Should I just end it all?

I don’t know you, but I can guarantee that I know your life is worth far more than a career. If you need to talk, reach out to someone. If you’re the age of a SA, your story isn’t even written. Not even the prologue. Please talk to someone if you need to.

You did an IB internship, you’re very obviously qualified to do a whole load of roles. Clear your head and if you decide it’s too hard to do IB again then re-adjust your path.

You can absolutely kill it given what you’ve already shown you can do.

It's not worth it. It's not worth it. It's not worth it. I'll say it a million times if I have to for you to understand. Take a step back and look at the bigger picture. You're very, very young and you have a long life ahead of you. This is a temporary setback, a small block in the road for you. You'll come back stronger and you'll accomplish so much and be so successful. Don't let this setback ruin everything. It's not worth it.

People love you, they care for you. I've never met you, and I likely never will, but even I was drawn to your situation to type out this response. I'm sure that you have people in your life that would be devastated if you hurt yourself.

No matter how you feel, call 1-800-273-8255 ASAP.

Posting this under my actual username so that you can through my post history and verify if you wish.

I didn't convert my summer internship and came back with a great IB offer and then PE then off to Harvard / Stanford / Wharton business schools, and now the skies the limit.

This is temporary, and you've already done so much. You're already in the 1% of college students who had an IB internship, which puts you ahead of 99%.

You can do this, and there's a lot of good times ahead. PM me if helpful, no questions asked.

I'm not writing this for sympathy, because I don't want any. Only to help encourage you

Towards the end of my senior year, my parents noticed something was going wrong with me. When they asked me to help get screws for them, or other chores I was failing to do it accurately. Took me to the doctor and they found out I had a degenerative eye condition. The doctors were hoping it would not get worse, but it did and my very first week of college I was booked to have an eye operation done. Here I was looking forward to start my days at college, and now all my classes had to be dropped and shifted to online. My advisor encouraged me to even take a gap semester (but being stubborn I refused but did lighten my schedule). I assumed that the operation would only require a short recovery and I would be quickly back to normal. Well I was wrong, on both counts. For 2 months I had to be in near darkness and was constantly wearing sunglasses. Yes, as my friends were having fun in college I was at home unable to even turn the light on or go outside. And the pain... My eyes felt like they were on fire at nights. It completely destroyed my sleep schedule. I would try to sleep but just couldn't ..Oh and the vision. My vision stopped degrading in one eye, but the other eye had to have another operation some months later (but that's another story). About this time my chronic skin problems started to flare very badly. Rashes that would crack and bleed developed. Other areas were incredibly dry, and could not be fixed even with moisturizers. I had had it before in isolated areas, but this was more widespread. It was so bad I could not even take a shower because I was in great pain. I had to bathe using a bucket method. It took about a year before I could start using a shower again. While the condition has improved over time, it tends to flare up at nights, which leads to difficulty sleeping. It's not uncommon for me to have broken sleep due to this. It also tends to flare up in the heat/sweat. Due to this I'm unable to go outside much, even though I used to enjoy the outdoors. Even when I am with people (in say an AC building), I am very self conscious for obvious reasons.

Needless to say my social life over these past few years is at almost a halt. I've met a couple friends mostly through online study groups, and that's about it. Don't even talk to me about girls - complete 0. I was actually starting to get back on campus more regularly but then this COVID thing happened, so here I am again in isolation.

Professional life? Well I almost had a local internship lined up but then COVID happened and that blew up. Been networking for next year and hopefully can land something. Definitely very stressed. My parents have given a lot financially for my health related expenses in the past few years and I want to pay it back to them. I can't even begin to say how bad it feels to be so dependent at the moment.

My perspective on everything I just wrote: Well it sucks. I'm not going to try to spin it any other way. But I know for my vision I can see well enough to type this without a problem (granted I am an inch or two away from my large screen). I know there are some degenerative eye conditions where there is no "operation". It's a downward trend to blindness and that's the end of it. My skin condition while very bad technically isn;t the most extreme version of that condition and as I said things have improved some (although not great). My parents have been fairly supportive during these times.

I am NOT trying to say that I think the above every second and I'm not depressed. Believe me, I'm depressed a ton. But trying to see the few positives in life and having a hope that the future will be better is what will get you through and has helped me as well. I wouldn't consider myself anywhere hardcore, but some religious music can be pretty comforting. Can recommend you some songs if you want. Has helped me to push through.

TLDR PLEASE DO NOT KILL YOURSELF, OTHERS ARE GOING THROUGH DIFFICULTIES TOO. WE'RE ALL IN THIS JOURNEY OF LIFE TOGETHER :)

PLEASE DO NOT KILL YOURSELF OVER A STUPID FUCKING JOB

There are many solutions, please do not take your life over some stupid fucking bank. You are a valuable person with an immense amount of ability, just to get a job on Wall Street or in banking is proof you are more able and intelligent than 90% of the population, it would be a waste of a soul and talent to do this, plus think of your family that loves you. Please let me know if you need someone to talk to, I can message you or we can call through a blocked phone number, I do NOT care how we speak but please do not take your life, it is NOT worth it. I am praying for you.

