Job, MS, or MBA?
What should you do after your BE, and when?
Should I do a job, an MS/MTech, or an MBA? This is one of the common questions I get asked by students, and over the years, I’ve distilled my answers into this flowchart (primarily applicable to BE/BTech students with a CS/IT background, and mostly applicable to other engineering branches.)
Here’s the detailed explanation:
If you need money soon, if the financial situation of your family requires you to have a stable income, then get a job in a large or mid-sized company. Everything else can wait. And avoid startups, because they can themselves get into financial trouble, stop paying salaries for some time, or even go out of business. All the other options (MS/MTech or MBA) require spending money, and ROI isn’t always guaranteed. (Note: this option is only for people who desperately need money; i.e. people whose family is suffering financial hardships that can be reduced by an immediate and stable salary. This is not the recommended option for others.)
If you are very interested in doing a startup sometime soon, then join a startup with less than 10 employees. Doing an MS/MTech or an MBA does not really teach you any skills needed for doing a startup. Even working for a large company does not prepare you for a startup. The only thing that prepares you for a startup is working in a startup as one of the early employees.
If you enjoy technical work and you want to start your career on the technical track, then it is best to do an MS/MTech if possible. But, doing an MS/MTech is only worth it if you can get into a college whose reputation is significantly better than your undergraduate college. So, for example, if your BE is from an Aurangabad college, you could consider an MTech from IIT-Bombay, but if you have a BTech from one of the original IITs, then the MS would have to be from one of the top US colleges.
If you don’t want to be technical for too long in your career and want to switch to business/customer oriented-roles or managerial roles, then you should do an MBA, but after you’ve 2-3 years of job experience. It doesn’t matter what role you do. The experience will improve your chances of getting into a good MBA college, and it will improve your learning during the MBA, and it will improve your placements after the MBA. You must do the MBA from one of the top colleges. There’s no point in doing an MBA from a mediocre college.
If you’re not sure of what to do, then do a job for 2-3 years, and that will help you decide which of the above options is best for you.
Other FAQs
Q: For MS, should I focus on field/area of interest or the ranking of the university?
I believe you should go to the best university you can get into, irrespective of the field. Usually, there are two reasons why students choose a field: 1. “scope”, and 2. interest. I think both of these are flawed.
The “scope” keeps changing. By the time you graduate, the “scope” of a field (however you define it) might not be the same. And in any case, as long as a field is being offered by major universities, that means it has “scope”.
As for “interest”: if you believe that you have an interest in field X and you are not at all interested in field Y, the most likely reason for this is that you were taught field X by a good teacher, and you were taught field Y by a bad teacher. If you go to a good university, then all fields can be interesting to you.
In any case, very few people continue working in the same field in which they did their Masters. And after 5 years of experience, nobody knows or cares what field your MS was in. On the other hand, the name of the university, especially if it is a well-known one, will remain important on your resume for the rest of your career.
In other words, forget the field, and go to the highest-ranked university you can.
Q: Should I do an MBA in India or Abroad?
Top colleges abroad are better than top colleges in India, but they are very expensive and difficult to get into. If you can get into one and can afford to go (without taking a loan), then go abroad.
Top Indian MBA colleges are also good, so for most students, an Indian MBA is likely to be the more appropriate option.
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Like the simplicity here. Although, "if you need money, then drop everything and take a job in a stable company", might do long term damages.
For two reasons:
1. "Do you need money" is a trick question. Most will answer yes, especially at a younger age when peer pressure rules roost.
2. Getting into a company like Accenture and staying there for 3 years might limit career options for many people when their short term money problem is solved (which I doubt given the lower salaries these big companies pay)