Sir, a management degree helps you understand how to manage your resources.

Bein
g a management student you will learn how to optimize your resources and using t
he same maximize your output. I think in whichever field you work you need to ha
ve very strong managerial skills and I think this can only be achieved if you pu
rsue a career in management.
Told them how I am a person who likes to work in teams and how the nexus between
technology and business strategy excites me. Having a good technical know-how a
nd corporate exposure, I wish to make a larger impact on business and this seems
to be the perfect time and place to get equipped with the required skills. *rep
lied to this answer while addressing each panel member so that it convinces all
of them*

"I want to start up my own comic-book publishing company. Now, I know about the
'comic book', but I don't know about the 'publishing co.' I have quite a few sto
ries to tell, but I don't want to sell them off to another publisher. I NEED to
have my own publishing house. Now, I am young and I can afford to invest 2 years
of my life in top-quality management education. The stories will still be there
but I would have turned into someone capable of running a successful business,
selling a product that I truly love and believe in."

I am not unhappy with what I do, but I want to know if I can be happier doing so
mething else. An MBA gives me that opportunity to explore.

I belong to a conventional middle-class family with my father running his own bu

siness, my mother being a housewife and a younger brother in school. My parents
have done everything in their power to ensure good education and more opportunit
ies for both of us than they got in their life. But I am aware that not all girl
s get the opportunity to pursue their dreams because their parents don't believe
that careers of their daughters is an important topic. Even we are not a very m
odern family - but my parents believe deeply in me and they are accepting of my
views even when they are distinct from the conventional settings that we are a p
art of.
I believe higher education is something that will help me in accelerating this c
hange. Also, why I choose MBA for my post grad and not MS or M.Tech has both emo
tional and practical reasons. In my four years of engineering and a year of work
-ex, I have realized that I enjoy interacting with people in normal language muc
h more than computer languages. I have worked on several projects in and out of
college, liked some, learnt from them but I dont see myself as a computer engine
er for the coming 30 years in my career. And emotionally, I have been deeply inf
luenced by several women leaders like Chanda Kocchar and Indra Nooyi. I vividly
remember seeing Kelvinator Women Awards on TV when I was 12 years old and I felt
inspired that I too can make a difference if I work hard enough. I believe an M
BA will give me that chance. It will also make many middle-class families around
ours feel that girls should be given an equal chance to consider their career a
mbitions.
Being no good in Engineering was a huge motivator. I completed electrical engine
ering in 2001. Escaped electrical engineering through the skin of my teeth would
be a more accurate description.

I joined engineering post the high of having cracked JEE well. I had the proverb
ial behind handed to me by my fabulous classmates in my 4 years of engineering.
I rate my IITM batchmates as the most intellectually gifted I have seen in my li
fe. I graduated from IIMB later, and then worked for an I-Bank for a few years.
Neither peer group can hold a candle to the quality of my classmates in IITM.
My classmates were brilliant. They were better than me in the things I sucked at
, and better than me in the things that I was good at. Towards the end of my B T
ech, I felt that I had thrown away a great chance to work and learn from a high
quality group. And more importantly, had not given myself a chance to be seen as
a smart guy by my classmates. Somehow that also hurt a little bit. I was that
middling student who did not cut it in Engineering.
I was chomping at the bits to prove myself on another platform and was thrilled
when I heard what CAT was all about. Although I was a below-average student at E
ngineering, I had frightfully good strengths when it came to exams such as CAT.
I kinda knew I would crack this exam straightaway, and this time I did not compl
etely blow my chances in a good institute.
Usually the motivators are money, job prospects, etc. For me, it was for a chanc
e to prove myself in a high-quality peer group. It worked out decently well. In
hindsight, I can see that it was not that bad a motivating factor after all.

