Sober Addict With New Drive and Passion
Hello everyone. I've been reading these forums for almost 6 months and have never posted anything before. Anyways, I have met very few people with a similar situation as mine and was wondering for any advice for my upcoming graduation and job search.
I got addicted to drugs early in high school and somehow managed to live a double life for 10 years. I attended VaTech in 2006 and barely made passing grades for the 3 and half years I was there. I dropped out and went to a bunch of rehabs, ended up homeless for almost a year and finally realized something needed to change. I cleaned up and starting taking classes at NC State. I always wanted to finish my degree and this reality check really changed my outlook on life and how I interact with outer people.
Anyways, I was denied my first application and kept plugging away hitting straight A's in four semesters as a non-degree. I just finished my first semester as full-time finance student and to my amazement, see myself ranked as 1st out of 5775 undergrad students in the class (mind you there may be people tied with me). I have gotten letters of recommendation from a few professors and entry-level job offers from Vanguard in their VADP program, Ipreo, and a small Financial Planning firm in the Triangle.
There are not many large banks in Raleigh (mostly in Charlotte), and I am not against moving however, I have a girlfriend I have been with for 4 years who has been killing her sales job making upwards of 80k/yr a year and half out of undergrad.
I am constantly nervous that I have not done enough and my much different path will be looked down upon. I am originally from NJ and have a family friend who is a sober(30 yrs) top-level executive at one of the big-3 IB's. This is my last semester and I just got accepted to take a an MBA course with entails creating an investment strategy for a ~500 million Endowment Fund, which I have to present to the Board of Trustees at the end of the semester.
I say all of this to give you a good picture of my adversity, old issues, and accomplishments. I have learned a lot about myself of the past 2 or so years and really love models, trading and investing. I just want to live a happy life and continue to work hard to make it in this competitive industry.
Trust me; anything is possible and I am just trying to broaden my horizons of what to do to gain a good job in a HF, IB, Analytics company. Let me know if you have any advice or if any of the previously mentioned job offers are with taking. Thanks monkeys!
