Stigmas and majors..should I leave the business school to raise my GPA?
Hello,
I'm currently a rising junior (majoring in finance) at a target business school. A lot of people get placed in IB especially. The school also has an econ major that I'm considering, but it's outside of the business school and not as prestigious. Recruiters mostly focus on the business school, but the university has a lot of prestige overall so the name is worth a lot, especially in the area.
I'm currently a finance major and I originally wanted to go into IB on Wall Street and later PE, but I'm not sure if I'm on the right track anymore.
I underwent some personal issues that were reported on the news and it took a huge toll on me. The depression I experienced afterwards made my grades drop and I currently have a 3.0 GPA. I also missed a lot of classes during this time so I'm very behind in terms of the course requirements.
I'm considering switching into the College to be an econ major because though I like finance, econ has always been my best subject. I got awards for it in high school and it's currently my minor. I've gotten an A in every econ class I've taken here so far so I think that I could at least salvage a 3.5 by graduation if I switched. I'm thinking that switching would position me to do an MBA or grad degree instead and try again in the future. Still, there's no guarantees that I'll get into a good program or be able to afford it, so I do need to hedge my bets and be sure that I could make it with a bachelor's alone.
There are two ways to look at this...on one hand, perhaps the stigma around mental illness will prevent me from getting onto Wall Street anyway, because companies can just Google me and see that depression has been a problem. In that case, I should just throw in the towel, pivot into liberal arts, and spend the rest of college building a portfolio of research in hopes of propelling myself into academia. Personal trauma is actually a bonus when it comes to the admissions committees, so I've got about two years to turn my sob story into a literary masterpiece.
On the other hand, I could say this is my dream and I've already spent enough time suffering, so it's time for me to stop giving a rat's ass about whatever's wrong with me, show up to each and every networking event, and make those bastards see what's right. Perhaps changing industries would be easier or even more sensible, but why should I let anyone slap my hand and tell me I don't deserve the biggest slice of pie? Even if I never have it, I want it to be because I failed after doing everything I could, not because the starting gun shot me in the leg and I never got up.
Realistically, my transcript is trash, I'm behind in my classes, and my freshman year misfortunes are all over the internet forever. Also, I'm a woman, and I'm half black, but that's pretty low on my list of concerns at this point in the game so I'm hoping others will feel the same. I can really only work from this moment. I'm probably screwed, but I guess I want to find out for certain.
My question...how do I succeed from here?
I mean was it on national news? Because if so, you could be screwed working in business as a whole. People in finance really care about your image and if your image is tarnished then you're in some deep shit because your grades aren't amazing. But I mean if what you did didn't make national headlines and you truly go to a target school, you need to start networking with alum. You could always undergo a name change as well, the only people that will know of your previous name will be HR during your background check, but that's about it. A 3.0 at a target school isn't the end of the world. A bad image is in business as a whole is however.
It was on national news :/ But when it comes to depression/suicide/etc., it's not like I even wronged anyone right? I feel like it'd be ridiculous if in 10 years, the business world was still holding something that happened when I was a teenager against me. Then again, Monica Lewinski was only 19 when the scandal broke and people still talk about it. I'd hope a few of these hiring managers have children who've struggled with the same battles, so they'd be sympathetic, but maybe I'm far too naive. I do truly go to a target school. I've had internships and leadership positions before, but never anything requiring networking with complete strangers. A lot of my teachers and superiors say I'm very personable and polished, so most people who meet me don't feel the need to Google me. For recruiters, though, that's a different story. I feel like I'm living in this weird double universe where I'm the perfect candidate in person but on paper I look like a mess. I've thought about setting up coffee chats but I'm afraid it'd go perfectly face to face and then they'd Google me and delete my email address.
I usually use my nickname on my resumes, but I don't know if I want to legally change it to that because the nickname isn't as professional-sounding as my full name. I'm not sure how I'd feel about having that name for life, and changing it to something entirely different would look sketchy, right? Also in terms of the major...3.0 flat in business school or 3.5-3.6 outside of the business school (with liberal arts research?) I'm here to take summer classes and do a small internship (finance department at a nonprofit) but I'm not sure which department I should take classes in. Basically, I won't graduate on time unless I play my cards right starting this fall, so this is the last time for me to experiment. I just kinda wanna get my life together and not end up trapped in poverty, living in a box and eating a can of beans. But it'd also be nice to make seven figures by 35.
Damn that sucks, being on national news is a career ender. I mean did you do jail time/go court for it? If so, I would seriously change your name. You could always take your mothers maiden name as your last name, and say it was personal reasons or something like that. You just don't want anyone to be able to connect the dots.
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(deleted, didn't read post fully at first)
Yeah I think that in an ideal situation staying within finance would be a no-brainer since I want to enter the industry. But right now, I feel like my past is so full of red flags that I need to have a pristine transcript from this moment on. I could always say that I switched to understand the bigger picture, because I knew I could learn the tech skills through self-study. If I earn some finance certifications on my own then it wouldn't be too bad of a look. I wanna keep my options open if I don't get recruited and grad school is pretty much off the table with a sub-3.5 GPA.
Then again, finance is a high-yield degree and if I graduate with one from this school, I'm basically guaranteed a job even if I have to languish in the suburbs. I don't expect to ever see a day on Wall Street before I'm 30 with this GPA but at least I could pay my bills and do 10 years of company hopping to get where I want. Econ is risky because the return on investment is pretty low unless you get a PhD. I don't want to end up working at Starbucks. There's a bunch of trade-offs and I wish I could get advice from employers in person but I don't want to air my dirty laundry.
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