Sacrificing my dream for my family. Is there anyway back?

Long story but I’m in my second year of university and I have to drop out or transfer to a complete non target not even on the radar.

I’m from a super low income family and my parents just divorced. My mother is ill and my two younger brothers are in highschool. I have to drop out and work otherwise we will genuinely be homeless atleast till my youngest graduates. 

I already go to a non target due to money but somehow through luck and grinding managed to get into a Summer Analyst role in a low middle market. The amount of time I’ll be working I will be kicked out of university even if I suspend my studies. I plan on going back and restarting my bachelors at a even worse school then doing my masters at a better one. I have a 730 GMAT ( was planning to go to a target post grad through scholarship)  


If I drop out and do this route will there even be a chance of me being in IB? Considering I dropped out of a university and I will be 26 by the time I finish my education. 

Please be honest either way, IB is my dream to change my family but I am willing to give it up for my family just want to know if there’s a way back.

14 Comments
 

This might seem extreme, but why not continue with school and your internship and take out loans.

You are the older brother, not the father or mother. It’s not your responsibility to be a parent just because yours suck.

And you could actually help your bros much more once you land a good full time job as opposed to detailing your early career. Think very hard about dropping out instead of getting student loans and trying to graduate early.

 

I wish this was the case but my credit is genuinely already fucked from taking out loans to get here and to help my family along the way. I wish I could continue but actually don’t see it feasible unless it affects my home drastically.

 

Transfer to the complete non target not on the radar, take out loans to help support your family (and there's also social security, no?), leverage the LMM SA into a great paying full-time job to pay off loans which will probably be better than limiting your income to a HS diploma

 
Most Helpful

In the long-run you will be 1,000 times better off if you complete your studies and work in IB. You will make more, to split with your family, in one year than you will in 5-10 years working some hourly wage job. 

There are financial assistance programs available to help people in your position. People who aren't incapacitated from drugs / mental health disorders typically don't end up homeless for this reason. Especially if children are involved. Take advantage of the social safety net for the next two years and then you can actually break the cycle and bring  your family out of poverty permanently. It's not worth missing the opportunity to break the cycle of poverty completely; you're doing yourself a horrible disservice in the long run.    

Also, given that cash is scarce for you right now, leverage as much as you can. Don't buy anything with cash if you can finance it. I know this is nearly never a good idea, but in your case, with true need, it really is. 

 

Seriously, are you sure your parents/family would want you to fuck your life just to help them? Maybe it's an American thing to be a leech on your children but in the rest of the world parents always prioritize their children's interests first and foremost. You're on a successful track now and have high potential. Do you want to erase all that?

 

Getting into IB is extremely hard, especially from a non-target. While I am sure that most interviewers would understand and highly respect taking a pause from your IB career, you will most likely not even get an interview or an opportunity to explain the pause in your career. If your family can make it until you begin full-time, that would do a lot. As other people have also mentioned, I highly doubt that your family would want you to permanently mess up your career to take care of them for a couple of years. Is it possible for your younger brothers to take on part-time jobs to support your mother? It's not your burden alone to carry your entire family financially, especially not if your two younger brothers are old enough to work, even though the jobs will obviously not be well paid. 

 

Hey man, you def have what it takes - Smart, hardworking and caring. I also came from a non-traditional background which you can consider a waste of time until I was 26. Hey, we even share the same GMAT score (did not end up using it neither lol).

I would advise you to grind as hard as you can - coffee chats, networking etc.. Also, don't just focus on BB and EBs, there are smaller shops, especially in LMM that are open to folks with a different path.

Best of luck and let me know if there is anything I can help you with

 

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