Should I give up?

Title says it all.

I'm a student at a target school, I have the right grades, I got into the right clubs, and I landed the right internship one of the most well known and largest PE funds, where I am currently working.

However, I literally despise this job, hated doing projects the club, and the work I do in my current internship is literally mindnumbing.

While I received very positive feedback on my work, I still cannot find a single aspect about this job that is 'intellectually stimulating'.

However, I really like the people that I've met through the clubs and my internships, and I also know that noone really enjoys the internship/analyst years of their job. 

So am I being a bitch about something everyone goes through? Or should I quit and persue another career?

8 Comments
 
Most Helpful

I would not call discovering what careers you enjoy and what you despise giving up.

Most of our young lives is set up through expectations from our environment. Did you get the PE internship because that is what you were supposed to do or did you actually want to try it.
Either way, now that you know you don't enjoy it, it is perfectly okay to not pursue a career in it. That is the whole point of college. You get the freedom and independence to decide what works and what does not.

People might say don't complain and you are living the dream, but whose dream? What does it matter if you're living someone else's dream?

Everyone has their own path, everyone likes something else. If everyone liked the same thing, we would not have a varied economy and professions. We need people who like medicine, finance, engineering, sciences, heck even things like plumbing almost equally for our lives.

So, don't let other people's dream affect your life. Be okay with experimenting and keep experimenting till you find the things that you enjoy.

What fun is life if you don't enjoy it every day. You'll burn out in a few years if you don't enjoy the work anyway.

 

Are you acoustic?

The teller dude is just giving examples of how we need all professions and it is okay to have different preferences. He is not telling OP, a target school student, to go become a plumber.

And you’re just proving his point. How old are you?

You’re forcing your dream on OP. You worked MM PE internship, OP is doing MF. Basically your dream?

So if your grandfather worked in the coal mines, you work in whatever you don’t enjoy thinking at least it is not coal mines?

My dad did multiple tours for years in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now because of that sacrifice I have the privilege to choose what I enjoy.

I went to college for aerospace engineering to work in defense because that is what I was exposed to early on. I liked it, had a 4.0 GPA, was great at it but it did not excite me. I am glad I discovered in college that I actually really enjoy finance, the markets, the client-aspect, everything, grunt work or not.
Yeah “rocket science” is intellectually challenging, but the work did not excite me at all. 

And now I am 27, have been here for a few years, and I don’t regret it one bit.

The whole point of generational sacrifice is so that the next generation is not forced to do whatever is expected/needed and has the freedom of choice that the earlier generation did not.

To OP: the Teller dude summed it perfectly.
You have to live your daily life, you have to face the consequences - both short term and long term - no matter who gives you advice. Listen to all advice but also keep in mind they will not be facing your struggles after the fact.

Experiment other areas of finance or even other different fields. It is perfectly fine.

You gotta try a lot of different things to know what you truly enjoy. I am glad I did. Don’t just do it because others told you it is the right thing to do.

 

You should at least be somewhat excited or interested in what you do day in and day out. But you should also consider what gives you the best opportunities and paths forward, don’t just do something deadend bc you’re comfortable 

 

Go into energy/ resource trading. Potential comp is crazy and its entirely based on your intellect when it comes to the market. Hours are also generally better.

 

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"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

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