It you look forward to an academic career or seek to take up teaching as your profession, only then it is recommended that you do your M.Com. If a college/university lectureship is what you have in mind, then past your M.Com you have to do M.Phil and PhD, clear the NET and all done, you have to track the interviews conducted by the CSC/PSC. A simple bit of calculation would make it apparent that it takes 6-7 years of slogging after you do your B.Com to take up a teaching position in a college. If you would want to become a school teacher, fair enough, because in that case acquiring a B.Ed degree would serve the purpose. But then, opportunities are very limited for a commerce graduate in the scheme of things under SSC.

                    A good career option following your B.Com could certainly belong to a course in Law/CA/Costing. To study law, you have to first take the LLB entrance, upon clearing which you have to slog for three years to become a law graduate which qualifies you to take the Judicial Service Examination. Or else, you can practice privately doing which you have to keep in mind that it takes years of hard labour and luck to secure a professional position of establishment in a career of law. Having to establish yourself, much in the same vein, following a course in CA/Costing, is subject to extreme perseverance, time and industry.

                   And in case you want to tread the much-beaten path of tracking the government jobs through competitive exams like WBCS, Bank, Rail, PSC, you need to prepare yourself for them for 3-4 years with utmost concentration, labour and application of mind. You must have to be aware that the competition here is the most stiff, and the attrition rate too high, because graduates of all streams, numbering in lakhs, take the competitive exams where opportunities are very scarce The battle for survival there is a stupendously difficult task in view of the chocking number of students running for a handful of posts.  

                   What then, could make for a smooth choice after your B.Com? The most attractive career option pertains, without a hint of a doubt, to MBA. The MBA being a professional course is practically a gateway to a host of job opportunities. You surely are apprised of the fact that studying MBA requires one to take an admission test either through CAT or MAT. The foremost thing is to secure a position in a good business school on the strength of your performance in CAT or MAT, upon studying there for two years would automatically and certainly ensure a good job. So a simple arithmetic would tell you, in view of the above analysis, that the quickest and surest route to a good job, following your B.Com (only two years), lies through the MBA option.

                    The bottom-line to get a good job is of course to get yourself in a good business school. And to secure entry in a good business school needs a good rank in your CAT or MAT exam. And a good rank needs early preparation. The preparation should start right away. Many, if not most, choose to prepare for CAT or MAT, only after completion of their B.Com. This is a blatantly wrong decision. Why? First, because it kills one valuable academic year. Second, this delay is most likely to create an adverse and negative impression during your MBA College interview (GDPI).

 So it is recommended that B.Com undergraduate students who are through their second year now, should prepare for CAT or MAT for the year 2011. This examination – CAT or MAT – is akin to the joint entrance examination for students seeking a medical or an engineering career who prepare right from Class XI to take the entrance test in the running year immediately after the 10+2. No student in his or her right mind takes preparation for joint entrance after +2 but through it.

 So jump into the bandwagon judiciously and prepare NOW. And just in case, you want to be a top-class businessperson, an MBA programme only can instill the management skills into you to make it to the peak of success.

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