MBA, Gen Z, and the Collapse of Common Sense

At the age of 40, when most people are busy pretending they have life fully figured out, I decided to do something slightly dangerous.

I enrolled for an online MBA.

For many around me, this decision itself looked suspicious, why study now ?

Online MBA means YouTube with assignments, right?

Honestly, even I was not fully sure what I was looking for. Maybe growth. Maybe discomfort. 

Maybe proof that the brain can still learn after years of corporate meetings and PowerPoint presentations pretending to be strategy.

Then came the Symbiosis campus meet 2026, 3 days with fellow students in Pune.

And that changed something inside me.

I met Gen Z students, the same generation employers constantly complains about on WhatsApp forwards. 

According to them, Gen Z is lazy, distracted, over-sensitive, addicted to reels, and incapable of serious thinking unless subtitles and background music are involved.

But reality looked very different.

The energy in that room was unbelievable.

These students were curious, expressive, fearless while asking questions, and surprisingly aware of what is happening around them. 

Conversations did not stay limited to careers and salaries. They openly discussed unemployment, education problems, social pressure, mental health, economic uncertainty, and government failures.

What shocked me most was not their rebellion.

It was the clarity behind it.

And honestly, maybe they have every reason to be angry.

Because the education system they inherited looks less like a system and more like an annual national experiment on patience.

Take the NEET paper leak for example.

Every year lakhs of students spend years preparing for exams. They sacrifice sleep, social life, mental peace, and sometimes childhood itself. Students solve thousands of MCQs while somewhere someone discovers the shortcut is not studying Biology, but studying “contacts.”

The exam tests Physics, Chemistry, and Biology.

The system tests Luck, Networking, and Emotional Damage.

Then investigations begin. Press conferences sound like viva exams where nobody prepared answers. Students now fear the examination authority more than the actual examination.

And somehow, after all the outrage, accountability quietly disappears like syllabus chapters before board exams.

Maybe this is all part of a larger national vision.

After all, too many educated people can become dangerous. Educated citizens ask risky questions.

Very anti-national behaviour.

An unemployed graduate with critical thinking is apparently more threatening than uncle  forwarding fake statistics on family whatsapp groups.

Maybe that is why scientific temperament now feels like an unwanted guest in classrooms. First Darwin’s theory of evolution quietly disappeared from parts of the syllabus. Now students may not even properly study the periodic table till Class 10.

Perhaps critical thinking creates too many complications. It is much easier if students simply accept that the universe was fully designed in seven days, with no follow-up questions asked because it is God’s creation. Hence, practical exams cancelled.

Discussions around science keep shrinking while mythology and blind belief keep entering spaces.

Mythology has cultural value, no doubt. But somewhere the system got confused between stories for values and answers for science exams.

Soon physics teachers may have to explain gravity through motivational speeches instead of Newton.

And yet, despite growing up inside this chaos, the students I met still carried hope.

That part stayed with me.

This generation is trying to survive expensive education, unstable jobs, paper leaks, attention span warfare, and a society constantly telling them to adjust. Still, they dream loudly.

My generation was trained differently. We were taught silence is maturity. Tolerance is wisdom. Survival itself is success.

Many Gen Z students refuse that deal.

They question faster. Challenge authority quicker. Sometimes emotionally, sometimes aggressively, but at least they are awake.

Maybe that makes older generations uncomfortable.

Because questioning systems has always been labelled disrespect by people benefiting from silence.

Of course, Gen Z is not perfect. Every generation has its own stupidity. We had ours too only our mistakes were not recorded in HD and uploaded within 30 seconds.

But meeting them changed my perspective.

I realized the real tragedy is not that young people are distracted.

The real tragedy is that the system often punishes curiosity more than ignorance.

We are producing students who can memorise 500 page guides but cannot identify fake information online. 

Logic is becoming optional. Irrationality is becoming patriotic.

Earlier generations were told, study hard and build the nation.

Today’s students are told, study hard and wait for paper leak updates.

And still, despite everything, they continue trying.

That gives me hope.

So maybe this MBA is not only teaching me finance, marketing, or strategy.

Its teaching me something more important. How not to become mentally old in a society slowly normalising intellectual surrender.

And maybe Gen Z, despite all the jokes made about them, may become the generation that refuses to clap quietly while the system collapses behind motivational speeches and hashtags about becoming a global superpower.