At 65k, in roughly 4 years, you’ll have paid back your parents’ investment. Faster, if you produce on a high level, get raises, maybe bonuses.
Not good enough? How fast did you expect?
Some of this is rookie thinking. Few get to call the shots a year out of college. And it seems you made a choice during recruiting.
Of course, I know tech young adults who started much higher than you. But driven thinking doesn’t simply regret ‘what is.’ Driven folks get back on that horse and make the changes they want and need.
And you could very well find that that’s where the nature of your education opens your mind. As opposed to the short term thinking that X easier gpa and starting opportunities are the only “it.”
Now, you need to prove out, deserve what you think your worth is. Earn your next opportunities.
Your parents in effect, handed you a free degree. Now. It’s up to you. Only rarely do we get handed our ideal careers.
Your decision. You could come back in a few years and tell us how you strove to change your path, the success in that. Not a litany of regrets.
Investment banking has warped the perspective of many of our young college grads. It is a shame, as investment bankers don’t even make anything or do anything except push other people’s money around. I actually have a principal out here that I won’t answer questions for students with Ibanking ambitions. Don’t be so quick to be envious of them.
Very much agree with @intparent. I’d rather have my kids be passionate about something real instead of investment banking. I’m very thankful they don’t show interest in pursuing a business administration type undergraduate degree.
Well, I have a business degree. I am fine with someone interested in business in general. It is the big money for little sicietal benefit of investment banking that bugs me. Have not forgotten how our economy was trashed in 2008.
There were a lot of little people with a lot of greed that also helped with the crash. People can’t blame it all on big banks. Without source of funding it would be a lot more difficult for companies to have capital to invest. So I wouldn’t be too quick to say IB is useless and evil. We are getting off topic here.
Thank you for posting and sharing your experience. As someone quite a few years ahead of you, I would only say if you are thinking about changing paths to something you will love, do it now. It only gets more difficult and risky as time goes on and you take on the responsibilities of marriage and children. You have the luxury of youth right now; if you feel you want to try something completely different, you can still do that with very little risk. Don’t worry what people may say or think about your change in plans - it won’t get easier. (Can you tell I made a late career change myself - wish I had done it much sooner).
I wish you the very best and everything you have posted I found sincere, respectful and very helpful as I assess colleges (and Georgetown) with my own kids.
I think it is useful to separate it into business vs. medicine, and private vs state flagship. For the latter, the lower cost instate does give one more flexibility down the line. But in this case I think it overstates the Michigan case, as noted above. The OP describes the possibility of not getting into Ross and majoring in econ, but I think this would limit post graduation recruiting a lot without any other hooks. And if one got into Ross, the description of the out for themselves business majors could be made almost anywhere. The OPs parents would have about $150k more in their pocket, but it is hard to imagine the OP would be happier with his career path.
The business vs. medicine is an interesting question. For one, I agree more with OP than others here about gaming the medical school admissions with a high GPA at a modest school. If the OP was good at the the ACT/SAT, with some studying he would very likely do just fine on the MCAT, and could have racked up a nice GPA with even more money in his pocket at Michigan State for example. But his description of an easy life for doctors isn’t how many of them see it. While mid-tier consultants get 65k right out of school, they are paying for medical school. Then residency which still has insane hours and not much pay. That’s a lot of years of lost earnings. Then what doctors will end up earning in ten years is the subject of a lot of speculation. Many smart people think the medians there will be flat at best. However, it is true and maybe underappreciated that if you want doing well in the school ----> comfortable upper middle class, studying hard at a good state school, going to med school, and practicing medicine somewhere outside of an expensive coastal city works better than almost anything.
Being in the finance industry myself, I can tell you that there’s no place where income inequality is more pronounced than finance. In my humble opinion, I don’t think it’s the college at all. You did great! Most entry level jobs suck. That’s why the pay is so mediocre. That’s also why these finance companies recruit so heavily from Georgetown and other elite schools. It’s because of an atrocious turnover rate. Career adjustments are just a part of professional life. The best time to make them is when you’re young. Don’t take this job for granted. Job experience at a major company is worth its weight in gold!
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. You are young. The bad news is that you may not be the superstar wunderkind you thought you were and a magic key pass didn’t come with your G’town diploma (nor that of any other university). The good news is that ,in the long run, a good work ethic and desire turn out to be the most important and well rewarded attributes. Finally, I would hazard a guess that once you have reaped some of the rewards of a good work ethic you will come to appreciate your G’town education.
Success truly depends on the student not the college you graduate from. I have a sibling that graduated from Georgetown with a double major in Economics and Finance. He had wonderful summer internship opportunities that allowed him to earn good money to pay towards his college tuition. He was very proactive in finding career experiences that would help him land a job upon graduation. By fall of senior year he had several offers and decided to take a position with a well known consulting company where he worked five years before going to Michigan for his MBA. He really built up his network at both schools and still keeps up with everyone he has come across. His experience was so positive that both my parents neighbors who had kids a few years younger than him also decided to apply to Georgetown and got accepted. They graduated also with business degrees and found very good jobs and were able to save money to pay for their MBA programs after working several years.
The lesson to be learned is that no matter which college you decide to attend make use of all the facilities a school offers and keep building your network. Before choosing a school make sure it is the right fit for you. Make the most of your college experience especially if you were fortunate enough to go to such a prestigious school which truly is a privilege. Most people would have loved to have been accepted to such a fine school and to be able to afford the tuition. You have to take ownership for your future and your career.
