The advertisement for the Common Aptitude Test (CAT) is out. CAT is organised by the Indian Institutes of Managements for admissions into the IIMs and other management institutes all across India. This time around the exam is scheduled for November 20, 2005.
Advertisements for other management institutes who hold their own entrance exams have started to come out as well. So the heat is on for more than 150,000 aspirants who are expected to take these exams this year. Last year (i.e. 2004), a little over 150,000 aspirants wrote CAT (which was a 20 per cent increase from 2003). In India the number of aspirants to any form of education usually goes up.
By this logic, even a conservative estimate suggests that the number this year could cross 175,000.
Before you read any further let me warn you this is not another article in the series of 'How to bell this CAT.' For that, articles written by the heads of coaching centres, which have mushroomed all over the country, are more than enough.
Questions bigger than this need to be answered by MBA aspirants.
The decision to do an MBA (to the condition that one gets into a reasonably good business school, but with so many of them cropping up, getting into one with the right kind of coaching is not very difficult these days) is perhaps one of the most important selections a person makes during his lifetime.
It determines the course of one of the largest investments in terms of irrecoverable time, money and commitment a person will ever make.
A decision of such extreme importance requires some amount of thinking on the individual's part. Anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that what is happening today is completely to the contrary. At what point in life do aspirants ask themselves the questions, 'Why do I want to do an MBA?' 'Where do I want to go with my life and will my education take me there?'
The fact that most MBA aspirants do not answer these questions has led to more questions cropping up.
Why the early burnouts when designer human resource policies and booming economies are pushing employee perks/job variety and pay cheques to unprecedented highs? Why today, in the day of paternity leaves, free office lunches, and five-star office premises, is the job loyalty of the MBAs lesser than yesterday's white-collar employee?
Same shit, different day
In our country, students who join a B-school are young, in the 20-23 age group and typically, without any work experience. Most of them are there because someone is the family wanted them to be there or because this is what everybody around them seemed to be doing. So, basically they are really not sure why they are there.
Contrary to the general perception that MBA students are clear about what they want to achieve in life, most are simply relieved and happy at having successfully completed the admissions process. And once they are there they simply get on with what is being offered. Nearly two decades of non-stop education is what students are put through.
The process of taking exams never seems to end. So another two years down the line having completed an MBA (as any individual who completed his MBA degree will tell you, it takes great effort to flunk an MBA programme) the next best thing to do is to take up a job and then take it on from there.
Sometime after the individual has started working, the individual starts thinking: 'Is this the job I wanted to do?' Does he really want to slog so much just to sell a few extra boxes of soap, or type endless proposals for his bosses, or book orders for the latest photocopier?
Once this virus of routine sets in, it hits where it hurts the most and the individual runs to the next company thinking this doctor will have a cure for your pain. But few find the cure.
Same shit, different company, more money
The new job with more money than before comes along but the situation does not change much, as the structures are the same across organisations.
The lack of sense of purpose in life is vicariously compensated for by more money. Money compensates for the uncertainty in lives, no longer remaining a means of living but becoming the point of it. The dominance of the economic imperative has created a society where success is now equated with material
And when the individual looks around; most of this batchmates and colleagues from other institutes seem to be doing the same. The individual gets the feeling that he is not moving at all. Economist Charles Kindleberger wrote (in his book Manias, Panics and Crashes) in a totally different context: "There is nothing so disturbing to one's well being than to see a friend get rich."
Seeing their batchmates getting paid greater salaries is something that really rattles many MBAs: 'That guy barely made it through the MBA programme but now works for a money spinning MNC and gets paid double the amount I do.'
A sense of determinism overtakes him and then nothing really matters and he starts flowing with the tide, jumping from one job to another hoping to find a sense of purpose. Guess, when you don't know where you are going, the journey is the reward.
Beyond a certain point working professionals do not need the money they earn; but they want it to show how successful they are. Money becomes their idea of success. Research shows that relative wealth matters more to individuals than absolute wealth does.
And as long as there are a few measures of success there will be more individuals who will be failures in life.
When the sense of purpose is missing in an individual, short-term plans come in and there is no reason to compromise today for an unknown tomorrow. This explains to a large extent why MBAs jump so many jobs these days. And why the question of 'What I really want to do in life?' is usually put on the backburner.
Is there a way out?
In this day and age when MBAs have become fast moving consumer goods there is seldom a sense of belonging to the organisation they work for. This makes it increasingly difficult to find a sense of purpose at the workplace. Individuals have to look much beyond that.
To find one's true purpose in life, individuals have to look beyond textbooks, to have the confidence to experiment and make mistakes, to learn from one's actions, to take feedback and start again.
Learning happens only when we sit back and think and analyse our actions. This helps in realising our sense of purpose in life.
Life could be divided into series of activities (other than obviously what an individual does for a living). Individuals should try and get different things from the different bits. Once we start exploring the chances of finding some purpose in life go up.
Having said this, it is easier to make money if that is all one is bothered about than to combine it with other activities that one likes doing. Jobs these days cannot be done if one is not prepared to give them all the time. Our work places are our new ghettos.
The final choice though always lies with the individual. To have a sense of purpose in life individuals need to draw up their definitions of success rather than go with how others define it. There is only one life and that has to be lived well.
In closing
Education degrees are treated as a passport to our big buck dreams. This is a kind of brainwashing that goes on in our country. We always aspire for better quality of life without knowing what the betterment that we are looking for is.
We start believing owning things is good. More money is good. More commercialism is good. More is good. More is better. We repeat it and have it repeated to us, over and over again till nobody bothers to think otherwise.
The average person is so befogged by this that he has no perspective on what is important anymore. We put our values in the wrong things that lead to disillusioned lives. Hence one keeps changing jobs to find that elusive 'perfect, happy life' balancing professional and personal times to find satisfaction.
Do we know what really gives us satisfaction? Once we figure that out, maybe we would encounter stability adapt to a state of contentment. It is important to have a meaningful life to devote yourself to create something that gives you purpose and meaning.
Degrees can be exploited to find a new constructive dimension in life, moving from individualism to collectivism and leaving behind a legacy of building a better future.
Vivek Kaul is a freelance writer and an alumnus of Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development.