A Graduating Senior's WSO Reflection

As silly as this may sound, I wanted to write a thank you to WSO for all its done for me over the years, and a reflection of my journey. I joined this website at 17 years old back in 2021 - just months before college applications were about to begin. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do in life, so I was thinking about starting an engineering degree and narrowing on a specific area of engineering during my first year of college. However, in the summer leading up to my senior year, I stumbled across WSO (by complete accident actually, I wanted to see how much one of my relatives made as a VP for a retail bank branch and found a WSO link). 

From there, I had the classic "wait these guys make how much out of school?" realization, as the first year comp for an IB analyst was almost as much as my parents salary. From there, I read more about finance, starting keeping up with news, and realized that it was something far more interesting (and lucrative) than engineering. Even though I ended up going to an east coast non-target, the education from this site helped me hit the ground running. By the time SA recruiting came around, my resume was loaded with EC's and internships, and I was able to get a 2025 IB SA position in NYC - something I could have only dreamt about before. 

Unfortunately, due to headcount constraints, I was not able to get a return offer, and felt like I was back to square one. However, using the guidance I had gained over the years from this website, I was able to re-recruit into another IB seat at the beginning of the semester. That brought me to yesterday - as I heard my name being announced and I walked across that stage, one of the core things I thought about was how far I had come, and how this website truly changed the course of my life. A lot of people complain about the hours of IB, how its "not worth it," but for the average person, it is truly a life changing opportunity. So thank you, WSO. Thank you for everything.