Stressed about some back-to-school choices

By Shana | Published: September 10, 2009

Ok, I need to rank these for an early weekend Business immersion thing at my school.  Since I actually care more about getting the most out of it, and because I’m not totally sure what each will add,

I recognize that The first session I should go for Entrepreneurship- beyond that, no f***ing clue.

(A tiny part of me may want to be Miss Ultra Cool VC who knows about design, that and I have my first business plan in the wings already written.  I should write some more for practice.  Gotta exercise the creative brain muscles!)

Session 1:

1. Cracking the Case: A Case Interview Workshop

2. Entrepreneurship

3. Introduction to Finance: Investment Banking and Trading

4. Futures, Options and Prime Brokerage

Session 2:

1. Consulting: A view from the inside

2. Cracking the Case: A Case Interview Workshop

3. International Business

4. M&A, Capital Markets and Interviewing Techniques

FYI, I find the choices a bit strange.  The only business here listed is banking and consulting.  What if you wanted to open a flower shop.  Entrepreneurship is only mentioned in passing, throughout all the stuff they listed.  To me this is something strange.  Majority of work in the US is small businesses.  It is also one of the few ways to create lasting wealth.  Money is just a means to store it, and it fluctuates quite a lot.  Wealth is something quite beyond that.

I was raised in a family of businesspeople, some successful (very), some not.  Most people don’t realize that the majority of low level wealth in this country for many generations, including today, belong to those who start their own businesses.  I love my school.  I think it’s given me great thinking skills, skills necessary no matter what job you take on.  That being said, because I love my school (and I do), I find it more than passing strange that they would not want to build wealth, when they talk about business.  Lasting wealth.  The kind that you remember throughout your entire life. I think they did an amazing job, on some level, of giving me the intellectual values to want to pursue that, while still remaining “unburnt out” and “curious” and “experimental.”  That’s the goal, I hope.

I have friends who neg on a lot of these finance professions because they don’t, and they cause people to burn.  That’s not me.  At all.  It’s a method in the madness.  In a way, as it solves its problems (and for some reason, I think it will), the method will get better, and the madness will heal.  It’s the joy of how social sciences interlink.  It’s why I  like business most day.  It’s about real time observaion of people(I like people), and figuring out what to do with those observations.  I think business is important, mostly until we can really solve the social science riddles, it’s one of our best ways to align incentives, of all sorts (not just monetary), if done correctly.

It’s why I think one of the greatest heros is Dr. Muhammad Yunus and Dr. Akhar Hameed Khan.  In order to successfully make a microloan, one actually has to set out to change society and the way societies function.  I believe in at least trying.  Even if I know it will not completely work.  Better to try and start that jorunery so that others can eventually succeed and hack that problem.    Without starting loans in the first place, no one would know that the next stage is properly investement backed companies that hire other workers.  It is one of the ways we got to the way we are in the US.

I just wish I knew what choices would get me to the best choice.  So many paths and turns to take.  Good thing it should be exciting along the way.
Which is why I have no idea what sessions to choose.  In a lot of ways, these are very traditional.  I’m not sure what I should be looking for to make sure I get the right choices so I can pass on good value choices.

*Sigh*

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  • http://vukicevic.blogspot.com/ Vladimir Vukicevic

    It's interesting that you focused on entrepreneurship – I was inspired to write about that last night as well. For me, the key to entrepreneurial ideas has come from a diversity of knowledge and a unique perspective – both usually come from trying and learning about as many different things as possible, at least early in your life.

  • http://shanacarp.com/essays ShanaC

    Just Rank 'em man. Annoying school…

  • http://vukicevic.blogspot.com/ Vladimir Vukicevic

    What do you want me to rank?

  • http://shanacarp.com/essays ShanaC

    Crowdsource which sessions I should do. Since I can only do one each day, and there are four, and then they'll place me.

    I have to rank them.

    I also have to send a resume. Umm how do you do a social networking analyst resume?

