Hello from a curious outsider
Let me kick off this introduction with a disclaimer: the world of finance is so far outside my reach that my interest in it is, for all intents and purposes, purely academic (I'm not being self-deprecating in hopes of getting praised and told I can become an investment banker if I try hard enough; trying to turn my curiosity into a relevant career would involve becoming a completely different person, and I genuinely have no interest in that.)
With that out of the way, here's a truncated version of my personal background. I'm 20 years old, I live with my parents in a microscopic town in central Massachusetts (pop ~3,500, graduating high school class of 86 people), and I commute to school. After graduating high school, I went to a small state college on a full ride, but quit after a year out of boredom and frustration. After hitting rock bottom (day-drinking to get through 60-hour weeks working at a lumber yard), I decided I had to clean up my act. Quit all substances cold turkey, lost 30 pounds, went back to school, and did well enough to be picked up by the honors program at my state's flagship university, where I will be going this fall. It's certainly nothing special compared to most everyone else here, but I'm happy with it, if for no other reason than it shows how far I've come since the lumber yard.
What does all this have to do with WSO, you ask? Well, the transfer gives me a chance to turn over a new leaf, and I'm considering adding a second major in economics to go with my primary major in history. I've always had an interest in the subject, but my stunted education in math (fostered largely by my younger self's refusal to admit the existence of an intermediate step between seeing a problem and writing down an answer) kept me from looking further. As of late, however, my causal flings with economics (a couple classes on globalization, a chance reading of 'The Big Short', and the like) have turned into something a bit more steady (reading 'The Intelligent Investor' with three different colors of highlighter), and I'm starting to wonder if I should just throw caution to the wind and buy a ring. I absolutely love analyzing complex systems and finding trends, which is exactly why I am not going anywhere near a career in finance (or a speculative portfolio). That being said, I doubt that tacking some economic credentials would lower the earning potential of that blue-chip state university humanities degree, so...
But enough blabber. I'm curious about finance and economics and will likely spend most of my time pinwheeling around the non-professional parts of the forum. Thanks for reading.
