What to do next? - Alum with a 3.3 in Economics

I know this post may sound rather broad and callow, but I am just curious as to what sort of insight it may engender...

As Stanford/Harvard/Yale/MIT/Princeton alum with a 3.3 in Economics who will have spent almost a decade in the military doing some rather interesting (IE very unique application essay) stuff both in active combat theaters and in East Asia, I'm trying to figure out what my next step is. Frustration with government bureaucracy and a free-marketeer's instinctual dislike for being a federal employee (despite patriotic leanings) leaves me thinking I'll get out and pursue an MBA. For the sake of this post, I think I've got a reasonable (maybe optimistic) shot at an M7 b-school so we'll roll with that.

I'm very rusty but able quantitatively (perfect score on GRE math) but certainly no quantitative genius and have no background in computer programing. I much prefer to interact with humans rather than computers. I am more than willing to travel and live abroad and have the language skills to support it. Went from zero to conversational in Arabic in three months and am both literate and verbally fluent enough in Mandarin Chinese to discuss the effect of US legislation on bond markets.

In terms of personality/interaction preference, I am naturally and have been further influenced by my professional experiences thus far to be uber-type A with a very thick skin who is can easily deal with people trying to punch me in the face (literally or figuratively) but is easily disillusioned by back-stabbing.

Bottom line, at the end of this long-winded post probably very deserving of mockery ( I wouldn't have posted it before I read some of other bulletin board material here), what's are the best professional options for someone who who loves competition and travel but is doesn't want his entire day to revolve around charts and spreadsheets? I'm an inveterate news/geopolitics junkie and market follower, so I find forex and commodities conceptually interesting, but functionally (charts and comptuer screens) uninteresting. On the other end of the spectrum, I find solving organizational problems and presenting to people (consulting) enjoyable from a functional standpoint but am not terribly interested in improving widget marketing in Detroit. I'd be curious to see what sort of recommendations you guys might have.

4 Comments
 

Any specifics as to what exactly you mean by selling product-wise? I like the idea of interacting and pitching to customers as well as negotiating.

 

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