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To give you a serious answer, it depends. If you do an MBA as a business major just because you need it to change career and for the network, then IB may be more "intense" although you pretty much learn 80% of what you need in an IB career in the first 12 months. The 20% comes through years of experience. If instead you do an MBA for the old school reasons people used to do them, then the learning curve may be much greater. Take someone who is an Engineer at an F500 company such as Airbus, Boeing etc. If Senior Management wants them to lead a team or become part of Middle Management and pays for them to do an MBA, they will spend 18-24 months learning skills that are completely different from their job (finance, business, HR, organisational structures). In this case I think the intellectual challenge can be real and very intense.

 

MBA and rigour being used in one sentence wow

“Destiny is a gift. Some go their entire lives, living existences of quiet desperation, never learning the truth that what feels as though a burden pushing down upon their shoulders is really a sense of purpose that lifts us to greater heights. Never forget that fear is but the precursor to valor, that to strive and triumph in the face of fear is what it means to be a hero. Don’t think. Become.”
 

IB analyst for sure. Doing my MBA right now and I get to sleep in on Fridays. Second term and second year even more chill. Only first term was somewhat intense.

 

The most difficult part of an MBA is tied to balancing recruitment efforts, interaction with peers in both academic and social environments, and personal commitments. IB analyst years, especially with balancing the demands of the job and buy-side recruiting, can be much worse.

With that said, do not overlook the stress involved with searching for the "perfect" professional opportunity at business school once you've decided to saddle on $200,000+ in student loans. Complete mental break downs during recruiting season, especially for consulting, do happen for some students. It's certainly a different kind of "intensity."

 
 

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