My plan starting from high school was to enter one of these banks and make 120k within my first year. Plan? More like dream. I did not work hard enough over the 4 years of college to deserve myself of this honor.
Many of my classmates will be entering the workforce come this spring, and believe me some of them WILL be earning 120k. They have worked incredibly hard - one friend I know, started out in CAS (the liberal arts division of NYU), and stayed there for 2 years, and then transferred to last year. Then he got an internship at JPM, and bam, he gets an offer and he's set.
Am I attributing his success to luck? Definitely not. I was lucky, I got into Stern immediately rather than having to risk/work my ass off for 2 years just to be able to get into the business school in the first place. But he took his situation, and instead of whining or sulking about it, he instead doubled-down his efforts, and voila... here he is.
On the other hand, what am I doing... sitting in this cold hedge fund, trying to blunder my way through the FX trading world, without any mentor to really guide me. (Yes, there are senior traders who talk a lot, but they don't have time to focus on me specifically). If I was working at JPM it would be a different story.
But who am I kidding? This is just a temporary situation. I put myself into this, by repeatedly playing games over the years, and not working as hard as I should have. Instead of studying for my classes I was playing games, watching TV, or doing music. Nothing wrong with any of them (especially doing music), but if your goal is to get a full-time analyst offer at one of those bulge bracket banks, wasting time on other stuff is simply... stupid.
And yet, I can't deny myself the sinking thought that maybe this isn't the correct area for me in the first place. After all, I've always wanted to be in music. When I ask myself at before sleeping, what is my dream, the first thought in my head is, I wish I could be a professional composer. And when I wake up, the same thought crosses my mind.
Is that why I can't be in this field, or is it because I haven't tried hard enough? Regardless, this period of time (September-early October) is the most crucial time for me to FOCUS. It's funny, I spend 3 years preparing for this, yet it's during the most crucial moments that I falter and begin to wonder if I made the correct decision.
I just have to try my best. Get a few interviews, and go into those interviews with my head held high and a smile on my face. I shouldn't be scared of failure. Failure is never something to be scared of, but regret is.
It's far better to work your hardest and realize that you simply weren't good enough, than to not try hard enough and think that you could have done better.
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