Which courses should you complete in advance for an MBA?
First, are the academic courses. These are for those who are about to join an MBA college. And the second are profile-building courses, which CAT aspirants can also do, or those who will be joining soon can also do.
First, are the academic courses. That is, to make your 2-year MBA journey easier, what should you do in advance? In this, you should do 3 courses: Statistics, Accounts, and basic skills.
Contents
Pre-MBA Statistics Course
The first one is the statistics course. Basically, whatever your Quant classes will be like, there are some topics that will be useful for you, such as Probability, Regression, Distribution, Standard Deviation, Variance, and Sampling. If you study these topics in advance, it will be very helpful for you in Quant subjects. Because I was a non-engineer, I know how much difficulty those classes felt. While for engineers, it was a cakewalk.
So let me recommend you the same course which IIM Ahmedabad offers on Coursera. It’s called “Pre-MBA Statistics”. If you check its modules, all the topics I mentioned are covered in it. You can finish this course within a day. You can pursue it for free.
How to Enroll
How do you do that? You click on ‘Enroll for Free’ and then two options appear. From these, you just press the ‘Audit’ button, and then you won’t receive any certificate. And you don’t need any certificate. This is only necessary for your academic knowledge.
Pre-MBA Accounting Course
The second course is about accounts. What topics are covered in it? Balance Sheet, Income Statement, and basic journaling, meaning what ‘debit’ and ‘credit’ are. Now, because I was from a commerce background, this was easy for me, but engineers find it quite difficult.
So let me suggest you a free course. This is also on Coursera. It’s called Pre-MBA Accounting. This is offered by Rice University, and you can complete it within a day. Everything is covered in it.
How to Enroll
How do you enroll in this? Click on ‘Enroll for Free’. Then at the very bottom, you’ll see a small ‘Audit’ button. Click on it. Again, no certificate is required. It’s just for your knowledge.
Basic Skills Course
The third course is for basic skills. So, Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. These are some tools and skills that you will use on a daily basis in every class. That is why it is very important to learn them. If you have never used them before, then I will tell you about SkillUp EdTech’s courses, which are on Coursera. You should pursue them, but these are beginner or base-level courses that can be completed in 3 hours.
If you have used these tools before, then you only need to brush up on Excel. It has some advanced formulas and filters that you should know how to use. Their names are VLOOKUP, IF Condition, Pivot Table, Conditional Formatting, Filter, and Data Validation. Now, I will tell you about a course. Its name is LearnVern Excel course. All these topics are covered in it. It ranges from basic to advanced level. You can just cover these topics. By the way, the total course is 7 hours long, and it is also completely free. Remember that you don’t need a certificate. Just complete it for free for your knowledge’s sake.
So, the academic courses are finished.
Profile Building Courses
Now, we will talk about Profile Building Courses. These will basically help you eventually in placements during the MBA journey. And because these courses build your profile, you can pursue them right now as a CAT aspirant.
Partner Support: iQuanta
At this point, let me also mention the partners of this video, which is iQuanta, which can help you a lot in your CAT preparation journey. iQuanta’s last batch for CAT 2024 has been launched. In CAT 2023, iQuanta had 200+ 99 percentilers, and 350+ students have also converted to top 10 B-schools in India. The feedback for the last 2 batches of iQuanta has also been quite good. I am also showing it on your screen. In this batch, they have launched quite a few additional features, such as conceptual videos for non-engineers whose math is weak. And similarly, engineers have VARC conceptual videos for those who face difficulties in VARC. For the ongoing mocks season, their iCAT test series has also been launched, which is an AI-based mock tests platform. Apart from this, you will get live and application classes in this batch, 35 full-length mocks and 45 sectionals, a 2-month crash course after the syllabus completion, plus 12 sets of CAT hard copy books containing 5000 questions. All of this will be supported by 24/7 doubt solving. There’s also an Early Bird discount, the details of which you will find in the pinned comment and description along with links and WhatsApp groups where you will get free CAT preparation material.
