Not a success story - Looking for advice

Hello there!

I guess, I am looking for some life advice. Hope it's not too terrible that is this technically off-topic.

I am a MSc Finance student in a prestigious European program (top-10, target school, all that). I am not a great student, though, and have failed to graduate on time for a second year in a row (I left one of the exams just an hour ago and I am pretty sure that I didn't make it). There is no risk of being expelled but it feels terrible that now I will only be able to finish MSc at 27 at best.

How did I get here? I aced my GMAT (760, average quant, stellar verbal) and got a scholarship (which I lost already) in my current school a while ago. I am not too much of a diligent student, not too good at math and had no prior finance background (I wanted to diversify my skillset by enrolling into finance MSc) but I thought that when push comes to shove, I will be able to collect myself and study hard.

I was wrong.

Some relatively minor failures in the first year really hurt my confidence and motivation so things went downhill. Most of the time I find it extremely difficult to force myself to study without getting distracted. I can relatively easily force myself to worry and feel bad about it but that mostly leads to me just procrastinating while also feeling sad. This sense of shame also causes problems in personal life in general. I find myself less sociable than I used to be and just being constantly worried about being judged / worried about the need to keep my predicament a secret. 

Along the way I interned a bit in consulting (a boutique in a non-financial industry). It went pretty well. Seems like I only have issues when I have to study in a self-paced manner (my MSc program relies a lot on that). Speaking of career destinations, initially I wanted to go into finance after school but now feel not so confident. I enjoyed consulting a lot but at this point I am also very open towards other options. Before starting MSc, I had some experience in marketing strategy (a year, major multinational brand).

A bit of an issue that I also have with my job search is the fact that I have a pretty ugly non-EU passport and a bachelor's degree from a uni nobody have heard about outside of my home country. On the other hand, I have a decent "safety net" from the family.

So... That's how it is. Sorry for the rant. I am just feeling a bit lost now. Maybe anyone here can offer some advice or suggestions on how to proceed and what to do? Maybe somebody has been in a similar situation? Any help would be appreciated.

1 Comments
 

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