Is Going into Finance a Bad Idea at this Point?

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
21

[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
Bad idea. I’d say it ranks down there with real estate and porn shop janitor at this point. [/quote]

Yeah it’d be a shame to buy up all these houses on the cheap…same with stock. Not sure about the porn shop janitor but I’ll take your word for it.

OP:
Find something you like and do it. This shouldn’t be the only economic down turn in your life so you’ll have to learn how to deal with it sooner or later. If you’re really worried about the finance field you could dual major in something else if you have the funds for it. Worst comes to worst join the Peace Corps for a year and I guarantee you’ll get into any grad school you want if you know how to market yourself.

22

[quote]GhorigTheBeefy wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
Bad idea. I’d say it ranks down there with real estate and porn shop janitor at this point.

Yeah it’d be a shame to buy up all these houses on the cheap…same with stock. Not sure about the porn shop janitor but I’ll take your word for it.

[/quote]

Yeah, I was talking about the “profession” of real estate, which now ranks down there with used car salesmen in terms of its respectability, not the act of buying and selling real estate. There’s a nuance there you may have missed.

By all means, buy real estate (well, not commercial real estate as that bubble hasn’t burst yet) and stock while its cheap.

23

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
theOUTLAW wrote:
auditing is not about much more than SOX.

This might be the most wrong thing I have read this week.

Do you know what an audit is? What GAAS is?
[/quote]
HA. You left out where I said “at this point.” You also misunderstood me. No shit, auditors follow GAAS. My point was that since sox came into play, companies are more willing to shell out more money to be compliant.

Don’t flatter yourself, bud. I’ve been there.

Again, don’t flatter yourself. The point was that you don’t need to bill hours in the private sector. There are no set quotas.

[quote]

And as far as going corporate, and not going public if you don’t want to be partner… One principle in my firm this year, got a new Expedition, 200,000 salary, a bonus over 100K, and a Rolex. Nah you don’t make shit for money unless your a partner. BLAH. Dude I make more than both my parents combined as a senior. My buddy who works in private, and has almost the exact amount of time in, makes 15,000 less than I do.[/quote]

Haha. I never said non-partners make shit. I said CFOs at corporations make way more than any non-partner.

24

[quote]theOUTLAW wrote:

Don’t flatter yourself, bud. I’ve been there.

[/quote]

Don’t flatter yourself, partner. It’s painfully obvious why your not still “there.”

25

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
theOUTLAW wrote:

Don’t flatter yourself, bud. I’ve been there.

Don’t flatter yourself, partner. It’s painfully obvious why your not still “there.”[/quote]

Yes. General counsel for a corporation or…no, I’d rather be a senior accountant. Heh. I hope you’re helping out your parents with all that bank you make.

26

[quote]theOUTLAW wrote:
countingbeans wrote:
theOUTLAW wrote:

Don’t flatter yourself, bud. I’ve been there.

Don’t flatter yourself, partner. It’s painfully obvious why your not still “there.”

Yes. General counsel for a corporation or…no, I’d rather be a senior accountant. Heh. I hope you’re helping out your parents with all that bank you make.[/quote]

Ha ha… Now your talking about a lawyer? Why is it every time I mention you don’t know what you talking about you keep back pedaling and trying to swing the subject?

Now it all makes perfect sense.

Your nothing more than a bullshitter. You should be general counsel, you’d be perfect for it. Jesus christ, just perfect.

Oh, and attacking my parents because I called you out on the fact you don’t know what the fuck your talking about when it comes to accounting, super fucking cool dude.

Go be a total douche bag somewhere else, and stop polluting the OP with the stupid fucking clueless shit that comes out of your mouth.

EDIT: Oh by the way, yeah I’m a senior, going into my fourth year. Have been a senior since my second season. In my profession people don’t hand you shit, you have to earn it. My daddy didn’t get me my job.

27

I just explained to you why I “wasn’t there” anymore, but yes, I was handed a CPA license and a j.d. from my daddy. I like accounting, and it’s the big thing that allows me to separate myself from run of the mill corporate law guys.

…and the only things I brought up about accounting were SOX and why it’s good for auditors; how the hours were better in the private sector; and how top management will make more money than non-partnered cpas. Wow! Auditors follow GAAS?

I didn’t know that. The next thing you will tell me is how GAAP stands for generally accepted accounting principles. WOW. This is a groundbreaking discussion that we’re having about accounting right now.