As far as money, you're more than qualified for many roles that will pay enough for you to live (e.g. FP&A)

Now this is a fucking community and what I browse WSO for.

I come from a poor family and was extremely levered coming out of school. I didn’t convert my summer internship at a bank either (nepotism - role was given to build a client relationship), at a small middle market shop... okay okay I’m coming from a non target, I have no offer from a small shop, and I’m in serious college debt. At that moment, I realized two things - 1) I had nothing left to lose and 2) this is my moment to show myself and others who I truly am. I ended up calling over 50 people I knew who helped me dig myself out of the hole I was in, and I ended up at a large global bank doing M&A. I literally cried when I got the offer because I knew I had not only done something very difficult, but I had actually executed a generational social mobility shift. If I can do it, literally anyone can. Now at a hedge fund and am happy to connect / help you directly

I often feel this way as well. Many people try to logic you out of your desire to kill yourslef, not realizing that the problem is that you're just feeling so much pain and pressure that you just want the suffering to end.And then life kicks you again you just want to step off the mortal coil and stop waking up to the shit. Been there. Many of us have. So you need to get help to address the pain directly. You need a friend /family support group. You need people around you that know you're going thru some stuff right now and need their help. Look for somethings that anchor you. Exercise, church, etc. You need to CREATE a life worth living.

For what it's worth, most of us on this board didn't (and still don't) have a smooth and easy path. Your situation is better than most! Hell, you got a SA job. Well done. Many people on this board did not even get that far. You need to take it into your heart and mind that you ARE qualified enough to get that internship and that someone will eventually hire you for a job. Use the discontentment to fuel your further studies and keep you focused on grinding, and you may get another IBD role.

And if you don't get a FT IBD role... so what? IBD isn't blowjobs and rainbows. It's a mean, difficult, taxing job. There's plenty of other jobs out there - you just need to go find them. I was rejected from all consulting jobs I applied for despite making final rounds and superdays at multiple top-tier firms. My life worked out ok in the end anyway. My younger brother wanted to be a strategy consultant too. When he got rejected he became an entrepreneur and pitched a local business that he could grow a new vertical for them, and they gave him a commission-based job to do that. He was successful at it, made bank, and then took the expereicne and parlayed it into tech entrepreneurship. He just sold his tech company for ungodly sums and is taking a year off to travel the world. Don't get hung up on IBD as some sort of one-itis be-all end-all career because it's just a fucking job anyway. If you grind, maybe you get in. If not, come up with a plan B and a plan C. You can do it. Many others have, so why not clearly-qualified you?

Perhaps listening to David Goggins' life story, Can't Hurt Me, may help. Some say he's a braggard and a hardo, but I think he is present and open about his own suffering, and there's lessons to be had in seeing what he did to overcome his pain.

He had an awful childhood, full of family violence, abuse, racism, etc. He had nothing and no-one. He heard of some MIL guy, and connected with him, and got in his head a vision of what a real badass looks like. Then he went home to try to mold himself into one. And he failed (at least in his mind). He dropped out of SEAL training, served a couple of years in a role that wasn't for him, and then basically quit the MIL and became a 290lb exterminator in civilian life. His life was shit. He thought of himself as a loser.

So he got present with the need to suffer, and that suffering was going to be his reality for a long, long, long time. And he 'embraced the suck' and the pain. He dropped 100 lbs in 3 months and qualified to go to selection again. He had many setbacks there that would have made 99% of people quit but he didn't. He built a mental shield that could withstand and even trhive in suffering. And he made it through, became a SEAL and served. Later in life, he became an endurance athlete, running ultramarathons as if they are nothing.

Someone coming from a position of such deep pain surely would have ample opportunity to mentally collapse and take their life. But instead he took that deep, profound pain, and used it to shape himself.

I've been suicidal most of my life. So I identify with you. DM me any time. But know that this is just your mind fucking with you. It wants to collapse and give up. You need to instead master it. You need to make it your bitch. You need to tell your mind to go pound sand because you're going to get thru and do your thing, full stop. Your thoughts are illusions, don't listen to them.

You experienced an SA program where most others fail to even get a spot. You can leverage this for other offers. Should everyone applying to SA failing to get a spot end it all? No. You didn’t, and you got an SA position. Move forward. If everyone seeking SA positions did that, WSO would be a graveyard.

God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers

Many interns were not able to convert due to low projected deal flow in the projected future. Be open to using your skillset to applying to a broader range of corporate roles. If you can get the IB internship, you are even more attractive of a candidate coming out of it, and re-recruiting for future roles

Stay strong, and know that life and career success is definitely not linear. For many of us, the beginnings were slow, and the career growth was parabolic later on

my group is hiring right now. PM me and we can start there