College vs the real world experience (your opinions)
- Do your bosses (employers) seem smarter than your college professors?
- Do your colleagues seem smarter than your classmates? (Or more ambitious)
- Do you feel that you have more fun during college or after?
- Did you learn more from college or the real world?
First year analyst at an EB - here are some of my thoughts while I have some time to kill...
Professors are more intelligent (albeit academically, less practically), but the MDs and partners I work with are smarter if that makes sense...
My colleagues, on the margin, are smarter and MUCH more-driven - I think this is due to the nature of investment banking
College is more fun - end of story; having the ability to go out 3-4 nights per week, still get top grades, and not have any "real" responsibilities surely beats getting out of the office past midnight on weekends and constantly being on call.
I learned more about myself in college, but more about corporate finance/investment banking clearly in the real world. I find the best way to learn is to immerse yourself in the industry, and listen to your superiors speak and interact with others, so have found my experience rewarding thus far in that regard
"3. Do you feel that you have more fun during college or after?"
If after, you did it wrong.
Professors (on average) much more intelligent. There are always those few professors that suck and get by because they're not actively being supervised, which doesn't happen in the working world as much. Bosses above me much more practical smart, likely due to relevant experience.
Absolutely my co-workers. Lots of people can scrape by and get a degree.
After (for me). Granted I'm in an FLDP, so my hours aren't as long, and I worked 30 hr/wk through college so not much partying went on then.
College is a great environment for exploring the real "you" as an adult, not the kid following around their parents or whatever high school confines you to. It's also a great place to learn concepts, topics, and get an intro to certain areas. But work has the more practical learning opportunities which are much different.
4+ years in Corporate America. Here's my take:
- My professors had some nice anecdotes and gameplans, but most of those fall apart in 'the field'. My bosses do what works, not what 'should' work.
- Based on the hours of study vs hours of work, I'd say that my colleagues are more ambitious by necessity. We never had more free-time than in college.
- ^^ See #2 above. However, I'd say that life is much more rewarding now, because what I do actually counts for something besides a grade.
- Similar to point #1. College was mentally stimulating, but I found the working world to be more challenging and rewarding. Rote memory is much less useful than the critical learning you pick up along the way.
Hope this helps.
college is more fun and academic mistakes stakes a lot less than errors in professional environment. I do like the street smarts a lot more, because it's more applicable to daily life than book smarts, and adding theoretical applications of book smart to street smarts makes it double effective.
Engineer here
1) Professors by far. No contest really. Math major here. 2) Depends. Went to a state school so the students were very average. No surprise my engineering co-workers are a bit smarter. But the PhD students I knew from school are even smarter. 3) I was very poor and couldn't afford tuition, so my life now is way better. No money meant no certainty in life. I now own every toy I've ever wanted growing up. 4) I learned the most probably in high school. Then college. Then real world. I was forced to deal with the "real world" relatively early. The older I got the less "selfish" i could be.
I'm in REPE
It comes down to street smart vs book smart
My colleagues seem smarter and more ambitious which I think is due to our competitive recruiting.
This is a tough one and probably depends on the day of the week. I had an incredible college experience that I wouldn't trade for anything. Monday-Thursday I'd take college any day. Nothing beats being able to be outside during the day or eating lunch on your couch while you watch ESPN. On the other hand, I work 50-55 hours a week now with no weekends, and nothing beats being able to do whatever you want all weekend without worrying about studying or how much money you are spending (to an extent). In college, I had to worry about spending $50 at a bar on the weekend. I also had to spend half my Sundays at the library. I live in SoCal now and spend my Saturdays drinking on the beach and on Sundays I can watch NFL games and bar hop all day without worrying about drinking too much to make it to the library later. I've also been to Vegas several different weekends in the last year, travel to different cities to visit friends, go to a different music festival every couple months, go to nice dinners on Friday nights, etc. which are things I couldn't really afford in college.
College gave me a great base to start with but left me with a bunch of loose ends that I've been able to tie up after working in the real world
I don't know what you are doing in your work, but your life must suck if college was unbeatable. On the other hand you are all young monkeys doing the tossing without enjoying a little toss once in a while, understandable why you might not enjoy work and life as much, yet...