I get the gist of what you’re saying though…you are the master of accounting being that you are a senior and all…and it was funny how you were bragging that you made more money than both of your parents combined. That’s why I was hoping that you were helping them out, since you seem to make ridiculous amounts of money. Again, my opinion is that you are a very arrogant for just being a senior.

But to get away from dick waving and back to the OP…no matter what you do, experience with finance/accounting will only help.

28

[quote]theOUTLAW wrote:
A whole bunch of stuff…[/quote]

You are probably a great lawyer…

Reread your posts… maybe if you can filter through the shit your full of, you will understand you don’t know shit about the industry.

29

I was studying finance, I didn’t get extremely far into it. I did it because my buddies were doing it, and it is the make money major.

They stuck with it, I’m switching to CS…partially because the economy is bad, partially because I had an internship at a bank and realized I just didn’t like the environment I was in. 1 man amongst 22 fat women, who were catty and always fighting, dealing with rich anglo-saxon and jewish spoiled bullies on a regular basis and eating shit from some kind of nebulous corporate structure where I am accountable to three bosses (I’m dead serious) at the same time.

That was just my experience, I realized, I wanted to do something more skilled and more creative as honestly, in some ways finance favors real estate because alot of people in it get buy on 90% social skills, and 10% hard skills.

I wanted to get as far away from the feel good-bullshitters as possible, so I figured hard creative science, like CS-Web Development is the way to go.

As far, as the economy being bad for finance and better for other majors, after thinking on the subject, I’d disagree. The finance and business drive the market, and that trickles down to every field, so if finance is bad, any other major is probably just as slow.

30

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
theOUTLAW wrote:
A whole bunch of stuff…

You are probably a great lawyer…

Reread your posts… maybe if you can filter through the shit your full of, you will understand you don’t know shit about the industry.

[/quote]

Well…I don’t see where I said that in this thread, but OK. I is stupitt. I don’t care what or how I post on this message board, just as you don’t. I still stand by what I said.

You win, though. I’m upset and embarrassed. Congratulations.

31

Stop your fucking bickering.

OP,

If you want a successful career in finance, then I would recommend studying accounting at the undergraduate level and moving on to finance at the MBA level. An accounting degree could lead to many other career options. If I had to do undergraduate b-school again, I’d study accounting without question.

Not cuz its fun, or interesting, but because of the career opportunities it gives you, and the subsequent doors that those opportunities open, e.g. top 10 MBA school. You must be fluent in acctg to understand the language of finance. I work in finance right now, and the most difficult/critical/important part of the job is my understanding of financial statements.

If you want a long term career in finance/econ, then I suggest you bite the bullet and master accounting.

32

I was originally in finance. I decided to quit after meeting so many graduates with shitty jobs. Econ is worse.

There is one option though: financial engineering. If you can get that degree, you will be paid handsomely. It is one of the hardest programs there is though. A lot of people have to start with a bachelors in mathematics just to prep themselves.

33

[quote]Guerrero wrote:
I was studying finance, I didn’t get extremely far into it. I did it because my buddies were doing it, and it is the make money major.

They stuck with it, I’m switching to CS…partially because the economy is bad, partially because I had an internship at a bank and realized I just didn’t like the environment I was in. 1 man amongst 22 fat women, who were catty and always fighting, dealing with rich anglo-saxon and jewish spoiled bullies on a regular basis and eating shit from some kind of nebulous corporate structure where I am accountable to three bosses (I’m dead serious) at the same time.
[/quote]

I hate to break it to you, but you’ll deal with this in software and engineering as well. There doesn’t seem to be any way around that these days unless you want to go into business for yourself. My friend’s got a small engineering company (after his old one was stolen from him (http://www.luxim.com/)) and he runs it like an engineering company should be run, meaning that the focus is one making stuff. But he’s an engineer. The evil HR people with plasticized smiles and soulless business and management level people don’t go away when you get into CS or engineering.

34

[quote]Thomas Gabriel wrote:
I was originally in finance. I decided to quit after meeting so many graduates with shitty jobs. Econ is worse.

There is one option though: financial engineering. If you can get that degree, you will be paid handsomely. It is one of the hardest programs there is though. A lot of people have to start with a bachelors in mathematics just to prep themselves. [/quote]

Financial engineering was what got us into our current economic mess. All of those “securitized” loans that were packaged up and sold overseas were made so by financial engineers through elaborate rube-goldberg financial contraptions. Everyone knows it now, and those jobs are being cut.

