What traders have 90+ hour work weeks? Certainly not US equities–the market is only open from 9:30AM - 4:00PM. The traders I know working there have normal 8-5 jobs.
http://www.businessinsider.com/bank-interns-work-insane-hours-but-its-better-than-it-used-be-2015-7
I certainly hope it isn’t the norm, and I know it’s less common the higher up you go. It still happens though.
For me, there is no way to make up for a humanities seminar where discussion is the point of the exercise and the other kids don’t have anything interesting to say.
The 90+ hours a week comment is another example of an overly confident comment made by someone who tangentially knows the topic. I agree, it would be very unusual for a trading floor job.
I’ve heard that a lot and I think there is some truth to this, which is related to my point about higher ranked schools being able to “raise the bar” in their classes. I come from a more technical background (I studied math and engineering), where the point is more about technical knowledge (which is the same everywhere and mostly recorded in books anyways). Maybe that lends itself better to smart students at lower ranked schools, since the knowledge can mostly be obtained anywhere and the biggest advantage is in the access to expensive capital.
On the other hand, students are still just students. Graduate students have the capability, if they are lucky enough, to make a significant and possibly highly impactful contribution to their field’s base of knowledge. Undergraduate students are almost exclusively still just learning “the basics” and will rarely have any truly meaningful contributions because they just haven’t learned the advanced aspects of the field that would enable them to justify their ideas. I do wonder to what extent a somewhat higher concentration of smart people (and it goes without saying that there are not-so-smart people in elite schools, and smart people outside) really has on learning, and if they really do make for such a better contribution to the discussion. My experiences in that capacity have been rather mixed - sometimes people who are academically stronger can have nothing interesting to say, and sometimes those who are seen as less intelligent can have some great insights into topics that align closely to their interests or experiences. In the end, we are all each just a single data point, with one set of experiences to share, and it’s hard to derive any form of objectivity from this.
Probably is in I-banking, where deals can require 24 hours straight, but then they also pay really, really well, and hold out the opportunity to make millions. No different than 25 year-olds in Big Law in NYC, who start at $160k, but most of which have no real measurable/other marketable skills.
@greeninohio Really depends on your circumstances. I’ve been working with my neighbor. The guy got into Columbia. Full ride, no loans. All he must pay is $2000 in summer earnings contribution. They also gave him a “settlement grant” of $1000 to cover clothing and other items, $1200 for travel, and covered his health insurance. For our local state university, he was asked to borrow $3500 his first year and they wouldn’t cover travel or health insurance. I figure he’d have to borrow $3000 for these, so a total of $6500. At Columbia he had an EFC of “0” and our state university wanted the parents to borrow $2500. He has decided to go to Columbia.
Those subjects also have a relatively high “floor” on academic rigor. At least in engineering, the existence of external accreditation (ABET) and licensing (Professional Engineer) helps maintain this “floor”. While studying engineering at Caltech can involve substantially higher levels of academic rigor than typical, studying engineering at CSULA still means facing the relatively high academic rigor required for the major. It also means that attrition out of engineering at less selective schools tends to be high.
There is a general perception that humanities, social studies, and business (despite external accreditation from AACSB) can be “watered down” a lot to accommodate weaker students (hence the apparent greater importance of school name and selectivity-related prestige for graduates in these fields). But to what extent is that perception actually true?
Since it doesn’t seem clear yet, investment banks have several types of jobs. Trading is one of them. Traders typically work relatively reasonable hours. Other roles at these banks require much larger commitments of time.
“Undergraduate students are almost exclusively still just learning “the basics” and will rarely have any truly meaningful contributions”
I don’t care if they’re saying things in class no one has thought of before. I care if they’re saying things in class that I have never thought of before…especially the weaknesses in my point of view. They may not need to be great thinkers to do that, but they need to have read the book, understood it, and made an effort in class. You can’t take that for granted.
"To reach the Ivy League after growing up poor seems like hitting the jackpot. Students get a world-class education from schools that promise to meet full financial needs without making them take out loans. But the reality of a full ride isn’t always what they had dreamed it would be.
Here at Columbia University, money pressures lead many to cut corners on textbook purchases and skip city excursions routine for affluent classmates. Some borrow thousands of dollars a year to pay bills. Some feel obliged to send money home occasionally to help their families. Others spend less on university meal plans, slipping extra food into their backpacks when they leave a dining hall and hunting for free grub through a Facebook network called CU Meal Share…"
Well, ok. Now what? You’re not wealthy. So what? You have two choices: buck up and do your best, and don’t worry about the excursions you can’t swing and find a way around the text book issue; or transfer out to a cheaper school where you’ll feel more at home.
