Pros and Cons of Cornell

Colleges & Universities Cornell University
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<p>The reason I-banks recruit random majors to become analysts is because all it takes to become an IB analyst is being able to format power point slides and do data entry and some financial modeling work on excel 18 hours a day. Hence, no need to recruit only math, Econ, or engineering students. You don’t need to be smart to become an I-banker. What you need is the drive, ambition, attitude, and the personality for the job.</p>

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<p>Haha. I agree with you that Cornell students should pursue careers that are interesting to them. It just happens that many of the times, some of the most driven and talented students want to go into finance or management consulting out of college. From my impression, the smartest kids from Cornell tend to attend medical school, but after that, many of top gunners and very driven personalities ended up at I-banks or top consulting firms. Meanwhile, a lot of those kids who didn’t know what they wanted to do, partied too hard, didn’t prepare well via internships, etc, they didn’t fare so well after college.</p>

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<p>Well, I guess it depends on how one defines talented. Rather than people who can crunch numbers and recite biology texts like a computer, I would say the people who can create new ideas, new structures, or new innovations are perhaps the more talented. But that can’t be quantified as easily so it’s easier to dismiss that type of creative intelligence as inferior.</p>

<p>I think you’re right about finance / IB being the most driven as it takes a certain hustle to make it since it’s more about connections and relationships. I haven’t found those people to necessarily be the brightest, though (some are). Perhaps my experience isn’t representative, but several people have made the same observations.</p>

<p>In the end, there are different types of intelligence and Cornell does well to cater to vastly different types.</p>

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<p>If you don’t have the drive, you won’t cut it in IBD. Working IB is no joke - 90-100 hours a week spent on working, under tight deadline and pressure, high expectations from supervisors, and constant risk of getting laid off if your performance or rep get damaged. I-bankers grind it out hard core. </p>

<p>Aside from the fact that it takes a lot of dedication and preparation to break into IB, I think it takes a great deal of drive, endurance, and attitude to survive in IB for more than 2 years. (and many of IB analysts don’t stay in IB for more than 2 years. They quit and move onto other careers)</p>

<p>From my observation, many people go into IB not because they find the work exciting, but for the money and exit opportunities. (Doing IB for 2-3 years helps you get into Private Equity, Hedge funds, Corporate finance, Corporate development, etc)</p>

<p>On the other hand, people who go into trading tend to really enjoy what they do and stay in trading for long-term, possibly for their career. Believe it or not, many of very top engineering and science students from very top schools opt to go into high finance/ quant trading. Case in point: half of MIT engineering grads go into either finance or consulting, not engineering. Money isn’t everything, but people will follow the money, and capital buys labor. As long as finance or consulting employers pay top dollars, they will continue to attract top talents.</p>

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<p>Oh, I never said IB’s not a lot of hard work - perhaps the hardest working path out of college. But working hard does not equate to being the best and brightest. If that were the case, our finest humans would be working in Chinese factories. It’s exactly that laser-focus hard work that is alluring to good, average people to realize they can just work hard and make a lot of money. It’s why so many athletes and their teammates end up in these fields as a sort of fraternity following one another. </p>

<p>Funny - I was just watching the new 30 Rock and one of the groups in Tracy Jordan’s protest full of idiots is investment bankers. :slight_smile: I don’t think that lowly of them… </p>

<p>I also don’t disagree that many engineers go into finance. That’s a simple fact, but it gets back to my original point of what an atrocite it is wasting all that talent shuffling fake money around. Imagine what even a fifth of those MIT engineers could be creating for society if they weren’t chasing an outrageously overpriced market that rewards 24 year olds, who have yet to demonstrate any special talent or innovation, with top 2-5% salaries. If we want real job creation and production, it’s just important to encourage such people to pursue more productive but less lucrative (at least initially) fields. New York City’s learned its lesson, which is why it gave us the bidto build a tech campus. It realized it needed to have real industry beyond Wall Street.</p>

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<p>I agree with your point. Truly talented individuals should not pursue a career in finance. Imagine individuals such as Steve Jobs or Bill Gates pursuing career in I-banking. That would be such a loss for the society.</p>

<p>However, rather than pointing blames towards finance/ management consulting industry, I think we should point blames towards other industries for having very mediocre compensation or career trajectory, compared to what high finance offers.</p>

<p>Even if you are one of the best engineers out there, with top credentials, you won’t likely to ever make anything close to what I-bankers make. Heck, most of engineers, no matter how good they are, won’t get past 200k mark even with years of experience.</p>

<p>If other industries want to attract same concentration of top talents as high finance, they’d better beef up their perks and compensation. Otherwise, I see no potential in this trend of highly talented individuals heading to finance careers being reversed, anytime soon.</p>

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<p>I was an analyst 30 years ago, and my kid is one now at one of those firms. She went through 9 months of intense training, from London to NY. She was in class for 3 months with a final every Fri. Those exams included calculations of derivatives, repos and calibration of economic models. There were analysts with English and History majors, and they struggled with advance math. Over 50% analysts didn’t pass those exams the first time and they were given one more chance, if they didn’t pass they were let go. </p>