You have a degree from Georgetown and no one can take that away from you. It takes several years to settle in your career and the transition from being a fulltime student to being a young adult in the workforce is sometimes tough. You have been a student most of your life and now you are expected to carry yourself like as an adult. This is the time for you to really think about the next step. What is it that you are really passionate about and what type of career do you visualize for yourself. It is not necessary that the career path you choose has to even be related to the degree that you have obtained.
The education you received was truly a wonderful opportunity. How fortunate for you that you had parents that could afford to send you to such a fine school. There are many students out there who would have loved to have had the opportunity that you had been given but either they were not accepted or they couldn’t afford to attend such a school.
I truly hope that one day you come to appreciate the opportunity you had been given instead of taking it for granted.
Don’t expect your dream job to be handed to you right after graduation. You have to work really hard for it and in those struggles you will learn valuable life lessons that aren’t always taught in the classroom.
I can’t believe that business vs. medicine is even a consideration for the OP. Medicine is a totally different animal - a journey (10-13 year slog starting freshman year of college) and a PASSION. If you don’t have it, you’d never get into med school. If you end up in the top 20% of finance average salaries you will make more money than the vast majority of doctors with a lot less mental stress that comes with being a doctor.
65K a year is a great salary. Put your nose down at work and learn from your peers. This attitude you have is typical (unfortunately) of many in your generation/social class. Everything must be earned by you immediately after college because you worked so hard in high school and college. All of that work got you to the door of your future career and gave you about 35% (AT MOST) of the skills you need for a successful career. The rest is still yet to come. And it’s not necessarily all in licenses or books (although the CFA is very helpful). It’s what you learn from colleagues, assessing your client needs, leadership, communication skills. It’s not all about completing a task and moving on to the next task. I find that in finance a lot of young people are in this checklist mode all the time. You need to really understand the business and your clients needs and ask a lot of questions. Put the time in and learn.
I think one of your core points is a concern for many… Is 65K per year of college worth it (even with no loans)? As prices continue to climb many people (including people in my family who declined a full pay ivy for large merit scholarship at a top 40) say, no, it’s not worth it. I think that’s what you are trying to say - it’s not worth 65K per year to kill yourself at a top school to make only slightly more than some kids at schools that paid half of that. Especially when that school is University of Michigan - which is equally prestigious to Georgetown. I get it.
Secondly, you openly admit that Georgetown gave you the opportunity to pursue higher-paying fields, but that you weren’t interested in them.
As far as feeling that your interest in buyside roles went unfulfilled–again, I hate to say it, but this is not Georgetown’s fault. I’m a Senior Econ major in the College with a 3.7 and a top IB internship (I also decided I wasn’t interested in the 80+ hour weeks), and I had no problem getting interviews earlier this year for investment research/management roles at asset managers and REITs.
I’m not sure that OP realizes just how many doors Georgetown opens (especially for those that don’t have a state school as good as Michigan). Kids with a 3.6 in Finance from “normal” schools wouldn’t even have had a shot at the “low-paying” mid-tier consulting job.
OP, if you want to pursue buyside roles, it’s not too late. You can network your way into a new role, you can kill the GMAT and go to b-school, etc. etc. You have a good job and a degree in Finance from Georgetown–the only way you’ll get stuck at 23 is if you keep dwelling on what could’ve been.
@prudentstudent25 You’re not the average family, YOUR family makes 400K+, as stated. The average household is not paying 65k plus for college. There’s a thing called merit and need-based aid at pretty much every school. YOU chose not to use it.
In the end it is not where you go but what you do with it! I was a HS student in the late 70’s. Good times, real good times but grades and academics was not a focus. I went to a SUNY nothing school, … one of the lower ranking ones,majored in Business . In my “adult” life I became focused. I worked on Wall Street for 10 years and have owned my own successful company for 20 years. Quiet frankly nobody will care where you went after the initial first job. Its what YOU do at that job, its the risks that you take and the connections you make. I don not ever recall any of my clients asking me where I went to college or if I went to college quite frankly. They care what I do now and how I run my business.
As a UM alum I will say that based upon this post we’re glad you’re not in the UM family. Perhaps a bit less entitlement? “Success in the business world depends heavily on where one goes to school…” Really? Success in anything depends on long, hard, consistent work. No one cares where you went to school. Sorry to sound harsh but given your apparent attitude you’d very likely be in the same miserable state if you’d gone to UM, Chicago, or any university. The purpose of education is to get educated - in the deep meaning of that word - so that you have something to contribute that people value. The purpose of college is to help you develop a sense of who you are and what you have to give to an organization or more broadly the world. You describe it as a transaction - in which the cost of college is justified or unjustified solely based upon some b-school ROI computation. The one thing you write that does make sense is that you are now hesitant to get an advanced degree. You highlight the cost; I would emphasize the worthlessness of any degree obtained solely under the notion that it will help you climb a ladder - when you have no idea what ladder you want to climb and why.
Actually you did great! You’re not the first person to start out in banking and find out that it sucks. I did. I had to go back to school and get my masters degree in computers after 5 years of misery. The reason these investment firms recruit so heavily is not because of lucrative demand, it’s because of high turnover. If the job was as great as they say, they wouldn’t need to recruit at all. That’s just how entry level banking jobs work. Most people change careers at least once in their lifetime after college.