- I generally feel good about my work and my teammates. Very friendly. I've received decent feedback about my performance so far but still have trouble shaking the feeling that I am hopelessly incompetent. Just trying to keep a sense of humility! ;)
- The quality of life has turned out to be excellent. I work about 11-12 hours per day and do some work on Sunday, which, by my standards is doable, although for some that would be unacceptable. (I was chatting with a GSBer about her summer and asked how her hours were. Long, she replied, 8:30 to 5 ... I couldn't suppress my look of astonishment ... well, long for me! she retorted. Fair enough.)
- Best of all is the degree of flexibility and autonomy in my work - I am paid to sit around and read the Economist and think about innovations in technology and the political structure of Brazil. Etcetera. Not bad work. Most of all I am paid to have opinions. Strong opinions. Opinions worth betting a few million on. I try not to think about that part.
- On bad days, I remember that equity research can be fantastically boring, flexibility and autonomy be damned. I hate accounting and SEC filings on these days.
- The markets, as you probably are painfully aware, are challenging, to say the least. And investing, never the most obvious activity, is even more strange and baffling. However, I started my career post-tech bubble so I tend to assume the world is always crashing around one's ears. But, according to my bosses, this is one of the worst periods they have ever experienced. Nice.
- The worrisome part is whether this means, in the case of superb summer performance on my part I may still end up without a job offer. Not recommended in general, but especially disappointing as I really love this firm and want to work here full-time. I feel that this firm is not so short-sighted but it seems that they have grown quite rapidly in recent years and given the current business challenges might want to just work with what they've got.
Oh, well. It will all turn out ok. At least it's been a nice summer.
On the baby front, Y and I enjoyed 2 completely baby free nights of unbroken sleep this weekend. Eight hours in one go! Amazing. I thought it would never happen.
5 comments:
Hi,
Just want to wish you good luck on the new school year with the new baby and all. I'd also like to ask you if you may be interested in being a part of our Featured MBA Project.
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Hi
I am interested in the buy side of finance, was wondering whther you have any opinions on the level of difficulty in getting into the buy side with a non0fin background, will clearing CFA-1 be of any help?
Thanks for another illuminating post. I'm hoping for your advice on two courses that look interesting for the upcoming semester: the first is the Theory of Financial Decisions course by Fama. Fama is a legend in finance, but I don't know whether the actual course will be beneficial as a first quarter student.
Second, what about Milton Harris for Corporation Finance? Have you heard anything about him?
Thanks!!
Hi ToMBA, please ignore and delete the previous entry. I didn't mean to put it up in a public forum. I don't need help on the question anymore.
no problem, anonymous - but could you clarify which comment you're referring to? (you should be able to delete your own posts too. just in case i don't get to it soon enough.)
I'll be happy to answer whichever question is left.
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