Prepping for the future
Prepping for the future
This week we open our conversation by dipping into the Cubiclenama mailbag. We have recently received two emails from readers, which I would like to highlight in this week’s column.
The first is from a rather young reader of this column who has just completed his class XII, and all the inevitable entrance examinations that follow.
“Dear Mr. Vadukut," he writes, “I have just been offered admission to a degree course in metallurgical engineering at a leading government college in Maharashtra. Should I take it up given that my dream is to pursue an MBA immediately after engineering? If not, what do you think is the engineering course that will best help me get entrance into an MBA course in four or five years’ time?"
For instance, Leonid Brezhnev was a graduate from the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum in Ukraine before he went on to become head of the USSR, expand the Cold War, invade Afghanistan, cause the stagnation of the Soviet economy that eventually lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Thus freeing millions from the yoke of communist oppression. A true hero.
Other prominent metallurgists include Iranian footballer Ali Daei, major Indian newspaper columnists, and the Gupta era engineer who made the Iron Pillar—the last piece of reliable PWD work in Delhi’s history.
Having said that, I don’t think any branch of engineering has an inherent advantage over another when it comes to MBA entrance examinations. Some questions might arise during your MBA admission interviews about your educational choices. For instance: Why did you study engineering if you wanted to become a manager?
But you can easily respond with stock answers: I was overcome by the need to run companies (OK), I want to become an entrepreneur (good), I want to be a leader and not a follower (very good), Why are you asking me questions that will force me to join hands with Times Now and file RTI request after RTI request if I don’t get admission to your institute despite clearing the written test? (state of the art). And so on and so forth.
However, there is one area in which engineering can help you do your MBA better: work experience. During your summer internship or your first post-MBA job, you will find many MBAs wallowing around in boredom and self-pity, crushed by the meaninglessness of it all. However, lo and B.E. hold, you are in full form and in high spirits.
Why?
Because, thanks to your two years of post-engineering work experience, you no longer have any self-esteem, and your faith in karma and life itself is pre-crushed. So, while the rest of your colleagues are collapsing from their swivel chairs in depression, you are gung-ho and have no qualms at all in assuring your client that merging both airlines will deliver substantial—giggle, giggle—synergies.
The second email was from a reader who is at the other end of the spectrum, as it were. Freshly graduated from business school, he is merely weeks away from stepping into his first cubicle. But first he wishes to know if there is anything he can do to prepare. Are there any books he should read? Movies he should watch? Magazines he should subscribe to?
This is an excellent question. Now that you have completed your MBA and have a few weeks free, you have just enough time to catch up on some proper education.
These are some of my recommendations for things to do during that brief period of bliss between convocation and discombobulation. All of them are better than what you are doing right now: fending off life insurance agents in the family who are salivating from the mouth at the prospect of fresh prey.
1. Read up on the lives behind the names. What kind of guy was John Maynard Keynes? How did Drucker become a management guru? What in God’s name was wrong with Robert Gaskins, the guy who invented PowerPoint? Their lives often teach as much as their textbooks and research papers.
2. Listen to every episode of a podcast called Econtalk presented by Professor Russ Roberts. Appreciate the measured way in which Roberts agrees and disagrees with a legion of economists and thinkers. Definitely listen to the episodes featuring Ronald Coase, William Black and Daron Acemoglu.
3. Choose one columnist or author you despise. It could be Paul Krugman or Thomas L. Friedman or Michael Lewis or Aakar Patel. Read everything they’ve ever written. You might learn something. And simultaneously develop immunity to coworkers.
4. Buy the complete DVD boxset called Private Life Of A Masterpiece. It will take you around 20 hours to see the whole thing: a snappy, enjoyable, episodic history of western art. But God only knows how much time you’ll get for culture in the next few years. Upgrade yourself whilst you can.
5. Join a gym. Trust me. You need a head start against those terrible workstation lunches that loom in the future.
Cubiclenama takes a weekly look at the pleasures and perils of corporate life. Your comments are welcome at cubiclenama@livemint.com
Also Read | Sidin Vadukut’s previous columns
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