<p>My kid is placed at a desk she likes recently. She is very busy (according to her, she doesn’t even have time to go to the bathroom), but she enjoys what she is doing. She works on 3-5 books at a time because she knew the desk better than other analysts (was there last summer). She receives a lot of mentoring from Cornell alumni at the bank. It is one of the pros of Cornell - very large network.</p>

<p>My kid’s roommate works at a different IB, and she works very long hours. D1 normally doesn’t work weekends, but her roommate is at work 24-7. She is getting burned out and not enjoying her work much. D1 did her homework on where she wanted to work and what she liked to do. She was offered a job at where her roommate is working at, but turned it down because of the culture. D1 has many friends who are working in IB, some really love it and others not so much, no different than any other profession. </p>

<p>The analysts are given a lot of responsibility very early on, therefore they look for people who could demonstrate maturity with good problem solving ability. This week most senior people on D1’s desk were on the road, which left D1 and few junior people to field calls and deal with inquiries on pricing. Even though they were junior people on their desk, they were viewed as SME (subject matter expert) by senior people from other areas, whatever information they gave out would be viewed as “correct.” They did not have days or hours to answer questions, and it was important not to lose their cool when they were under pressure. In speaking with D1 this week, she said she was mentally tired after having to be on her toes all day long. The fear of making a careless mistake was very draining.</p>

<p>IB isn’t for everyone, just like medicine, law, marketing… Each of those professions takes a certain kind of personality and calling. If you decide to go into a profession just for the sake of money then it is very easy to get burned out. What is great about Cornell is it offers so many options for students to explore each of those professions. It also has such a large alumni network that it is easy to find alums who are top of their fields.</p>

<p>Cornell gave D1 very good foundation for her job. She was used to hard work, multi-tasking (joggling heavy course load, ECs, TA, sorority…), and very little hand holding at Cornell. She felt she was as prepared as other analysts from “higher ranking” schools.</p>

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I agree in an ideal world, but I’m not sure many real industries with bottom lines linked to actual products can afford to pay new graduates (especially undergrad) mid six figure salaries while they’re still getting their feet wet.</p>

<p>Finance can get away with it because they don’t make anything. They just shift money around and work off a lot of credit. So, they can always unlock some cash flow and hope investments in companies that actually produce products and services pay off in the long run.</p>

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<p>applejack - who do you think are paying those IB fees? Why do you think they pay those fees? How do you think companies raise capital to expand (in order to produce products)? Do you think it would be cheaper for them to borrow from a lender or have access to the capital market? If there is no need for IB then they would be out of business.</p>

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<p>I never said there isn’t a need for IB. I said it’s a shame the people with the most potential to innovate and create new industries are instead funding others rather than doing it themselves.</p>

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<p>It must be because it is easier to find people who could produce products than people who could get funding. On the other hand, people with the potential to innovate and create new industries are also rewarded handsomely.</p>

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<p>I have a buddy from Cornell who quit his I-banking job, just 1 year into his job. He said that the hours are brutal, that analysts get a lot of $hit on from associates and VP’s, analysts aren’t very respected (they are viewed as nothing but processing/ excel/ powerpoint monkey), viewed as very replaceable, and the nature of work itself is very tedious.</p>

<p>He now works at a top management consulting firm. He likes the work much better, finds the work to be intellectually stimulating, and even if he is still working long hours, he doesn’t seem to mind it that much. </p>

<p>This goes on to show that if you are to work long hours, you’d better like what you do and like the culture of the firm you work at. Otherwise, it’s going to be hell on earth. </p>

<p>FWIW, my buddy told me that most analysts that started with him were gone after 2nd year. I guess burnout rate for I-banking is very high.</p>

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<p>This is true. However, one perspective we need to have is that the vast majority of I-bankers won’t make that much in long-term. Many I-bankers won’t even last more than 2-3 years at their work, and they tend to bail out into the industry, where they will make substantially less than what they used to make.</p>

<p>I-banking, for most, is a temporary, not permanent, gig, in which you get decent finance training and make quick bucks. Also, if you are a top performing analyst or associate from a top I-bank, you can leverage that experience to exit into elite buy side firms, where money is even greater and life/ work balance is better. (think Blackstone, KKR, Silverlake, etc) Most analysts do IB in hopes of getting good exit options down the line. </p>

<p>The guys that hit true jackpots are those who get into mega funds or elite hedge funds/ elite prop trading shops straight out of college. For example, at Citadel, you get paid 250k starting out of college… I hear compensation at DE Shaw and Jane Street are also pretty insane. If you make it to firms like Blackstone, PIMCO, Citadel, and you are good at what you do, you will be rich by the time you are 30.</p>

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<p>^
Good points</p>

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<p>Good points? which point? Most Ibankers won’t last more than 2-3 years? They only process excel spreadsheet? People at Blackstone and PIMCO are rich by the time they are 30? Everything that’s posted here is heresay. I really don’t understand why people post about something that they have no actual experience in.</p>

