Abandon Wall Street dreams? Not just yet.
With the recent collapse of major banking firms, recruiters disappearing from the Yale campus and the threat of more bankruptcies looming on the horizon, job prospects are looking grim for those Elis planning to enter finance.
But it could be worse. All of this could have happened a few weeks from now.
Instead, Yalies are taking advantage of the timing of the collapse — still early in the recruiting season — to seek out post-graduation alternatives, including professional school. At the same time, an unlikely undercurrent of optimism among administrators, students and...
Business School is the best option for us.
Just looked into the law school application time table and LSATs are coming up way too soon to prep.
But GMATs are basic math/reading. Any associate/analyst should be able to crush this test and enter in Spring 09, Summer 09, or Fall 09 without much problem.
I for one don’t want to wait a year for law school (or spend 3 years in school, or entirely switch careers)
IMHO- Duck into the nearest B-school for 2 years, reemerge w/ some new flashy skills and sheepskin, and try to avoid this mess all over again.
Or you could find something interesting and meaningful to do with your lives?
To Dave-O,
Use your brain, some Yalies go into banking to make a ton of quick (and HARD earned) cash before entering public service or using those funds to support private charities, or to start families, etc.
So Dave-O, me banking to make some $$$ to pay off 80 grand in student debt is a "vapid" existence? Guess if I were rich then I'd be debt-free to make my life less "vapid." I know you're probably way out of touch with the normal student, but lots of us have loans and banking is the best way repay what we owe as fast as possible.
Most don't.
In years past, new grads could ride out a bear market by doing business school or grad school and get back into banking and finance when the waters grew more placid.
Ducking into business school won't work this time because we are experiencing a MAJOR and permanent change in our economic landscape. These big wall street firms are disappearing and they ain't comin' back my friends. And the bloodshed has only just started. It will get much worse before it gets a little better, but in the end it will still be very much worse than it ever has been.
And by the way, law school ain't looking much better either because there has been some major downsizing by big NYC law firms, all secondary to wall street's collapse. This thing is like poison spreading throughout the blood stream.
I have 30K in debt from college and am not rich. Use your brain, no one makes that much more money in just a few years that they can cash out and take a pay reduction. Most of the extra money goes to living in Manhattan so that you don't have an hour commute home on top of your 11 hour work day. If you've fooled yourself into thinking you'll pay off your loans and then sock away tens of thousands of dollars and feed the homeless maybe you deserve a soul crushing, meaningless job. Perhaps some people are capable of doing this, but the typical Yale graduate investment banker, is the one discussing going to business or law school as "something to do" for a few years until the markets stabilize. At least if I have a heart attack at 60 I'll have known I made a difference in this world and fun doing it.
Alumnus,
This is a mere self-correction. Enough of the hyperbole.
You will be amazed at the firms created by this suddenly independent group of very smart people.
"[A]mazed at the firms created by this suddenly independent group of very smart people," - good, then maybe you, Yale 08, can actually get a job and not waste the workday reading and posting in the YDN. (cough) loser (cough)...
Lord Haw Haw,
I go to Yale. I am in no hurry to enter the job market.
dave - i believe you are broadly correct but for the wrong reasons. yes, career services needs to get a little more creative to find jobs for all of our liberally educated brethen. But the proportionality of students landing in banking is due the fact that most Yalies go on to some sort of graduate school and, for those that do enter the job market, most businesses now want to recruit people with very specific "pre-professional" educations. The accounting, marketing HR services etc. majors. Banking is one of the last remaining place that values the ability to think & learn over skills based training though even that has greatly evolved over the last 10 years or so.
but your original point remains - time for career services to start developing additional opportunities.
Yale 08: I will be amazed by the firms created by these suddenly independent group of smart people? Wherever will they get the financial backing to start these firms? No one is just giving out money any more. And I should say that no one will hand out money to some 23 year-old former analyst to start a firm. This is not merely a self-correction - this is a shift in paradigm that will alter the financial landscape for a generation.
There are needs out there, and this people are the smart ones who will figure out to fill them.
One key area to look at:
A lack of transparency was a major component of the current situation- I would be willing to bet that a large number of analysts will find themselves at work solving this issue.
Think of a niche(industry specific) fund that primarily makes money through information bulletin subscriptions.
This is the third article in as many days on the same subject. Not once has anyone suggested that perhaps this turmoil would aid in creating a little post-graduation job diversity by having people go into other careers. 1/4 yalies work for an investment bank after graduation. That seems like an awful lot for a school that encourages academic diversity. I've always been perturbed by the lack of imagination in Career Services in suggesting alternative careers. Maybe some students should take a hard look at the situation and consider that their Yale education can get them more than an extra $15k dollars(which for you economists out there, seems to be wasted by living in manhattan). I'm not a bleeding heart that thinks everyone should work for Non-profits, I'm just a little ashamed that so many of my fellow Yalies are lured to the vapid existence of making profit for profits sake.