a pre requisite for MBA.
That is what we are contesting - not personal wars here friend.

Sincere regards,
sam

Ya I know yaar....My post wasnt intended towards anyone...Just that I strongly think that this is a real good topic of discussion....I myself think and talk abt it a lot with ppl....But the way this thread was shaping up really hurt me.....With ppl taking pot shots at each other......thats just not constructive discussion....Just tell us how u feel....that way everyone will learn something......wot say u?

By the way,u really have a knack of bringing up Hot Hot Topics man

[tdubey]

Someone tell me why should we be discriminating against engineers ?
If engineers are not allowed, why should a humanities graduate, or a pure science graduate, or for that matter anybody who is not from the commerce field, be allowed to sit for MBA ?
If you pursue this line of thought further, nobody is qualified for IAS, and BBA should be a prerequisite for MBA . Otherwise you would be wasting your graduation years .
Preposterous.

It has been observed that there is a good correlation between engineering and managerial capabilities. In that case we would be stopping a bunch of good managers and replacing them with inferior ones.

[ManDevIan]

i think that this discussion won't lead anywhere.....

neways... what i feel is that MBA is not about what you learnt earlier, but about how you apply ur knowledge & skills during MBA & later in life...

true that there is very little for an engineer to utilise his engineering knowledge in MBA, but then MBA is not about only applying your "theoretical knowledge" but also ur analytical knowledge, industry knowledge etc... and many times engineers think very differently than what a commerce graduate thinks...

further in career, engineers have a different perspective alltogether & thats why companies are hiring them....

In B Schools (atleast in MDI, as i know), we all work in pre-alloted groups, which is made out of students of various backgrounds.. so that minds of different knwoledge area work together, & we learn from each other!!!

For the records.... i am not at all an engineer (the species which i generally dont like)!! i am a Chartered Accountant by qualification...

Originally Posted by shrikanthk @ Wed Sep 29, 2004 6:46 pm

Any graduate(even a history graduate) can be considered good enough if he scores 99+ in cat.But the fact remains that a typical engg student is more competent than a typical commerce/arts graduate.

For the records again... in most of the top b schools all the top ranks are captured by non-engineers only!!! its just that no. of engineers applying for B Schools are far more than non-engineers & thus it seems that engineers fare better in admissions... but u should compare the application:admission ratio, in which non-engineers will have a far better ratio than engineers!!!!

Cheers

Prateek

[arnavsinha]

I felt I had already said most of what I wanted to say in my first post on this thread, but couldn't help writing more after going through the subsequent posts.

Engineers do have a slight (ok...more than slight actually) advantage as compared to people from non-science streams, and even doctors, as far as MBA entrance tests are considered, and I expect that might be true for some of the subjects in the actual MBA course too. Part of the reason is that the engineering course in general tones their minds in that particular manner (analytics,and all that jazz). But another reason as someone brought this up earlier is that after 12th in India a large chunk of the "class-toppers" end up in engineering, which even though unfortunate, is the undeniable fact. So if we deny engineers the chance to do an MBA we would probably be removing a substantial number of candidates who are actually the best-suited for a course that aims to pick up brilliant minds and train them to manage the corporate world. And mind you, nowhere am I saying that all engineers are suited for an MBA program, or that non-engineers are not suited for it.

Secondly, as far as "fresher" engineers are conerned, I think that we tend to over-estimate the importance of work-experience for an MBA degree. I don't know about US schools, and I also don't claim to be an authority on Indian B-schools, but I always had this feeling, which was confirmed by two professors in DMS, IIT Delhi, with whom I had the good fortune of spending some time with during the recent festival at IITD. During the course of our conversation, they asked me about my future plans and I dropped the MBA word. One of them asked me if it wouldn't be a better idea to work for a couple of years before doing that, and I stated my reasons, and also asked if work-ex is really such an important criteria.
Well, both of them were unanimous in their opinion that though work-ex is a desirable quality, there is no evidence that freshers at any time have proven themselves any less worthy. Being a manager is more about personal traits and there is always a good chance, it even happens quite often, that there are freshers in a batch who understand the nitty-gritties of an organisational structure better than somebody who has actually worked in one for two-three years. It all boils down to probability, and there is always a better chance for a person to see MBA in the right perspective if he has had work-ex. That's all there is to it. (This should add further fuel to the debate)

[abhmat]

hi all,
i feels there is no problem leting engineers ........mba positions in present day have become more complex so u need good mix of skills . and since freshers get early they can acuire experince to handle situation ....
also i feels that one must first be a student and the n a proffessional . it serves well............................
regards
abhimat

[CATastrophe_sam]

Originally Posted by shrikanthk @ Wed Sep 29, 2004 6:46 pm

Hi sam,
I never said that engineering should be a pre-requisite. Any graduate(even a history graduate) can be considered good enough if he scores 99+ in cat.But the fact remains that a typical engg student is more competent than a typical commerce/arts graduate.
There are exceptions ofcourse like me. Managed 5.5 in quant-sim2 despite being an engineer.

Dear Sri,
U starting a altogether new topic man - i mean the CAT paper is designed specifically to test IQ and not manegerial skills ( only to a minor level )
anyway lets drop that out ,
thanks,
sam

[shatadipsom]

hi guys,
I am a new entrant to this forum. This thread interested me simply because I am a software engineer and I would like to share my opinion about this topic. With due respect to everybody's views, i would say that, "Management is the logical extension to Engineering!" A manager has to mange things...be it in the software industry or any other industry under the sun! I am working in Infosys for a few months now and I have got a bit of feel of things by now. My delivery manager and project manager are engineers after all. Most managers in software companies are those who did coding at some point of time. They became managers through experience, every professional wants to settle at some managerial level at the end of the day...now if some engineer wants to add the managerial value through a top-notch B-school I can't understand what wrong in it?
Engineers doing MBA because they are not getting a job! True! Engineers who didn't undertstand engineering want to do MBA because everyone else is doing so and they won't understand anything of MBA too. Very True...there are people like that. But we need to spare a thought for them too. At the end of the day everyone needs a good job and earn money, let's not be hypocrital about this. So if a guy from an average College(like me) is not getting a job, MBA poses a lucrative alternative. How can you take it away from him? Add to this the fact that most top B-schools have Lion shares of engineers, and engineers invariably do well in entrance exams given their logical bent of mind...so you can't avoid them, this would certainly lead to loss of quality in B-schools. A mechie doing a PGP in Finance from IIMA sounds ironical but what has a journalist or an arts graduate for that matter to do with Finance? So should they too be barred? We never know where we might succeed and what the future holds for us, we make conscious career switches, sometimes they click and at other times they don't...........