Which was harder? College or IB?
Hi everyone,
Had an interesting conversation with an analyst about the work-life in IB.
Everyone knows that hours are long for an analyst, and some are turned off by that. But I think that the average banking hours (excluding sweatshops) are comparable to college academic life. Think about it. Classes from 8 to 12, a crap ton of homework, projects, extracurriculars, job/internship, study time after class till past midnight. Little time to hang out or eat in between, usually stuck in the library most of the day. Maybe this is just my school's culture, but an alumn analyst that works at a BB tells me that his job has been "slightly" less difficult than college. What are your thoughts?
I always had a job in college. Would work 10-25 hours a week. So not full time. I wouldn’t exactly equate it as comparable.
College is as lax as it gets in life. If it isn’t then you aren’t going out enough and/or you’re putting in extra effort into an undergrad degree. Understandable. High achievers here. Make sure you realize that this is your break and youth and you take advantages of what that implies before it escapes you.
where did you go to college?? Being that most IBs finish top of class I'd argue the majority had more free time on their hands compared to the traditional student
Selective Cheese, Hard Bacon, Easy Salad
Not which is more selective or harder to "break-into". Talking about day to day life smh. Good god has reading comprehension left the chat?
Definitely depends where you went to college imo - did you go to a hard school like Cornell or Chicago vs. an "easier" school like Penn State or Harvard?
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Even at hard schools college is probably less work than IB. People have a tendency to overexaggerate hard things and downplay the easier. Even at hard schools with difficult majors your average day wouldn't entail 16 hours of straight studying. Most of my friends at hard schools definitely say their asses are getting kicked but they have time. IB is just way too much work. Not as many people get burned by college as they do by IB. College work can be more challenging and you can feel like you don't know anything but its usually not as much
Definitely not that same lol. I feel like IB is way harder. Sure, we might have put in a lot of hours in college but I definitely wasn't staying up beyond midnight studying. And staying up till midnight was more of a choice. Plus there wasn't the stress of getting yelled out in college.
If this post is emblematic of life at a target, then damn am I glad I went to a non-target. My college experience consisted of: skip any morning classes scheduled, class from 12pm to 2pm, go home play videogames and start drinking. Every couple of days or so check if i have hw due. If theres a test the next day then skip the drinking and cram until 4am.
Honestly, I think he’s just in for a rude awakening. College was the best four years of my life and I went to a school known for being hard.
IB is way harder; sitting at a desk for 15+ hours is the norm in IB and the exception in college.
The number of kinds of drugs I tried at uni is higher than the number of lectures I went to in 3 years of UG. Despite having a gf for 2.5 years of it the number of women I fucked is higher too. Went to a top 5 uni in the U.K., not even renowned for being a party school. You guys are/were all doing it wrong.
you are so cool
Sounds like Durham
As someone who busted his tail in College to maintain a high GPA and growing club/organization involvement along with a social life, IB was harder and not even close.
To echo the comments above, College gives you a degree of freedom to figure it out per se with multiple pathways available to you and room to make mistakes. IB (and really the professional world) is where you still have room to make mistakes but that is in a limited time frame along with learning to conduct yourself in a professional manner with people across the spectrums in terms of their careers. That is before getting to any social and personal dynamics outside of work.
Funny enough, I actually prefer my life after school rather than going through college again for a variety of reasons.
As someone just breaking in, would love to hear why you say you enjoy life after school more. That’s a perspective I haven’t heard yet tbh.
Financial independence was and reamins a big factor.
Outside of that, there is nothing like navigating those first few years out of school from work and social life perspective. College itself is a bubble that gets pierced once you graduate. Learning how to manage finances, and expectations in the professional setting before even the social aspect can seem daunting at first (and will be at times). But the reward for going through such circumstances can be immense (both intrinsically and extrinsically).
Being a true working adult resonated with me after some time. Also, I felt like I hit a ceiling in college in terms of academics and the social aspect to where I did everything I really wanted to in College (hence why I am someone who does not long for those days).
I don't think this one is even close. I thought I was busy when I was in college, but banking was a different level. First, college busy and banking busy aren't the same in terms of actual workload. More importantly, it is the type of workload that I think makes college different. Sure, you have a lot going on but is some extracurricular that you half ass really stressing you out that much? You have to be on point in almost everything for banking, while you can be more relaxed about certain parts of college (hell, I half assed plenty of assignments later in the semester when I had a good view of what I needed to do to get an A). Lastly, there is flexibility and set breaks where you have nothing going on. You aren't regularly checking your email during spring break or while you are hanging out on a Saturday. You control your schedule more and there aren't random items that blow up your week.
College is great, banking sucks. Simple as that.
Controversial take, but I actually preferred banking. College felt like an enormous responsibility -- needed to "own" school work to maintain GPA, keep up club/extracurricular involvement, recruit for IB, work part time, try to have a social life. Banking is certainly more work... but much less intellectually draining for me.. Just crank up the tunes and bust out some pages..
Definitely IB - made VP without using my brain at all.
College was hard as fuck. I went to Oxbridge for an "easier" (but very prestigious) subject and it was living hell.
M&A and PE (MF) was a breeze in comparison. Pretty much zero real work.
The key is to just let your GPA fall post offer
Mine is cratering lol but still above MY bank's cutoff
dawg what? American university is essentially a 4 year vacation lmfao, your hardest problem is exams which are almost always a joke if you just actually study on time. I'm talking about business majors and liberal arts ofc, anything engineering or stem is a dif story.
I posted this as a poll on linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6925886765685780480
College work can be more challenging but for 98% of people even in the hardest majors at the hardest schools it is usually not even nearly as much work
Reading this thread of people describing their lame college lives just gave me chronic depression.
My immediate reaction to this is that you're studying way too hard in college and spending way too much time doing it. I come from an EU university and my experience with US students is that you guys stress out far too much and far too early over your exams. If you're spending anywhere close to 12 hours a day working and studying in college you are doing it wrong (excluding finals weeks). To echo what a few people mentioned above, college is FUN. Party and drink 3 times a week and then do some study before your exams and you'll be fine. College is in no way comparable to IB. Granted you will feel the pressure of a deadline, but the likelihood is that you will usually have at least 4 weeks' notice for a big assignment. In IB, you may have 24 hours to turn a 70-page deck. Your GPA doesn't really matter once it is above the threshold so do not sacrifice socialising and enjoying the most freedom you will ever have in your life for it.
You’re a complete moron because EU school is much easier than US haha I have friends who went abroad and said EU schooling was a complete and utter joke compared to back home
Everyone knows the US school system is much better, and much more intense, relative to EU
Semesters abroad aren’t exclusively for Americans mate. I also have numerous friends that went abroad to the US, that’s where the observation came from. The am kind of hours you spend studying completely depends on your major. STEM majors are far more difficult and require a lot more time than finance majors.
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