35

[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
Thomas Gabriel wrote:
I was originally in finance. I decided to quit after meeting so many graduates with shitty jobs. Econ is worse.

There is one option though: financial engineering. If you can get that degree, you will be paid handsomely. It is one of the hardest programs there is though. A lot of people have to start with a bachelors in mathematics just to prep themselves.

Financial engineering was what got us into our current economic mess. All of those “securitized” loans that were packaged up and sold overseas were made so by financial engineers through elaborate rube-goldberg financial contraptions. Everyone knows it now, and those jobs are being cut. [/quote]

Seriously, I thought he was joking about that. They were paid handsomely because they manufactured money out of thin air.

36

[quote]DeterminedNate wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
Thomas Gabriel wrote:
I was originally in finance. I decided to quit after meeting so many graduates with shitty jobs. Econ is worse.

There is one option though: financial engineering. If you can get that degree, you will be paid handsomely. It is one of the hardest programs there is though. A lot of people have to start with a bachelors in mathematics just to prep themselves.

Financial engineering was what got us into our current economic mess. All of those “securitized” loans that were packaged up and sold overseas were made so by financial engineers through elaborate rube-goldberg financial contraptions. Everyone knows it now, and those jobs are being cut.

Seriously, I thought he was joking about that. They were paid handsomely because they manufactured money out of thin air.

[/quote]

Not really.

They spread risks and sold them to everyone willing to take them.

In a way, the very fact that the whole world is affected by the American real estate crisis shows how successful they really where.

We will still need these institutions in the future.

37

[quote]orion wrote:
DeterminedNate wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
Thomas Gabriel wrote:
I was originally in finance. I decided to quit after meeting so many graduates with shitty jobs. Econ is worse.

There is one option though: financial engineering. If you can get that degree, you will be paid handsomely. It is one of the hardest programs there is though. A lot of people have to start with a bachelors in mathematics just to prep themselves.

Financial engineering was what got us into our current economic mess. All of those “securitized” loans that were packaged up and sold overseas were made so by financial engineers through elaborate rube-goldberg financial contraptions. Everyone knows it now, and those jobs are being cut.

Seriously, I thought he was joking about that. They were paid handsomely because they manufactured money out of thin air.

Not really.

They spread risks and sold them to everyone willing to take them.

In a way, the very fact that the whole world is affected by the American real estate crisis shows how successful they really where.

We will still need these institutions in the future.
[/quote]

It’s surprising to hear an Austrian economist say that. We’ll need them? Do you mean that in the sense that, “We can’t just shoot them?”

38

My Econ 3220 prof. Tried to explain the whole mortgage derivative thing to us over last semester. He really knew his shit, but most of the class was totally dumbfounded and confused. Especially the girls.

39

[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
orion wrote:
DeterminedNate wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
Thomas Gabriel wrote:
I was originally in finance. I decided to quit after meeting so many graduates with shitty jobs. Econ is worse.

There is one option though: financial engineering. If you can get that degree, you will be paid handsomely. It is one of the hardest programs there is though. A lot of people have to start with a bachelors in mathematics just to prep themselves.

Financial engineering was what got us into our current economic mess. All of those “securitized” loans that were packaged up and sold overseas were made so by financial engineers through elaborate rube-goldberg financial contraptions. Everyone knows it now, and those jobs are being cut.

Seriously, I thought he was joking about that. They were paid handsomely because they manufactured money out of thin air.

Not really.

They spread risks and sold them to everyone willing to take them.

In a way, the very fact that the whole world is affected by the American real estate crisis shows how successful they really where.

We will still need these institutions in the future.

It’s surprising to hear an Austrian economist say that. We’ll need them? Do you mean that in the sense that, “We can’t just shoot them?” [/quote]

No, I literally mean we need them.

We need people who slice huge risks into tiny tranches and then sell it to everyone interested.

Whether you have one big insurance company backing you or thousands of small investors is irrelevant, someone must shoulder the risk of failure, it is just that risk averse investors should be more willing to buy smaller parts of risk than take all of it.

And did they not spread the risk around?

If banks in Europe go down, they must have done their jobs.

If those banks should have agreed to buy at these conditions is another matter.

40

FFS quit debating about your bullshit and focus on the OP’s situation.

You could always try taking some intro classes to other fields to help you decide if Finance is/isn’t for you.

Personally, I like numbers and finance when it’s applied to me. I’m not sure how long I could stand it if I had to do it day in and day out for some douche bag.