College was ok - working in sales as a 20 something with a corporate card taking your mates and clients out was unbelievably fun. Having the money to go out and enjoy great restaurants is brilliant, seizing life and taking holidays wherever you want is good as well. Etc...
What I am trying to say is that life does not stop after college - getting shit faced 4 nights a week and hooking up with some big tittied sorority chick might be fun for a bit, but it gets old. Not that I don't think it was fun, but there was a time and place for this.
I don't work in investment banking, so take this for what you will.
Originally before writing this, I thought it was roughly a wash. Now that I'm reflecting, I think the answer is still about the same except you will quickly realize just how many successful folks are not actually all that intelligent. They are smart, a difference already noted in this thread, but also tend to specialize, grind, network or any other various thing that will maximize their success. It's a much different measure. I'd go so far as to say that the absolute best teacher you had and high level bosses are going to be on similar footing; as you move down the ladder the difference becomes much more distinct.
This is very, very group, level and office dependent. On the whole, yes I think they are probably smarter than my classmates were but (I'm counting everyone in the firm from partner on down as colleagues), unfortunately, lack many of the real world skills to make that difference have any impact on their careers.
After. This being said with a college career that quite literally was all about maximizing fun. In general, your world is so much smaller in college. While you have a lot of options, odds are you won't have nearly as many as you do once you graduate. Oddly, there is more to life than natty light and tailgates.
This is a tough one for me, since they both taught me vastly different things. College sharpened all of the skills you'd generally expect and allowed me to grow as an individual. The real world has taught me how to grow and develop as part of a team (ironic when I think about it). It has also given me the experience, work ethic and insistence on execution of simpler ideas rather than always getting complex and esoteric about things.
3 Years in the real world, 5 months of IB.
50/50. The guys I work with in my current position are real smart. My prior corp. fin job, not as much. However you get all kinds of professors. Some seemed like complete tards while others were incredibly smart. My finance professor who received his Phd at Booth was out of control smart.
My colleagues are definitely smarter than my classmates and more ambitious. A lot of kids were clowns and were pushed through school. Even the kids with the 4.0 weren't all that smart, they just studied a ton. When it came to retaining for example "NPV" from finance 1 to finance 2 they couldn't remember.
This one is tough because the experiences are totally different. In college I had time but no money, now I have money and no time. The experience I have now are awesome because I can take some great trips but there's nothing like sitting around a keg in a dorm room watching football. I'll give the slight edge to college giving that it was more worry free.
Definitely more from the real world. Social skills definitely came from college however.
Who puts a keg in a dorm room...? Heineken mini keg I presume
mini keg!? absolutely not. we would wheel in kegs of busch heavy on a dolly. put it in one of those pop up clothes hampers and put some laundry on top. bam! keg in dorm room.
Five+ years in the Corporate world -- this relates to Grad School (undergrad was too long ago and in the hard sciences)
1) No. But my employers typically know what works. In the real world, you have to deal with these things called people. People don't always fit nicely into theories and models.
2) No. Then again, I have an MBA and work in an office where my boss and I are the only MBAs.
3) Now. I TA'd and worked my way through Grad School, so I had very little free time. (On an aside, I had to work while in college -- worked full-time and found ways to schedule all of my classes in the afternoons/evenings. so now, too. and for those that say I did this wrong...I had to work to pay my bills. It was my reality).
4) This goes back to #1. I learned a lot in Grad School; I learned how to execute on what I learned in the real world.
My college professors had more intellectual firepower. There is no question about that - the very concepts they deal with in their everyday research would be meaningless to most college grads. But my bosses are incredibly successful, for reasons that are different from why my professors have tenure at HYP.
On average, classmates are a bit smarter, but there are colleagues of mine who are smarter than my average classmate. The skills required to excel in academia and in banking are very different. I would say my colleagues are more meticulous and perhaps better at communicating, especially in a professional context.
In terms of ambition, most of my colleagues think of the same things - the best exit, the best bonus, brand names on resumes. But there seems to be a lack of passion? Some of my college friends pursue things because they care about what they're doing, not how other people will perceive it or the ramifications it has for their bank account.
I do think my colleagues have a better sense of work-life balance, ironically.
Any undergrads worried about facing real world? (Originally Posted: 08/18/2013)
As a rising junior with my current top prospect being IB the idea of entering the real world and facing 100 hour work weeks over and over again makes me stressed and it seems like the fun really goes away.
