Thoughts on Investment Banking

[njchino371]

Thanks for all the advice guys. I'll definitely relax more in college(Penn is supposedly the party Ivy), get tanked, smoke trees, get laid, and not remember who the hell is sleepin next to me in the mornin, all the usual college fun, lol. Seems like GuruCane really wants to steer me away from ibanking. I'll see; I've got like 4 years to find out what I wanna do. For now, I just can't wait to get the hell outa rural NJ, and let the good times roll.

[JoeC]

I don't really look at it this way, though I see where you're coming from.

My thoughts are, if you can live by the principles in Rich Dad, Poor Dad, you will eventually reach a point where you have enough money to retire off of, and spend as much money as you desire without doing much damage to your nest egg.

It probably helps that I have NO interest in living the typical suburban, $100,000 a year life down the line... to me, having to work long hours to make payments on the mortgage and the Lexus just sucks. If I have to live like a miser for awhile to avoid this, so be it.

[GuruCane]

I actually don't want to dissuade you from i-banking at all. You'll just come to find that folks that actually work lots of 80+/hr weeks tend to take offense at neophytes that say they can handle it. Such newbies will often try to explain that 80 hrs is just five 14-hr days and a little weekend work or some such nonsense like that. I see this attitude time and time again: "If I just work hard during the week and get in at 7am and work through lunch, I can still get home at decent hour and only work on Saturday. BAM! 80 hrs." Wrong. Do you see why? You will. I will let others elaborate.

I-banking is a fantastic career in terms of sacrifice/reward/security. Job security isn't great (but relative to starting one's own business it's pretty good), but the sacrifices, while terrible in the short term (first 5-7 years), equate to incredible rewards at the back end (millions). Only job I know of where you can retire at 38 and NEVER lift a finger again (well, maybe winning this year's WSOP Main Event, hitting the lottery or starting a company).

Now, as far as college goes, I disagree and agree with the other posters. On the fun part--I agree 1000000% If you sit in your room and study for 4 years, you will regret it forever. BUT, don't be getting no 3.2 either (no matter what anyone tells you). Get excellent grades and party as much as possible--you are young and your body can handle it. Remember, b-school and potential employers look at those grades. This is the approach I took and college represents the best 4 years of my time on this planet. Good luck to you.

[sprmario]

So cold... so cold.

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If you want to work in Investment banking and want to get a few hrs break per week, try and get into a regional office. I worked for 3 years as an analyst at Smith Barney out of school (Stanford) and I probably averaged about 75 hrs a week.

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I've seen what this lifestyle did to sprmario. You don't want to end up looking like this guy.

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[midas]

Spr

When were you at Smith Barney? Did you work for any group in particular?