Why did you do engineering if your plan in the end was to do an MBA?
Because we hadn't planned to, we realised it on the way
This question, and its variants, are based on a weak premise of "a waste of 4 ye
ars". Thus, let's look at the primary motivation of doing an engineering degree,
what we realise during engineering and see if an MBA could possibly be a logica
l consequence.
Why Engineering?
Before I go ahead, a quote by John Adams is a very succinct summary of what happ
ens on a macro level in India.
I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathe
matics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geogr
aphy, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agricultu
re in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, arc
hitecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.
We are a newly emerging economy, and the growth of IT services and the economy a
t large has made engineering extremely attractive for furthering their career, a
s there are many opportunities. As Adams notes, we still don't have the economic
privileges to do more abstract, but enormously fulfilling activities like the a
rts.
I don't mean to externalize the entire need to do engineering, but the fact is t
hat the attractiveness of engineering in our country is very high because we are
an emerging country. Many extremely talented/bright students choose to give the
arts/commerce a miss because they believe engineering will give them a right ca
reer path, although the arts may have been the right fit. There are much fewer s
tudents who then tend to opt for commerce/arts and the very good ones tend to be
localized to few good colleges. Demand drives supply, and this has resulted in
a growth of an enormous number of engineering colleges, and so is the good engin
eering colleges.
The two have attracted a larger number of good students and opportunities to eng
ineering, practically resulting in a flood of engineers. You can thus see the ba

sic premise for an attraction towards engineering : good peers and good opportun
ities. Everything, be it family expectations, personal expectations or the like
are an expression of these two. The course curriculum generally tends to be an a
fterthought.
What do we learn during engineering?
Although most people think that the course curriculum is what we learn, every pe
rson who has been through engineering can vouch for the fact that the more impor
tant things that you learn are:
Survival
Perseverance
Critical thinking
Working with peers
Competing
Living your life
Pursuing your dreams
I don't disagree with the fact that there is a lesser use of subject matter if y
ou step outside of engineering, but don't you think any of this is useful? You m
ay say that you could have learnt this in any college, but then we'd all want to
learn it where we believe we will find the right peers and right opportunities.
I won't dwell upon the people who don't pursue an MBA, but if you come to think
of it, it is probably only academicians who would be putting their entire course
learning in their bachelors to full use throughout their life. Everyone else i.
e. people working in a corporate setup related to their coursework are using a d
iluted form of the curriculum.
Why an MBA?
There is a strong possibility that you may end up preferring something that is n
ot related to your course curriculum. You may have chosen a department that you
thought you liked (for example CS) but ended up liking something else (for examp
le Physics, or business).
As I mentioned earlier the driving forces are not the curriculum. There is not e
nough exposure to the curriculum to know that it would be the right/wrong thing
for you at the outset. Therefore, over time, some people (like myself) found the
complex problems posed by business situations more attractive than the problems
posed by the curriculum. This doesn't mean one is good or bad, it just means th
at one thing is preferred over another by a person.
Does this make our learning in engineering useless? Those seven things that I li
sted above is critically important learning. We may not have any exposure to our
course curriculum anymore, but we will always be steeped in the way of thinking
that we imbibed over the four years.
So, did we plan to do an MBA before joining engineering? Not at all. Did we real
ise we wanted to do an MBA during the course of the curriculum? Absolutely yes.
Is our learning in engineering worthless at BSchool? Absolutely not.
PS : Given the dearth of "business administration" bachelor students, it would b
e hard to fill up the immense requirement for managers in the country. The large
st supply, as is evident, are engineering MBAs.

"While going through my graduation in Economics, i have learned that the entire
world runs on Money and the backbone of all our development is Economics. I have
developed good interest in finance (Expect some finance related questions) and
MBA is the only degree that gives insight into Finance. Also, I have interest in
<finance specific field, like corporate finance or equity research etc etc> whi
ch can get further direction by an MBA. As MBA also gives a complete understandi
ng of business, i will be able to become a great asset to my organisation. I am
a passionate towards my work, dedicated in my endeavour and efficacious in my ap

proach. An MBA will get me a step closer to my dream of becoming a top executive
for a Fortune 50 company."
People tends towards more prodcutive way's to get more from a individual.
A technical guy is only used for techncial purposes, in the same way, a manageme
nt guy can only be used for Mangerial role.
But now, if you have to manage a group of technical people, then you have to pos
ses both technical and manegerial role. In the same way, B tech + MBA is a nice
option to work around.