Any undergrads feeling similar? Any post grads have words of advice here?
If it stresses you out that much, are you sure IB is the right thing for you?
Exactly. If you don't want to do 100 hour weeks, don't do it. It really is that simple.
No matter what you do, the real world is gonna hit you like a sack of bricks. I did many an internship before working full-time, but I still had a hard time adjusting to actually having to do something all-day everday.
Adjusting to doing something all day everyday will be that much harder if you don't enjoy it OP. You need to decide why you want to do IB, and if it's for the wrong reasons (eg money) only, you need to decide how much the money etc is worth to you- if you're willing to do something you dislike/hate for 100 hours a week for 2-3 years to make a lot of money, and you can survive it, go for it. I feel fortunate to have realized early on (in a commission only ales job out of high school and before university) that I can be good at something and earn a lot of money doing it, but that money isn't enough for me if I seriously dislike a job. I also feel fortunate to genuinely want to do something that is well paid. I'm entering IB because I find the work/job interesting (and I'm willing to put up with the grunt-work to get to the more interesting stuff) and the money etc. is a huge bonus, but I wouldn't do it if the thought of doing IB stressed me out a couple of years before I even started working in it full-time.
I think you'll be punched in the face at 40-hour work weeks. In college, you have sort of a freedom of schedule. The difficult part about the real world is going from college where you have "freedom of schedule" and your whole life ahead of you to being in an office 8 straight hours in a crappy outfit from Marshall's thinking, "This is the rest of my life..." After a while you'll start to realize that you won't be happy if your life is your job. You'll never really be happy working a salaried job for another person unless you can find self worth, contentment and value in non-professional aspects of your life. Only then will you be ok with the daily grind.
This. Minus the Marshall's part. And plus 20 or more hours.
I guess I'm just having a hard time figuring out how to get into other things besides IB, and accepting other options which seem "second rate" to IB
Do they seem "second rate" to you because of how you feel about IB? Or second rate because of the general perception of IB that people on WSO etc hold? If you're doing the job solely because other people think it's great/impressive/prestigious etc, but you don't like it, I think it'll be hard to justify the prestige etc. Not trying to discourage you from IB if that's what you want to do, but think carefully about what YOU want and not what other people think.
My advice would be to work hard and find an IB internship for the summer after your junior year (it seems like you haven't done one yet, correct me if I'm wrong). That way, you can try it and see whether it is for you or not without committing to 2 years. If it's for you, you'll be in a great position to find a FT offer, and if not, that internship experience will help you find other jobs for sure.
Well, my friend, I would look at WSO's forum list to get started. Other than IB, there's real estate; equity research; consulting; corporate finance; hedge funds; venture capital; private equity; and asset management. And each one (well, most) of those fields has sub-fields and specializations.
Although there are exceptions, the worst hours are going to be in IBD, consulting, and private equity. The best hours are going to be in equity research and asset management. The others will range the entire spectrum of hours. If you want to do IB but not work 100 hours a week I'd suggest municipal finance.
Of course, gotta take into account that every firm is different, every group is different, etc. Consulting is actually going to be some of the better hours you get, unless you're talking McKinsey. ER hours are better than IB, but (and once again, depends on firm/group) if you're on a strong team expect to be putting in 70 hours + going out with clients. Also, ER is hard to break into because there are so few positions available.
Forgot to mention S&T, which- if I'm not wrong- has better hours than many other finance jobs (as long as you don't mind not being able to leave your desk often or potentially increased difficulty taking time off).
Corp dev sounds like a sweet gig a lot of the time for similar-to-IB work.
Textbook case of being influenced by the hype and perception. Take a walk down the street in Manhattan. 90% of those people make less than $100K a year. Can you tell who is an investment banker and who isn't? Nope. People think you go work for Goldman and suddenly women will look at you and you'll be respected, no it doesn't work like that. Banking is its own little world, and the rest of society operates independently of it.
Sure, there are people who will go their entire lives looking down on others who aren't high-finance bankers, but is their approval really worth anything? You'll learn quickly that pedigree and social class really mean little.
So if everything else seems second-rate to doing God's work as an investment banker, maybe you need to re-evaluate the criteria by which you choose your career.
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