Dances With Newfoundland's picture

Dances With Newfoundland

CD

Rank: Senior Neanderthal

5,467

Jun 10, 2015 - 6:41pm

I agree with this. The financial industry is certainly not immune to technology, globalization, and specialization. I think a lot of finance jobs will either be automated or done by quants/programmers. The exception would be roles that require both market knowledge and client interaction as well as bottom-up security research since the latter is so much more than just modeling.

In terms of knowledge, I learned 3 key things during my time in b-school:

accounting, corporate finance, and valuation

looking at businesses from a big-picture strategic viewpoint

effective communication

I think these are all valuable things (especially #3, which is critical to long-term professional success), but I don't think they alone justify the insane cost of an MBA. The way I see it, the primary short-term professional benefit of an MBA is access to OCR. The advantage of OCR is twofold: it allows people access to companies and jobs that they otherwise may not have been able to get and it limits the competition to just MBA students. However, the downside is that OCR is mostly limited to banking, consulting, and F500 roles. For those who want non-OCR jobs, they're pretty much on their own, for career services is extremely unhelpful (don't get me started on how useless career service is). A lot of my classmates got their jobs by reaching out to the network they already had BEFORE b-school.

The long-term benefit of an MBA is ostensibly the network, or at least that's what the school will trumpet in their marketing. I don't quite buy that. Yes, you make friends you stay in touch with over the years, but I have talked to a lot of older MBA alums, and I have yet to see the MBA network having a meaningful impact on one's career trajectory years down the road. The other potential long-term benefit is that an MBA serves essentially as an out of the money put option; it protects you from economic volatility by helping to ensure that you have a comfortable white-collar six-figure job. I think the argument here is a bit more persuasive, although it's hard to predict what the job market will be like years down the road.

I certainly don't regret going to b-school and thoroughly enjoyed my experience. However, my view on the MBA has changed radically. Before I started, my view on b-school was naive, overly optimistic, and borderline delusional. After having gone through the gauntlet, my perspective on not just b-school but life and people, is much deeper, mature, nuanced, and realistic. When younger people ask me now whether they should get an MBA, I ask them a bunch of questions and even tell a good number of them to NOT get an MBA. Ultimately, I think schools have done an ingenious job of marketing themselves to potential applicants burned out from the corporate grind, looking for some sort of salvation.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4539842&forum_id=2#40254901)

You and TheGrind made excellent points. My issue is the following:

I'm in a city I utterly despise, which is at odds with my core values, character, and interests. I discussed this in another thread so won't get into it here.

I'm single and have no intention on marrying or having kids. Hence, free time is not as valuable to me. And lot of my friends are now married or heading down that path, so the days of fucking around with your bros is more or less over.

I'm utterly bored at work. I don't find tech interesting at all. Moreover, at the big tech firms, finance is not a central decision maker, which really bothers me, as I feel like a second-class citizen at times.

I had a volatile "non-traditional" career path before the MBA, so I have a big chip on my shoulders about not landing the type of finance job I wanted. This bothers me immensely, and it gnaws at me daily, even when I'm at work.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4539842&forum_id=2#40254928)

https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/not-even-close-nyc-is-the-1-city-for-single-men

No no, this is just another in a long string of pathetic posts seeking affirmation. Brady has never and will never be satisfied with a major life decision. The only truth to this post is that he's driving women away in droves and keeps hopping between jobs and cities but none live up to his imagination.

You asked in one of your posts how to enjoy the good years. Build the life you want, ask yourself what you want to look back on as accomplished three months from now and make it happen, invest in meaningful relationships. When you learn to love what you have it makes swinging for the fences easy. I would encourage you to read through all of Brady and MBAvsMFIN posts and you'll see a recurring theme: someone who is constantly chasing someone else's dream or affirmation. Talk about a life wasted, and you're going to what, say it's about getting laid by a different stranger every few weeks? Moving to the right city where your spreadsheet says it maximizes your purchasing power between salary, taxes and COL? By all means...walk the path poorly traveled.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4539842&forum_id=2#40254936)

Complete and utter flame. No one asks JJC his opinion on anything IRL, much less "younger people."

Unless he's counting all of the escorts he pays to fuck, "what position do you want to do now?"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4539842&forum_id=2#40254985)

jfc you’re a psycho stalker

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4539842&forum_id=2#40255025)

"my view on the MBA has changed radically. Before I started, my view on b-school was naive, overly optimistic, and borderline delusional. After having gone through the gauntlet, my perspective on not just b-school but life and people, is much deeper, mature, nuanced, and realistic"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4539842&forum_id=2#40258489)