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What you have to understand is that this is actually the same person, just looked at from a cross-section of time. 

Students are desperate to get in because they watch movies and television about Wall Street, read books, read things on the internet, and they know that it's a good way to make money. That part is self explanatory.

But, like most things in economics, there's no such thing as a free lunch, and the reason that all of this stuff is so rewarding is because it's generally hard in certain aspects (long hours, dealing with highly opinionated and detail-oriented bosses and clients, stress about market conditions and volatility, etc.). And people who are facing this difficulty in certain aspects are in need of emotional validation and support, which is why they come to this website to vent, which accomplishes two things: 1) it gives the students more information about the lifestyle, which allows them to make more informed decisions should they choose to listen to what is being said, even if it isn't always sunshine and rainbows, and 2) validates the banker emotionally through talking about shared experiences. 

This website works well because there's a mutual relationship between people who want to talk about work (even if only to complain) and the envious go-getters and gunners who want all the privileges the complainers possess. Then the Nth generation of gunners becomes complainers and support the development of the N+1 generation of gunners and so on and so forth. It's the same people across different slices of time.

 

Investment banking is a foundational education for business skills at best and a mental and physical health destroying, life-ruining experience at worst. Most analysts I think will find it to be somewhere in the middle, and for the majority, it will probably suck a lot and change you as a person (for the worse), but prospects will continue do drool over being bankers for the same reasons they always have. The commenter above described it perfectly: it’s really all the same person on this forum, just at different points in time. There will be the odd few that actually take the advice on here and NOT do banking, but most will do it, hate it, and quit just like 95% of everyone else. People are dumb (myself included) and just won’t believe certain things unless they experience it first hand. This is probably a cycle that will never stop as long as banking keeps paying slightly above average comp as a junior

 

Also you can be desperate to get into IB but still hate it. If you view it as a stepping stone to the buy side and a way to get paid >$300k total as an analyst for just two years, it’s worth sucking up the pain. 
 

Doctors don’t like med school and residency, I don’t think academics like doing their final years of PhD work, special forces don’t like their crazy intense selection courses, but they are all sucking up the pain and doing it to get to a better place.

I think if the culture wasn’t so in and out for analysts, people would be more likely to self-select out of the initial analyst banking stint.

I don’t like a lot of things about banking but overall it’s not too terrible. But even then, I think it’s a phenomenal job out of college, get paid a shit ton, learn a ton about corporate finance and general office day to day stuff, and you get a huge check on your resume for your banking experience.

It’s worth sucking it up for a few years given the crazy benefits.

 

Let's just say if anyone could design their ideal career

Banking would be near the bottom

 

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