Is two years of IB the best way to start off?
When you enter into investment banking you have 2 years of nonstop powerpoint, excel, and communication. You learn to get the job done no matter and to have fortitude, among other things.
During those two years you are a learning machine, but for a narrow group of subtopics which may have 1) diminishing returns and; 2) limited applicability in your future life. To break into investment banking you already had to have a pretty good level of all of these things (communications, ppt, excel, fortitude, etc.)
On the other hand, if you are a voracious reader, you can transform yourself and the way you think after a single good book. A year of reading for a few hours a day will change your life trajectory, but many of us have been working so hard that we haven't had time to pick up a book in almost a year (or hit the gym). I know plenty of people who came into IB and walked out with severely stunted growth in some areas vs. their peers who had the time to develop and learn new skills.
I'm curious as to what your thoughts are. Is the time invested in IB worth the opportunity cost of the free time that you could use to learn and develop yourself on your own?
Interesting idea, but I think you're overestimating human willpower. While its undoubtably true the extra time could be better spend on books/gym/etc, the reality is if people are not in the environment forcing them to develop, they don't. This topic has been studied to death and explains scenarios ranging from why ultra wealthy families lose most of their wealth within 3 generations to why people stick to their gym resolutions for only a month or two.
BeautifullyConfused I think some people do have that will power.
This is correct. I bust my ass during work because I have to, but proactively reading or studying for the GMAT is incredibly difficult.
hang in there we are all in this shit together lol
The only opportunity cost I see is the free time you could've used to be getting laid.
Wait. Is this the same xgozax who shared his wisdom in a posting like "Why the hell do people work in NYC/SF IBD?" and "Pick you head up"?
WTF are you talking about? Your "growth" friends cannot impress anybody over the age of 30 with their "skills." I guarantee you that the IB analyst is more impressive in all ways in a meeting/conversation/social setting/just-about-every-situation than people not in IB after 2 years. After 2 years, you know more than, and can BS better than, just about ever other person in the workforce that has not done IB.
In 2 years you could easily ready 100+ books and leap frog over bankers
This might be one of the dumbest things I have ever heard in my entire life.
I would be willing to wager you don't know many people who don't work in finance which is skewing your perception.
To put it concisely: you want to bet me that most of the people I know are in finance. Please avoid double negatives.
You would be a losing man. I no longer live in NYC or a major financial hub. Most of the people that I "know" are actually not in finance. In fact, the only "finance" acquaintance I can think of is a loan office at a small regional bank branch.
What is the wager? You name the terms.
Calm down. Tons of people who haven't done a 2year IB stint have gone on to do incredible things. I mean IB is an awesome gig out of undergrad, but chill man.
Compared to reading? That was the OPs argument. His "growth" idea was to just read books instead of IB.
Clearly you have never met anyone who worka in sales for a living.
Depends on your personality. As someone who has a handful of friends and limited social engagements (there are more of us on here than you may think) there is nothing better than IB: spend 80% of your time working and growing your career and 20% socializing with fellow analysts who you've become friends with due to the sheer number of hours you're forced to spend together
Who said reading or learning skills is all there is to success? You can't put it on your resume with a nice brand like a job or degree, and skills are learned mostly through experience. Am I off here?
xgozax If you really believe that, why not give it a shot? Spend two years working 40-50 hrs a week and reading a book a week. Then apply your personal enrichment to the real world and see what you can accomplish. Let us know where you're at, and we'll see how that stacks up against the people in your year who did a two-year stint in IB. Deal?
If you want to enter the business/financial world, I can't think of a better launching pad then an IBanking stint with an exception for MBB consulting.
I shall end with this. Education is what they teach you at school; knowledge is how you make use of your education. Stop being a hipster who try to impress us "normal people" with how many books you can read a year. Show us what you have accomplished by reading that many books?
Have you helped turn someone else life around? Have you supported your family with your honest hard earned money? Have you built a company that provide jobs for others? Are you happy with getting what you want in life? If all you can prove to me after the end of one year is that you finished reading all the 100+ books (and I have no ways to verifying that), what is the end result?
What you are saying is like a guy who went to gym 10+ hours a day while still fat and telling others that he should be Mr. Olympia because the guy who won that award only exercise 4 hours a day. That is just silly.
I am not sure how reading 100+ books a year can help you. But I definitely know 2 years at IBD/Consulting did help me to open up a lot of doors in term of career prospects and also helped me to grow as an individual. I would not trade anything else for that.
I've got a feeling that a lot of people on this thread are seriously adocating that reading "growth" books can take you farther than experiencing an IB stint.
Let's just be serious for a minute here.
Great books sure provide valuable knowledge and help you acquire solid critical reasoning, hindsight and perspective. But real life, applicable and adaptable skills come with experiencing and challenging them in the hardest, most fucked-up and situations one can get into.
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