Honestly, the writer of this quote has won the education lottery. Nobody said life would be perfect and easy. But getting a full to a premier Ivy League School is a good day my friend. You’re being gifted a world-class education based on the generosity of others. How about focusing on the water that’s in the glass.
“When is enough enough? FA aid covers the most generous meal plan, yet students take a lesser meal plan and pocket the money to send money home or take excursions into the city and then complain about not getting enough to eat? It takes a real sense of entitlement to feel that beyond tuition, fees, room and board that a college should subsidize Broadway shows and Mom’s rent.”
Absolutely. Do I feel badly for the families who are apparently so destitute that junior has to send home meal money? Of course. Is this somehow Yale or Columbia’s problem to fix? Good grief. What is the point of this piece?
Ok, go home. Don’t go to Yale. Stay poor.
Jesus. I was so frickin’ poor at Stanford … my kids would never believe the things I did to get by if I told them.
I can tell you one thing: when I had access to a free or a “as much as you can eat” meal, that opportunity was never wasted. 
That’s a valid point, but the issue can often be you’re looking at your half full glass of water and everyone else around you is drinking full glasses of Champagne from Baccarat flutes. All of a sudden your half glass of water looks kind of meh. It’s an ugly, irrational feeling, but it does happen.
“That’s a valid point, but the issue can often be you’re looking at your half full glass of water and everyone else around you is drinking full glasses of Champagne from Baccarat flutes. All of a sudden your half glass of water looks kind of meh. It’s an ugly, irrational feeling, but it does happen.”
Fine. I get that. But then you wake up and remember, “oh yeah, I’m a Columbia! A lot of people would love to be in my shoes.”
Sorry … this is just whining to me. And there are plenty of other kids at Columbia who aren’t drinking champagne. If you’re that sensitive, just hang out with them.
Generally I don’t think it’s whining to acknowledge that while your problems may be not as bad as someone else’s, it doesn’t mean that yours don’t matter. Not to mention I don’t see much whining, but more so reporting on the issue.
I keep looking at the title of this thread and agree that ** for the poor in the ivy league, a full ride isn’t always what they imagined.**
Some students thought that they’d have an easier time than they do making ends meet. I agree that, for some, they think it will be easy and it is not.
oh please. I have a sibling who taught at a low ranked directional state U. Many of the students were hard working, and very smart. They had grown up under challenging circumstances. But do you really think a seminar on Russian Literature is going to be conducted at the same level as at a top flight LAC or university when you have a room full of college students who don’t know who Stalin was? Have never heard of Napoleon? Some of whom may know that Russia was involved in WW2 but don’t know on which side?
It is crazy to assert that it doesn’t matter who your classmates are. Of course it matters. SOME of these kids were motivated enough to compensate for their terrible HS’s in order to actually do college level work (at least by senior year). And some were there to get their ticket punched in “humanities” on their way to getting a BA in Sports Management or Leisure Studies.
Do you want to discuss War and Peace with someone who has never heard of Napoleon except as a sticky pastry?
I think it is far more likely that a student at an Ivy thinks of a napoleon as a sticky pastry than one at a public school, where it is called a doughnut.
Yes I think a public school course in Russian Literature is going to be full of educated, engaged students who want to be in that class and want to discuss the books. That student might not have been to Russia on 9th grade spring break like those from Country Day schools now attending an elite school, but they have read the material and maybe had icicles on their windows or had only soup to eat like the Russians in the book. Someone majoring in Sports Management is unlikely to take such a course unless he, too, is very interested in Russian Literature. My cousin who went to Williams could add her upper middle class views to the discussion, as could her 5 roommates who were just like her, from the same type of schools, with the same experiences.
Two different discussions. I don’t think one is necessarily better than the other. I preferred a more diverse discussion group, with people of different ages, races, backgrounds and found that at my public school. I was the average white, 18 year old, middle class view. I enjoyed the views of students who were older, the guy from Iran who would say “yeah, but the Shah wouldn’t allow that thought or policy”, those from a more conservative area of the state.
“Generally I don’t think it’s whining to acknowledge that while your problems may be not as bad as someone else’s, it doesn’t mean that yours don’t matter. Not to mention I don’t see much whining, but more so reporting on the issue.”
Generally, I do. Look at it this way. The poor in the Ivy League could be the poor not in the Ivy League. They’d still be poor, still not heading off to Switzerland for a quick ski vacation, and without the $250,000+ gift.
If you were poor before, you’re just poor now, only with strangers giving you in nominal terms a quarter of a million dollars in value, and in real terms value far beyond $250,000.
Yeah, it’s whining, because it’s not an issue.
Maybe the poor who didn’t go to an Ivy should be grateful that they are poor in the United States and not in Chad or Syria. And in fact they should be, because it’s a huge blessing. And yet it’s not unreasonable to pay attention to issues that they actually have and have to deal with.