General Courses for Resume Enhancement
So now let’s move towards Profile Building Courses. The main objective of these courses is to get you placements. There are two types of courses in this. One that you need to show on your resume which will lead to your shortlisting for an interview in that company. And the other type is courses for preparation. When you’ve been shortlisted once, how do you convert the interview? What things will help you? Those courses. Let’s start with those courses that you need to showcase on your resume, meaning they should be show-worthy. Now, within this, there are further two bifurcations. One is “General Courses” meaning those courses that will add value to your resume regardless of the job you are applying for. And the second is specialization-based courses. For this, I will individually provide you with courses for Marketing, Finance, and HR.
Data Analytics
The first course is Data Analytics. You’ll need data analytics in every field, especially because you’ll be making decisions using data. For this, the course you can take is from LinkedIn and Microsoft, which is called “Career Essentials in Data Analysis”. This is a 9-hour course that anyone can take for free. After completing it, you will also receive a certificate.
Presentation Skills
The second is presentation skills. You will have to present in every company, whether it’s PPTs based on the problem statement, and solving it will also require data. There is a course on Coursera called “Data Analysis in Presentation Skills” by PwC. But this is a very comprehensive specialization. You’ll get certification only if you complete all 5 courses. It involves a lot of investment of time as well as money. If you can devote a total of 10 hours and pay a cost of 4000, then you should take up this course. This will basically help you showcase both your data and presentation skills.
Leadership Skills
The third skill is leadership skills. Basically, in any job, you will have to manage a team. For this, IIM Ahmedabad has created a course, which you can find on Coursera. Its name is “Leadership Skills by IIM Ahmedabad”. It will take you a total of 2 days to complete this course. So, this is another course that you can take up.
So, these are the three “General Courses”.
Specialization-Based Courses
Now, let’s move on to specialization-based courses. I will mention a total of six specializations: Finance, Marketing, HR, Operations, Product, and Consulting. For each of these, I will directly add the links to the individual courses in the description. If I go into detail about each course, it will take quite a bit of time. Whichever specialization you are interested in, you can simply check out the link in the description and pursue those courses.
Converting Placement Interviews
So now we have covered the show-worthy courses that will add value to your resume and potentially get you shortlisted for interviews. But now we need to convert that placement interview. So, I’m sharing resources with you for that. These are not courses because to convert the interview, you’ll need to demonstrate your skills for which you’ll need some resources.
Case Study Solving
The first thing you’ll need is case study solving. In many interviews, you are given a case problem that you need to diagnose. For example, if someone tells you that last month a business manufacturer’s profits decreased, then you need to analyze what happened. In this process, you ask several clarifying questions. Like whether the supply was across all of India or limited to specific states? How many warehouses were there? In this way, by asking clarifying questions, you diagnose the actual problem. Now, how is this solved? For this, there is a book used the most in IIMs, its name is “Case in Point”. I will share a document with you. It’s basically a link to a drive where all those case books are added that we have at IIMs. You will find case books from many colleges in this.
Guesstimates
The second skill you need is guesstimates. Guesstimate means, for example, if you have to estimate the area of India, how would you do it? In the same way, if I ask you to estimate how many flights depart from Delhi in one day, then what approach would you follow? How do you think about this problem? That is how you solve a guesstimate. Now, how to solve this? For that, let me share about one of my classmates, Aditya Aggarwal, who was the topper of our batch. When
he created this channel, I was in my undergraduate college at that time. And he has shared how to solve these guesstimates in an excellent way. So, I am going to link one of his playlists where he has given examples of these cases. You go through them, and you will learn how to solve this skill of guesstimates.
Human Resource Questions (HRQs)
The final skill that you need in order to crack those interviews is called HRQs (Human Resource Questions). This means questions like “Please introduce yourself.” What are some strengths and weaknesses? What challenges have you faced? Can you tell us about a time when you managed a team? Now, to prepare for these, we were given a list at IIM Ahmedabad that had many questions. So, what I will do is: I will share this list in front of you. You can take a screenshot of it, or you can note it down. And you can try framing the answers yourself before your interview.
Conclusion: Final Tips and Resources
So, these are basically all sorts of courses that you can do for an MBA, whether it is well before your MBA or during your MBA journey for your placements.
