first gen student looking for advice

Since you wrote that you are first generation and you have a lot of time left in your college since I think you say you’re a freshman, my advice is a little different.  A bit more parental advice since you probably don’t have parents to really guide you in a professional sense. 

First I would say, I got a bad grade my first semester in college.  I attended one of the top private high schools in my state and then enrolled in the state school and I probably thought I was the shit.  But college has a way of distracting you.  Seems like you’ve woken up. 

I’m not going to tell you what to major in, but I want you to come away with this mindset. And since I could write a book (many of us older folks can), I’ll just give a few important relevant tips.  These are highly personal to me and how I operate.

1) become reflective on the past, present, future (too many people seek tactical advice that gets them from point A to B - it’s too cookie cutter):

Read about past economic cycles and know history.  Makes you seem more mature and interesting. If it happened during your lifetime, no excuse but to learn about it while in college. A lot of what we do is pattern recognition.

- before you get into the questions below, read biographies of business people that interest you.  In college, just on my own, I remember reading “Art of the Deal” (Trump), “Vandals Crown” (Soros international money war). I’m sure there are great newer books.  Sam Zell’s “Am I being too Subtle” comes to mind (he talks a lot about his college experience).  Inject in your mind visions of adventure and possibilities.

Then, tell me these things:

- what were the causes of the Great Recession and how did it affect real estate?

- what factors led to the bull market of 2010’s?  What were the signs of a bearish market?

- and then, give me an investment theses on where we are at now and going forward.  I know you’re a freshman.  An investment theses is basically the reasoning behind risking millions of dollars.  You can learn the right answers but there’s always risk.  Really I want you to learn to make decisions.  And explain your decision from the context of the past, present, future.  

2. You are starting to do white collar job shadowing.  Show executive potential even for the most basic, entry jobs. The real estate agent asks you to create an Excel spreadsheet of clients’ MLS listings (the homes they are looking at, including addresses).  Make sure you format the report, check for print formatting so it’s not 20 pages looking like a jigsaw puzzle.  Format it for a clean 2 pages (just example).  

Learn to do the extra 5% that makes your work have that executive potential: bonus points if you add creativity into your work, give them something they’ve never seen before, in the good sense (don’t do this for simple tasks, but for challenging issues; you get creative ideas by observing many things, understanding the audience and what they want - and sometimes the audience doesn’t know what they want until you show them, that’s the X factor I want you to have).  A lot of the work of selling residential real estate is understanding and manipulating perceptions.  Pick up on that.

3) take an intro to accounting class your Sophomore year (don’t take intro to managerial accounting - take intro to financial accounting - just wanted to clarify: Financial Accounting).  It’s usually a class you take before going into undergrad business school, so I think it’s open for all majors.  I’m not telling you what to major in, but want you to take this course.   Whether you like the course or not, will tell you whether you’re going to excel as an analytical/number cruncher, or your strengths are in other aspects (ie sales, building things hands on, design, marketing, qualitative work).  


4) lastly, join a business club.  Not saying major in undergraduate business (I didn’t, but got my MBA later), but there usually are business clubs that allow folks from other non-business majors to join.  Seek those out.  Why?  While I’m a big believer in graduate school after you’ve figured out your career strengths and how to make financial decisions (like a MBA), undergrad business schools while they can encourage group think, they have really good processes to get students ready for the work world.  Better than most other majors. 
 

That’s it for now.  Have fun.  Work hard, play hard.  College was the best time of my life.