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COPING WITH STRESS

The First Year of MBA
-Jaya Deshmukh

he receipt of an
acceptance letter from a
reputed institute to
pursue an MBA degree
usually results in
exultation and tears of joy. The
happy scene continues all the way
till the candidate actually sits
down for the orientation program
and thats when reality strikes..and
it strikes hard. The orientation
program is usually held in the
auditorium of the institute and
there is this air of solemnity that
hangs about the place that is soon
transferred to the candidate
making him realise that the
program may be a different ball
game all together. As the candidate
interacts with the other lucky ones
who were selected, he realises that
there are others in the program
who are better qualified and who
have better accomplishments than
himself. His confidence takes a
beating and stress makes an entry
into his life. Questions such as
Will I be able to complete this
program? or How will I compete
with the others? plague his mind.
And this is just the beginning.
The next shock comes in the
form of the course content. It is
totally alien to what he has studied
before. Take the following:
Peoples and Culture of India
Organisational Behavior
Verbal Communication
Basic Marketing
Only if the candidate had been
pursuing a BBA would these
subjects sound familiar. However,
to an engineering, science,

commerce or arts graduate, these

subjects are almost as intimidating
as Greek and Latin! Websites of
institutes do touch upon the course
curriculum, but there is a vast
difference between reading about
a subject and actually learning it.
The subjects are very diffused in
the sense that there is no set
curriculum. While graduating and
even in our school days we are
used to portions i.e., something
like: chapters 2 to 9 from the
textbook for the exam. In the first
place there is no textbook, there
maybe reference books, not one but
many. There are definitely no
chapter numbers. Study Material
replaces the Text Book and this
study material could be loose
handouts, chapters from various
reference books, articles from
newspapers and magazines,
academic articles etc. The loss of
the Text Book can be very
frightening and confidence
sapping for many students.
Apart from the bewildering

variety of reference material, the

next problem that a candidate faces
is the way each subject is taught.
Raw graduates are used to a
teacher who stands up and
dictates, or a question-answer
format etc. This is not what
happens in an MBA program.
Classes are more discussionoriented rather than classical
teaching-based. This can be very
disorienting, because in most
school or college systems within
the country, one is brought up to
accept what the teacher says as the
correct or the only answer. In the
B-school programmes, professors
act as sounding boards, they do not
have the answers, or even if they
do, they never give them out. The
candidate is encouraged to think
and come up with the answer or
solution, and there may be more
than one! In other words, they
make you use your mind to arrive
at an answer. And given the fact
that as students we spend 15 years
simply receiving or being spoonfed answers, to suddenly start
coming up with the answers, and
sometimes even the questions
ourselves, becomes a difficult and
confusing proposition.
The way a candidate is
evaluated is completely different
from what he has experienced so
far. Case studies, group
assignments, projects, class
participation are the primary
evaluation tools. These tools help
to test the candidates ability to
apply theory to real life problems.
To the candidate used to learning

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Almost all activities including

tests are required to be
undertaken as a group effort.
What this means is that six to
8 students come together and
are expected to work on the
project. Mostly candidates are
not accustomed to working in
groups. During our schooling
and graduation days, we study
on our own, when we
ourselves schedule the time according to our own rhythm.
However, when you have to work in a group, other peoples
rhythms, their intelligence and commitment levels, influence
how you study, when you study and even how you are
evaluated. The initial introduction to group dynamics can be
quite harrowing. Typically, the quiet ones end up not giving
any opinion even if it is right, and the assertive ones run the
group. Learning to cope with groups and to work with them is
not easy. You also have to learn to deal with other peoples
egos and group undercurrents and the rating of your own
performance depends on all of this.
by rote and writing copious
answers, or to engineers who are
more
comfortable
finding
mathematical solutions, these
evaluation methods can be very
confusing. Moreover, the outcome
of the evaluation is very subjective.
For example, what differentiates
good class participation from
excellent class participation is
completely left to the professor
taking that subject. Similarly, since
the outcome of a case can be
manifold, there is no right answer!
This makes the evaluation very
subjective and very vague. Adding
to the confusion is the fact that each
subject has a different professor
who assigns different weights to
each evaluation format. Thus what
may be good for one subject could
be inadequate for another!
All MBA programs are divided
into Semesters. A year typically
consists of three semesters, each

having a duration of three months.

Each semester has a different set of
subjects to be studied. This comes
as a huge shock to candidates,
since we are used to dealing with
8 to 10 subjects per academic year.
This adjustment from 8 subjects
every 10 months to every three
months can be traumatic since the
scale of studying suddenly is
crashed from 10 to 3 months and
the number of subjects could
become an overwhelming 24!
Everything about the MBA
program is different. Even
something as trivial as the duration
of a single class begins to make a
difference. During school, a single
class usually lasts 45 minutes; in
college, it stretches for an hour, but
in an MBA program the class
continues for an hour and a half!
While this may not apparently
sound to be a major issue, it
actually is quite a demand on your

concentration levels. Keeping

concentration up until the end of
the class can be quite a challenge!
Similarly, a typical day has five
such classes, which means classes
from 9 in the morning till 7 in the
evening. There are no set holidays.
Sundays are reserved for guest
lectures and workshops. On top of
this backbreaking schedule, are the
numerous assignments and group
activities that have to be
accomplished overnight.
Finally, to add to all these stresscausing unknown aspects of the
MBA program is the soul crushing
competion. The MBA program is
where battles are fought for 1/4th
of a grade point because as small a
difference as that can decide
whether a candidate gets short
listed for a top placement or not.
At a time when starting salaries are
in the range of 5 lakhs and above
for a good B school, the stakes are
very high since that fourth of a
grade point could add to or reduce
your prospects by some lakhs of
rupees.
So how does a new candidate
cope with all of this? There is only
one way live through it. Take
each day as it comes and suddenly
as time flies by, you get used to the
routine and stress, and one day
you awaken to find that nothing
can faze you and you begin
cracking case studies in two hours
flat! Not to mention that it also
equips you largely to face the
stressful careers that are the order
of the business world today.
The author runs a market
research consultancy specialising
in business intelligence. She is
an

alumnus

of

MICA,

Ahmedabad. She has also been

a faculty at some of the leading
management institutes in Pune