Is Ib someone’s best shot at a top school to make a lot of money if you aren't a genius?
I got into a top school, and I’m wondering if I should try to pursue investment banking. Because I don’t know if I’m good enough to be a quant, even though that career aligns with the skills I practiced most of my life. And supposedly investment banking is far less competitive, has a higher consistent pay/progression, less stressful/stable, and has better job security? (Correct me if I'm wrong, though.)
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If you gain admission to a "top" school (whatever top means here), it simply means that you were intelligent enough to not fall through the cracks of the admission game.
There is also a likelihood that you might find a job afterwards that has a higher than average compensation.
IB is one route, but not the only one. You can enter other industries that pay a lot. Potentially even find a job that aligns with your interests.
Is education the only way to "make it" in life? No, I wouldn't say that. Because I know so many people who never went to a college and became very successful doing other things.
I like coding and math way more than salesmanship. The whole reason I got accepted was because of coding/math extracurriculars and grades. I started coding when I was 10; however, supposedly being a quant is a different type of beast technically.
Being a SWE exists?
I’m sensing some reverse-Dunning Kruger effect here. The fact that you have doubts about your quantitative abilities, despite being at a top school studying (assuming) a quantitative major and having competed in math and coding competitions, tells me you’re probably not only better than you think you are, but better than the vast majority of people.
A lot of competitive tech jobs don’t necessarily require genius, you just have to be a little better at the typical qualities that make a successful IB junior. It’s still just following instructions, occasional creativity, pattern recognition, trial and error until finding solutions that work, etc. Genius just makes the difference between does it take you 5 attempts to get an answer that works, or just 1 because you solved the problem in your mind before implementing it etc (same concept in tricky financial modeling situations).
You don’t have to be in a financial quant role to rake it in. Even elite software dev jobs make IB-level money (with some stock risk) or more with about 50% of the hours or less. Better job safety too, although not completely safe in the most lucrative roles. My friends in those roles complain their interns are idiots / can’t follow instructions / can’t figure anything out etc, so the idea that every guy there is a super genius is flawed. Don’t count yourself out!
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