How does a finance professor from a nontarget noname school explain to his students that their futures in finance are bleak?

If your a finance professor at a nontarget noname school, how do you tell the majority of your students that their futures in finance are not good because firms tend to hire the best of the best? Some students at these schools want to work for investment banks or hedge funds but the finance professor won't discourage these students about the truths about being realistic after graduation.

 
Best Response

You're a consumer. The professor wants happy customers (students). They're not going to tell you anything upsetting. Half the colleges in this country should close down, as they do nothing but charge students tens of thousands of dollars for a worthless degree while acting as a jobs program for incompetent administrators and academics who couldn't get an actual job in the private sector if their life depended on it.

 

I went to a non-target and folks simply didn't think about those roles. Professors weren't pitching them, students weren't pursuing them.

Finance is much broader than IBD at a bulge bracket. A lot of us went in to fund accounting, corporate finance/accounting roles, etc. I broke in to a good pwm shop, was probably one of the luckier ones.

A few of us landed at good grad schools and shifted gears. But honestly, it's just a different world. Most of the population doesn't give a shit about "prestige", working 80-100 hour weeks for $100k+ out of undergrad, etc. They just want health insurance, stability and a paycheck that will cover rent, food and video games and maybe a Carnivale Cruise or trip to Europe once every 5-10 years.

 

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