I recently left academia and took a job in risk modeling at an investment bank. However, the job is nothing like I envisioned and what the job description entailed. It's zero finance, zero modeling, and basically involves making sure things that are already in place are running smoothly. It is also a lot of regulatory stuff like CCAR. My background is in financial mathematics and statistics, and I am interested in "risk management" in the sense that understanding the risk involved in finance is imperative and should guide all our decisions, but like I said, my current job has nothing to do with that (the interesting stuff is all done by front office people).
A major reason for my decision to take this current job was that I have always wanted to work for this particular bank, but I do believe that I have the credentials to get a job in investment management or a hedge fund, which is where I want to go. However, I would have to wait until next year because of visa reasons (or move to London). One solution would be to go back to academia and finish this academic year and potentially the next one doing research. I am fine with that, except that I would be leaving quite a bit of money on the table (sign-on bonus + higher salary), which is quite painful, and maybe it does not look so good on my resume that I left after a month (could even leave it off my resume...).
The thing is, and I don't want to sound overly dramatic, is that every day is basically painful for me. I count the minutes and the hours until it's over, I'm not learning anything new, and feel like I just don't belong. In general I am mentally tough and able to push myself hard, but this has already started to affect my mental health and I am feeling extremely depressed and unhappy, which obviously is very concerning.
Any suggestions?
