For background, I'm a high schooler who'd like to work in finance.
However, although I like the prestige of investment banking, I'm questioning if it's really worth it after reading the goldman surveys.
In your opinion, what's the best career in finance which balances money and not hating life?
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Asset management maybe...good pay (esp long term), generally pretty humane hrs and a good amount of intellectual reward, and you still get prestige (and your weekends)
There's legit so many jobs in finance that you can basically come in with any skillset that is valuable in some way and find a role. IB is just one of them.
If you’re looking for a good balance between pay and work-life balance, asset management is definitely worth considering. It offers solid pay (especially long-term), reasonable hours, and intellectual stimulation without the grueling hours of investment banking. You still get prestige but with more time for your personal life. There are plenty of other options in finance too, so it really depends on what interests you the most!
You're super early so take advantage of insight days, read up on different careers, talk to people and by the time you start university hopefully you've found a career path you've decided you wanted to target (makes recruitment a lot easier once you know what you want)
Get into the best schools first
Harvard/Wharton
Princeton/Stanford/Yale
Duke/Dartmouth/UChicago
Northwestern/Georgetown/Amherst/Williams
Or other options like Berkeley, UMich Ross, IU Kelley.
Speak to those alums in all sorts of places. Ib is usually a training ground for a lot of places and offers high pay with high stress.
Pe is a training ground for investing roles and offers even higher pay with arguably higher stress during deals.
Venture offers high pay but working with startups and hedge funds offer high pay but high job turnover
100% agree
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