<p>Sakky,</p>
<p>You must understand that many students with engineering majors don’t directly run off to wall-street (even from elite schools). They work in industry for several years before getting their MBA and finally transition into a specific sector consulting / banking that deals with a familiar area that they worked in. I didn’t realize this till I attended a networking meeting at Cooper Union for alumni currently working in wall-street. For such a small school, we had a surprisingly large amount of bankers/consultants. Most of them were associates/analysts but we had a few managing directors and even a CEO working for some of the most powerful i-banks.</p>
<p>Anyways, what I noticed was that almost every one of these individuals (especially the execs) had solid experience in the industry for at least decade before going back to college and getting an MBA followed by a transition into wall-street. </p>
<p>While it’s true that wall-street pays more money, I feel that the switch to banking/consulting from engineering isn’t based on just getting more money ASAP but rather transitioning into the area after a certain level of expertise and confidence is reached. That and the fact that the individual feels like getting more involved with the market and the economy.</p>
<p>I too was obsessed [and still sort of am:) ] with working for an i-bank after graduation and starting off near 100K salary but now that I think about it, it makes sense to just wait and get some real experience in the industry before running off into wallstreet. I’ve talked to many engineers / math majors / non-science majors and they also agree with my way of thinking. Banking/consulting involves many different fields and your prior work experience can help immensely if you choose to be banker/consultant in a similar field.</p>