Well, it has always been a dilemma for working professionals who are considering doing MBA for a career jump. We will try to find an answer to this question in this article. After completing my graduation with flying colours, I was keen to get a job in core mechanical field itself. And, so I did, I was working as an R&D Engineer and handling some huge projects (One of them was for Sukhoi). But as we all know, in India we don’t get much respect with just a BE degree. I saw the growth was stagnant and then I realised that an MBA degree would push my career up. However, I never hated my job. It would be great if I could get the degree and knowledge of an MBA while working. Now I know that it was possible with a Part-Time MBA degree.
I was not able to take the right decision because I didn’t even know that such thing is even available and today I think that why it happened to me? One of the reasons I can assert is the unavailability of proper information required for such programs, and other is the notion that Part-Time MBA is not a true MBA! To break these myths lets now discuss the pros and cons of a Part-Time MBA over Full-Time MBA programme.
Pros:
1. Apply theories on the go:
In Full-time MBA you have to fight off with a pool of applicants just to get a live project where you hope that you would get a chance to apply your MBA learnings. However, with a Part-Time degree, you have your office where you can try your newly learned spells. Also, the office work will keep you in touch with the latest industry trends unlike in full-time MBA where your learning depends only on the pedagogy adopted by the faculty and books or years old cases.
2. Financial Stability:
An MBA degree requires you to burn a hefty amount of money. This money can be arranged with an education loan or savings. In both the cases, a candidate is in a significant financial burden to return the money. In a full-time MBA, the candidate is dependent only on the final placement. The placements every year depends on many this from your luck to Trump changing the US policies. Thus, with a part-time MBA you are earning with your education, thus paying the fee does not seem a big burden, and you are not dependent on your college to provide you with a job.
3. Work-Life Balance:
For many people, they are the only source of income in their family, or they are contributing a bigger piece of the pie of total family income. Many a time, people get married as soon as they get their first job. For all such candidates, part-time MBA works just fine. They can have their classes at the weekend and enjoy their weekdays with their family and doing office work. Thus it gives you a complete All-In-One package.
Cons:
There are no big disadvantages of doing part-time MBA as such, but as I mentioned earlier, it is not considered as a true MBA. Some old minded industrialist thinks that part-time MBA lacks the rigour of a full-time MBA degree. Also, many people are not able to keep up with family, work and education altogether and they drop out. But an MBA is all about rigour. Right?
In conclusion, I would say that now that time has changed and companies want their employees to stay with them even if they have to allow them to do a part-time MBA. In addition, now part-time MBA courses are not so alien as they were used to before. Many renowned b-schools such as IIM Lucknow, FMS Delhi, KJ Somaiya, Mumbai and MDI Gurgaon are offering part-time MBA courses. My college i.e. KJ Somaiya provides all the facilities including hostel accommodation to its part-time students. Thus, it is now more than ever comfortable to option to choose over full-time MBA for working professionals. I hope this article was informative and brought some light to a not so well known career option.
All the best!