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Should one do a Master's degree in Business Administration immediately after graduation or would gaining some work experience be a better option? Oumkar Umesh delves into this debate which is much on the lines of the coffee-toffee battle...

Akhil Misra has been working for four years now. He jumped onto the working bandwagon right after his degree in Business Manageent. After a gap of four years, he is now all set to get himself a Post graduate degree in management. Mahantesh, on the other hand, has just completed his first year at a prestigious Management college and did so right after his degree in Commerce.

Akhil and Mahantesh have differing opinions on the importance of work experience before taking up a degree in Management. Here is what they have say...

Mahantesh feels that it makes better sense to wrap up one's studies in one go rather than take a study break, get a taste of the working life, and then come back to it. It spoils one's sense of continuity. However, Akhil's opinion is diametrically opposite and he feels that an MBA is not a regular course that stipulates that you have to do it right after a graduation degree. It allows you to test the waters first. Gives you a chance to acquaint yourself with the big bad world and then apply theoretic know-how to your sense of approach to business.

Mahantesh is of the opinion that it would be logically better to understand classroom concepts first and then apply them to your working environment. After all, classroom training gives you an understanding on what to expect and how to tackle it. Going in head first may only cause you to lose your footing, he feels.

But with an educational system like ours, says Akhil, that encourages learning by rote, how useful can that be? Once you work out there, you get a feeling of what to expect and your course will then make better sense to you because you will be able to co-relate your working experience with your studies!

Mahantesh differs on that when he says, "Once you get into the rhythm of working, getting back to opening books can be very difficult. Once you work, you don't have to worry about exams and the like... Isn't that what we were all running away from to start with?"

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* Contributed by -
Oumkar Umesh,
Senior Correspondent - The Observer of Management,
Vol. 1 Issue 4 April 2006,
(With inputs from Prithvi Singh).