I do not want to be an engineer or software engineer forever in my life - I woul

d like to get into management of a company or would like to own a company or sta
rt my own company. So, I need the MBA instead of depending on outsiders to manag
e my company. Also I will get more offers / opportunities if I did MBA apart fr
om being an Engineer.
http://www.soilindia.net/why-mba-after-engineering/

Fictional Problem Solver, help! The interviewer wants to know why I want to do a
n MBA. What should I say?!
How the almighty F am I supposed to know? It's your life, boss. Be honest. Tell
the interviewer it's for the money. It's the money, isn't it?
Err... fine, yes it is. But won't that get me thrown out right away??
Of course it would.
Why are you asking meaningless rhetorical counter-questions instead of answering
my question?
Good question. "Why." So you want the money, you admit. Why? What do you see you
rself as gaining with that money?
Better social status, I guess?
Let's say so. Better social status implies that you come from a humble backgroun
d. Think back to that background. Surely there would be some problem you identif
ied in society; a gap that you would be in a position to bridge with an MBA. Yes
?
Let me think... yeah, there was this lady whoHold it there, I'm not interested in the specifics. Is this problem something th
at you can solve faster by being an MBA than by being something else, like an IA
S or a doctor?
Hmm, that sounds right.
And is this a problem that only applied to one small segment (one family, neighb
ourhood, area, city/town)? Or is it a national/global scale we're talking about?
Haven't thought about it that much, but I'll go with global scale for now.
First, think over it and have a concrete definition of the problem. Done? Next,
figure out how you would solve this problem. You don't have to go into great det
ail - just a basic roadmap would do. Finished?
Kind of, yes.
And there you have it - Why you want to do an MBA. You have identified an issue
that affects a significant number of people, which you want to solve - your goal
. You have a roadmap to get there - your action plan. And finally, you feel that
getting the MBA will somehow give you what it takes to execute said action plan
, be it skills, networks or experience - your soft resources.
Go, impress them with this.
Bu-u-u-t.... I just wanted to become a company CEO one day! And a problem - I'm

not from any, er, "humble" background, so money is not a motivator...

Well, in that case, why do you want to be a CEO? If you like dealing with financ
e/marketing/operations/whatever, that works as a good incentive to get into mana
gement - assuming, of course, that you have enough knowledge/experience to say y
ou like whatever you say you do. Remember, whatever you say to them, you have to
justify it.
On the other hand, if it's just because you love a challenge, that works too - j
ust make sure you don't portray yourself as a masochist or anything, and you sho
uld be fine. Oh, and mention why you consider MBA more challenging than other fi
elds; I hear IAS is no cakewalk.
Oh dang it. This much thought is too much for me.
Really? In that case, you might want to wait a bit before blindly aping someone
else's answer. In fact, put the MBA plan on hold for the moment.
Okay, here's something else you could try. You could always say that you just fi
nd MBA interesting enough to give it a shot. With the right credentials, you can
convince the interviewers that their time spent on imparting those managerial s
kills will not be wasted. As for how... I'll leave it to you. Don't forget, thes
e stunts may or may not work depending on how articulate you are, and how willin
g the interviewer is to believe your words.
So what is the perfect answer? You haven't given me anything!
On the contrary. I've given you a rough idea of how you can articulate vague pla
ns into clearer words that you can share with another person.
A perfect answer should successfully convince the interviewer to select you.
An answer formulated based on an analysis like this is pretty darn likely to suc
cessfully convince the interviewer to select you.
Case closed.