GAS: The art and science of bullshiting your way through B-School

I have often viewed bloggers who would write exclusively about their college or work experience with immense contempt. They’ve infested platforms like Quora and Medium with their one-dimensional paper-thin analyses and rationales and yet built massive followings by preying on the aspirations of an ever-desperate populous.

I had actively avoided doing the same throughout my undergrads on this blog. The trick I realized was not to let the college you were attending become your entire personality.

It’s a little harder now than it was in my undergrads, partly because the entire curriculum is designed to take up every waking moment of your existence and partly because Jamshedpur is for the most part, ‘not very happening’. I am thus confined to my 40-odd-acre campus for the most part, and with grudging disdain, I must admit that I’m letting it consume my entire personality.

That being said: 

B-Schools are an absolute circus filled with every type of clown imaginable and that makes for excellent blog content.

So I will now turn into a total douche who only talks about the college he’s attending and introduce you to:

GAS( read: Globally Accepted Shit).

Gassing is an art form perfected over decades by the overconfident, self-serving entitled pricks we know as MBA students. 

It was developed to mask their lack of any real practical skills and is often used to disguise inaptitude, ignorance, and sheer incompetence. It allows one to speak at length in a manner that would hint at a deep, complex, and articulate mind without contributing anything of value .¹

It can be used in classes when you understand nothing but your insecurity doesn't allow you to remain silent; in interviews and group discussions to convince HRs that you are the answer to all of their company's problems and by clueless seniors to guide equally clueless juniors on how best to lead their clueless lives.

Even professors and corporate leaders are guilty of gassing at times, the whole ecosystem seems to be propped up by it.

I’ve kept a list of the more brilliant Gasses I’ve come across over the last term to drive the point home:

1. “The innate value of your product is in what you can communicate to your customer as to how and why they should value it” 

            -Faculty, Marketing 101

2. “I would not call it the problem but the opportunity of innovation.” 

           -Recruiter, attempting to convince students to join a shitshow of an org

3."All the guardrails are in place for you to jump on the rocketship of accelerated growth"

           -Recruiter, attempting to convince students to join a shitshow of an org

4.“We always want to strike the right synergy with the market and our core competencies”

   -Student, trying to sound deep and insightful in a Group Discussion

5. “Evaluate what you want to learn and then dispassionately look at the options in front of you”

   -Senior, attempting to drop pearls of wisdom

6. “From the point of view of ethicality; we must look at our decision ethically and choose the most morally upstanding alternative”

    -Student, trying to sound deep and insightful in a Group Discussion. Clearly desperate for a shortlist

7. "You must be cognizant² of the requirements of the interviewer and be able to communicate the right solution in a structured and lucid fashion"

    -Senior, on how to crack an interview

The wider point this blog post is trying to make is that an MBA offers you multiple paths to success. Some follow the weather-beaten path of hard work, aptitude, and natural talent. Others ride on the hot air balloon filled with the ‘GAS’ of their own creation. 

Sometimes it will get you where you need to go, sometimes it explodes into a ball of fire. Most still risk it regardless.