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<p>Lazy Kid’s points were pretty accurate: </p>

<p>[Banking</a> Lifestyle IBankingFAQ](<a href=“http://www.ibankingfaq.com/category/banking-lifestyle/]Banking”>Investment banking lifestyle questions including hours worked, culture of bulge bracket vs boutique banks and travel | IBankingFAQ)</p>

<p>[What</a> do Junior Investment Bankers do? | Finance Train](<a href=“http://financetrain.com/what-do-junior-investment-bankers-do/]What”>What do Junior Investment Bankers do? - Finance Train)</p>

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<p>Ok. I know how to read and write a summary too. Lets assume those writeups were correct (just like everything written on CC), where does it address:

What about:

I am going to say that I do not know of anyone working at Citadel, De Shaw or Jane Street, even though a head hunter did ask me at one point if I would be interested in talking with someone from Citadel, and I said no (maybe a mistake), so I do not know if they pay someone 250K starting out of college, but common sense would tell me no. This is a case of I caught a fish this big, Big, BIg, BIG…</p>

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I know a lot of people who have been in the business for 20-30+ years, I also know a lot of people who were kicked out or went on the mommy track after few years.</p>

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<p>oldfort,</p>

<p>You kept raising weird pointless accusations against me in many other threads.</p>

<p>And, I don’t care. </p>

<p>Let’s face it - most Ibanking analysts are gone after 2-3 year stints, and they go to other industries. My buddy told me that every single analyst that started with him at his desk were gone after 2-3 years.</p>

<p>I have a buddy who interviewed at Citadel, Jane Street, and Getco for S&T analyst positions. The overall comp from these firms to college grads were around 230 - 260k, depending on performance bonus. It is very true that if you are good enough to stick with Citadel until you’re 30 (if so, you will be senior VP or director by then), you will be pulling ~1 million a year. Firms such as Citadel have ‘up or out’ policy - so provided that you are good enough to keep advancing till you’re 30, you will be rich.</p>

<p>Look, I don’t care if you care to agree with my points or not. If you don’t like my posts, just don’t read them. I don’t like your posts, either, to be honest.</p>

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<p>Lazykid - all you do is come on CC to give out information that you have no first hand experience in. You talk about IB as if you have inside information, when you are just repeating what your friends (analysts) are telling you or what you are reading on the internet.</p>

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<ol>
<li>It is true that total comp for S&T analyst positions at firms such as Citadel, Getco, Jane Street, and DE Shaw are over 200k for first years.</li>
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<p>I have a buddy who made it to final rounds at all of these firms and these figures were thrown at him. You claimed these numbers are wrong. I would be happy to hear your source.</p>

<p>Also - my buddy chose one of those above mentioned firms over Goldman S&T. Overall compensation had a lot to do with his decision.</p>

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<li><p>Most of analysts are gone after 2-3 year I-banking analyst stint. They burn out, or find other jobs down the road. However, I am only talking about I-banking, not S&T or other divisions.</p></li>
<li><p>You don’t need to work in IB to know what goes on inside IB. All it takes is to talk to people who work in IB, and I have.</p></li>
<li><p>Talking about irony, you don’t know jack about law schools and yet were discussing the process of getting into top law schools.</p></li>
<li><p>Firms such as Citadel, Blackstone PE, Getco, Jane Street, etc don’t even recruit at Cornell. They only recruit at MIT, Harvard, Princeton, and Wharton. Heck, even top management consulting firms such as McKinsey, Bain, or BCG don’t even recruit at Cornell. Hence, for most Cornell grads, generic I-banking or consulting jobs are the best jobs they can get, most of the times, and this discussion is irrelevant to Cornell kids anyway.</p></li>
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<p>LazyKid - lets break it down a bit…You got into a law school (Columbia) which you couldn’t afford. It is also a profession which you detest. When pointed out by me that maybe going to a school which could give you a full ride (Berkeley or Georgetwon), it was deemed as not worth your while. So with your Mr. Know-it-all attitude, what are you doing now? You are finally at job which pays 60K a year, living with your parents. Even if you could save all of your money, your wouldn’t be able to afford Columbia for many years to come. So after you finally managed to graduate from law school, what do you plan on doing? According to you, you want to go into IB - 300K law school tuition later, when you could have done it straight out of Cornell. Lets assume you were correct about Citadel paying 200k first year, why didn’t you get a job there? Why didn’t you get a job at IB out of Cornell?</p>

<p>I don’t know much about law school? I was just being more humble than you, not to opine on something without first hand experience. Most of my relatives are lawyers, and they are partners and general counselors, not retired associates. Most of my kid’s friends at Cornell last year applied to law schools. I know where they got into and what kind of stats they have. I even got some of them internships at my relative’s law firm.</p>

<p>This statement has to be priceless:

Do you realize how absurd this sounds?</p>