Sunday, March 9, 2008

Why Business School?

This sounds like an old topic but every potential MBA student still asks this question. Why business school? What I am going to get out of it? I have some friends who believe a business school will teach them great tools which they will be able to apply immediately in the real business world. Well, this is true, but, is that it? Some say, you can find all these tools in books like "MBA in 21 days", so why business school? Basic concepts like Marginal Analysis are getting published since 1954 or earlier, but as one of my professor said, people in the real business world still dont get it or the usage is limited to a few. Ok, the point is well taken. A Business school can teach you 1091 different tools which will have applicability in the real business world, but, which one to use? When? In response business schools increased the amount of case based study. A step in the right direction, but these cases are far from real world situations. What are you going to do when you will face those 'moments of truth?' When there will be no case at point, only reality and you? Which tool will you use? Is there one single tool to find the right tool among those 1091?


There is. Its called intuition. Perhaps, business school helps in refining the intuition. Perhaps, those cases in a way provide an opportunity to utilize that one tool and reduce its 'crudeness'.


BTW, 1091 is just an arbitrary number.