Banking to Military
As the title suggests, I am curious to hear anyone's experience moving to a service branch from IB. I currently have a return at a top BB in a good group, though recently have had an urge to serve. My grandfather was in Army ROTC and it allowed him to go to Harvard, my cousin is in the Navy.
I've always enjoyed being on and leading teams, and banking was a good fit in that sense. However, the more I get immersed into the corporate world, the more I hate it. I am a capitalist at heart, but I feel like there is more to life than working a job for the money, as banking entails. I'm 22 and feel like there is a biological clock on the number of years left when I could serve.
20/20 vision and was a solid athlete growing up, though college beer has done a number on my physical health.
Any advice or info is appreciated.
I did this. Wasn't in IB but nonetheless.
My story: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/qa-cfa-charterholder-who-left-fi…
Also:
Wall Street will always be there. I joined at age 29. Wish I joined sooner. Age 22 is nothing - you'll be fine, and you got plenty of time to pivot back to finance later if that is what you want. I'm in my MBA program now.
Bottom line is it's your career and yours alone. You'll likely get a few confused comments or hater comments - pay them no mind. It's your life so live it like you want.
Why do you want to die for Israel?
Don't do it.
If you were going to serve, you should've done it when you were fresh out of high school, that way you could've gotten your full enlisted experience, grabbed the GI Bill on your way out, and had minimal lag in your college/professional career.
If you sacrifice a BB IB gig to serve post-college, you're going to be taking huge pay cut just to spend 4+ years of your life as Randall Weems. Sure, even O-1 pay is reasonable (compared to what enlisted chumps earn) but the pay/officer status isn't nearly worth the emotional toll of 4+ years of trying not to fuck up at your new job (that everyone E-2 and up somehow knows better than you).
I'm telling you man, the military is a profoundly different world of suck that someone with your resume/opportunity shouldn't even consider.
You think getting a 1am pls fix email is bad? Try getting a call at 2am that you're reporting to Garrison Commander in 5 hours to answer for an E-2 in your unit [that you haven't even met] that just got caught trading TS TaskOrds for nudes.
At this point, if you're gonna serve, you might as well plan to retire from it. Jumping into an officer commitment for 4-6 years is just going to set back your actual career without giving you enough time to really make anything of yourself as an officer.
tl;dr:
As former military myself, there is absolutely zero reason at all anyone would ever want to join in todays political climate. Pay is shit, work is shit, politics are shit and shoved down your throat 24/7, the mission is shit and America's role in the world is literally that of the bad guys.
I say this as someone that seriously considered rejoining as an officer and applied for OCS, did the interview, security clearance interview, etc. All of it. I ended up turning it down and going to grad school instead.
This is coming from someone who was enlisted for 4 years, deployed, and saw combat. I felt the desire to serve and think my time in the military changed my life for the better.
I think this is one of the worst times to join the military. Peace time is not a fun time to be in the military. Endless training and ceremonies to never do your "actual" job is draining for combat roles. I can see merit in someone wanting to do support roles and make a career out of it, but it's something I could never see myself doing. What I am trying to say is you won't fulfill your need to serve in today's military.
I also want to highlight some of the bad things about the military lifestyle that I wrote in another comment just so you are aware. 1) Military is a completely different lifestyle. There is no off the clock, you are always in the military. If you don't like it, you can't just turn in your 2 weeks. 2) There are a lot of leaders who are incompetent. Anyone who can do PT (physical training) will get promoted even if they are dumb as all hell. You can't get fired in the military, so these bad leaders just get moved around and never leave. 3) It is hard if you aren't single with no kids. I personally didn't have a hard time since I was single the whole time I was in, but most people I knew in the Army had relationship troubles. Cheating is rampant for both sides. Seeing that has made it hard for me to have trust in my S/O outside the Army.
If you still can't shake that itch, you should go 100%. There will always be a need for special ops and they will probably be the only people to see any action going forward. Try to get in the best shape of your life and try to get an 18x contract or something similar.
Caveat: I served in a foreign military for five years. Worked with US guys on a daily basis in both line units and in higher units.
If you feel a strong urge to serve, do so after a year or two in IB.
Serve for a few years then decide to get out and come back to the private sector.
If you want to continue to serve your country despite being shafted daily by Big Army, get out and join a three-letter agency
or go become a State Department Officer. Or go to HKS/JH SAIS / Georgetown of the sorts. Or go to law school and do policy afterwards.
Join the Marines or the Army as Infantry or with a 18X contract with minimal lock-in period (3~5 yrs commitment).
Don't join the Navy or Air Force if you don't wanna be a pilot and become a lifer.
Better to go as an officer than enlisted. Seriously.
"Heavier" combat arms (Armor, Cav, etc) are less agile, more conventional warfare-related.
Military Intelligence is for weeaboos. Signal isn't translatable into Silicon Valley jobs and your sperms get weird.
Join Infantry because it opens more doors to cool boy stuff = opportunities and experiences only attainable in service.
DoD always needs special forces and light infantry to do global quick response.
Now they have SFABs training with African and Asian countries.
Wall Street, High Finance, and MBA will always be there, but your prime physical status is only good for a few more years.
Your knees will get fucked up by rucking and jumping off of perfectly functioning planes.
It's bearable for a couple dozen times in your 20s but if you continue that lifestyle in your 40s~50s you'll have chronic pain.
Do some cool shit (= opportunities only available whilst serving) and gtfo ASAP.
Military life is a continuous suck with some few memorable, good acts and lifelong friendships sparked in between.