An MBA programme is stressful enough under ordinary circumstances, and burnout is common among students. But what happens when circumstances become extraordinary: when students lose their jobs, can’t pay fees, become physically isolated, fear for the health of their loved ones, lose contact with their teachers and can’t study properly because of power outages, demanding families and even more demanding bosses?
It’s a recipe for meltdown, says psychiatrist and University of Stellenbosch Business School academic Renata Schoeman.
"Prolonged periods of intense stress cause physical and mental problems."
For most students, Covid-19 has turned the 2020 MBA study experience on its head. Full-time students who sacrificed a year of their lives in expectation of an immersive programme promising intense study, new friendships and foreign travel have been left with only the first of those. The same, to a lesser extent, applies to students on part-time programmes.
For all the platitudes coming from schools about how everyone is impressed by the effectiveness and virtual intimacy of online teaching, staring and talking into a computer screen isn’t what students signed up (and paid) for. Many feel cheated.
Charisse Drobis, head of career development at Wits Business School, says: "There is a deep sense of loss at the experiences they are missing."
For some, that’s only the beginning of the challenges. Students have lost income, study bursaries or even jobs this year. Almost every school has been asked for fee deferments or reductions.
It’s not as if the MBA is their only financial struggle. The MBA is a post-experience degree, meaning most students have several years of work and managerial experience behind them.
Drobis says: "They aren’t just students. They are employers, parents, children, even community leaders. They have responsibilities. Many have to maintain families on a lower salary this year. We are only part of their problem."
For some, the promised job promotions and career changes that were supposed to follow graduation have been withdrawn because of Covid’s economic fallout. "Their carefully planned career path has been disrupted," Drobis says. "The pressure on MBA students is enormous and should not be underestimated."
Most students this year have worked from home — or tried to. Internet connectivity is nonexistent in parts of the country. Even where it’s present, Eskom load-shedding can cut off students for hours. Study or online discussions may be almost impossible in a crowded, noisy household.
No wonder Johannesburg Business School director Lyal White says some of his students are "exhausted and demoralised".
At the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business, MBA programme director Segran Nair says some are "at breaking point".
He says:"One positive is that if you can survive this, you can survive anything."
Schools ease the burden as best they can by deferring project deadlines and allowing occasional "time-outs", but programmes can’t stop. As an anonymous Stellenbosch student puts it: "I lost two close family members in two weeks but MBA deadlines continue to roll."
Regenesys Business School CEO Leoni Grobler says students struggle to find a balance between work and family responsibilities, and Zaheer Hamid, director of the Management College of Southern Africa, says students are undergoing a "reprioritisation of life".
Schoeman believes employers could relieve some of the stress by being less demanding of staff studying for an MBA.
One of the pitfalls of remote working is that many bosses no longer feel bound by the nine-to-five working day. In a time of crisis, like now, they expect key staff to be permanently on call. Some students report being ordered to withdraw from critical lectures and interactive sessions because a manager "might" need them at that time. They then have to study late into the night to compensate.
"Where companies are in survival mode, they don’t care if people are taking strain," says Schoeman.
"Often they’re not aware of it."
Staring and talking into a computer screen isn’t what students signed up (and paid) for
— What it means:
Schoeman runs a private psychiatric practice which, with her role as a professor on the Stellenbosch MBA programme, gives her unique insights into what MBA students are going through. For example, she says full-time MBA students, used to personal interaction in a small, tight-knit group, may feel lost when thrust into a common online classroom discussion with dozens of students from other MBA programmes.
"They feel voiceless," she says. "They no longer have the identity they enjoy in a small class. They actually suffer an identity crisis."
Then there’s the blurring of boundaries between work, family and study. In normal times, it’s easier to compartmentalise the three because you move physically between them. You "leave problems behind". But when everything happens in the same small space, pressures from one can easily boil over into the others.
Gordon Institute of Business Science interim dean Morris Mthombeni says his school is offering personal mentoring after canvassing students about their problems.
Other schools are creating their own support systems.
Ultimately, though, says Schoeman, it’s up to troubled students themselves to seek help. There are no degrees in martyrdom.
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