    I figured I should send them the post to annoy the school. ;-)

  • http://vukicevic.blogspot.com/ Vladimir Vukicevic

    Session 1: #1 – Entrepreneurship (obviously); #2 – Finance (good to know); #3 – Case (in case you decide to go into consulting for a few years); #4 – Futures (doesn't seem too relevant to what you care about)

    Session 2: #1 – IB (matters to everyone now); #2 – Consulting (see above); #3 – Case (see above)

  • http://shanacarp.com/essays ShanaC

    I think my new plan is to crowdsource this. Not going to work otherwise. No one is going to tell you what is important. unless you crowdsource this stuff.

  • http://shanacarp.com/essays ShanaC

    One more question: They are asking to track us (As I said, silly), for some sort of networking things?
    Consultancy or banking. Frankly, I think I'll take the personality match….(Out there enough to go to the guy at 3 am in the train station and interview him about his IPhone?)

  • http://vukicevic.blogspot.com/ Vladimir Vukicevic

    Tracking how? Are they going to implant some sort of device into you?

  • http://shanacarp.com/essays ShanaC

    LOL, no. They flag your profile for career things for appropriate emails and jobs to send your way and pray for you. technically it is another “breakout session” That could mean anything though. Knowing that they already are sending me specific jobs and internships via email…I'm betting someone wants to flag something internally in a computer. They've come to internally flag my profile! And they haven't read my new post on internet reputation money!

    *giggle*

    Welcome to the world of highly ranked schools. I don't get it either. They're also behind the times. I still can't get advice about how to write the resume I need to write to send to them, social networking stuff is beyond them.

  • http://vukicevic.blogspot.com/ Vladimir Vukicevic

    Ok I'm glad no tracking devices will be involved. Both banking and consulting can be useful for VC/entrepreneurship paths – so it's hard to pick just one. I picked consulting because I wanted to have a life after school – which has turned out to be the right choice for me, especially considering what happened on Wall St. last year.

    Resumes…do they even matter any more?

  • http://shanacarp.com/essays ShanaC

    Who knows long term. Short term, everyone says they matter…

  • http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

    You're witnessing the lag of formal education compared to the changes happening in our society. Yeah, small businesses have been around forever as a cornerstone of providing social value, but those who run the businesses never required formal education. They leaned by doing, and from family long before their college years. Since schools aren't satisfying many students needs for high income jobs upon graduation, students are looking outside of traditional education. They're looking to startup hubs and communities, and they're learning what they need to by researching on their own (much like you recently explored programming).

  • http://shanacarp.com/essays ShanaC

    They gave me Entrepreneurship and M&A not IB. I think they may be a tad nervous and I may try switching sessions.

    I can't do that for the resume, it's a college thing, and the people showing up are the Bain crowd and the MorganStanley Crowd. I don't think HR would like me very much, even if the media guys would love it. And HR, rules the world, secretly. Better be nice to HR. Considering it is my first real job (Though the other consideration is I'm 23, know nothing about the world, why not get set up with a partner and go start up something, though I keep thinking that skill building and meeting people is important. Fred's post on Ycombinator and a meal with a friend made me think a lot about what to do in the next year or so, such a scary thought.)
    If it were IDEO, or some other really hip place, I think they might find that acceptible to skip the resume and go straight to the non-exient about me and why this might matter way more than a resume ever did.

    I have to wipe down my Facebook (which I've actually managed, despite FredLand, to keep relatively quiet and private, despite not touching a lot of the stuff there regularly in years for myself.) In corporate land, I may or may not be controversial, too relgious, not religious enough, too conservative, not conservative enough, have artwork up that is offessive, not offiensive enough, be bad for the insurance pool, be good for the insurance pool, be too female, be not feminine enough. I miss the days when Facebook was a college thing and it did hang lose (or for me, with my hair barely down…I'm a dork.)
    I would make a profile of just link shortners to a post about stop looking at my facebook, It's my private space to arrange shopping dates and coo at my friend's kids, thanks. Everyone needs one on the 'net. I'm sorry. I'm just not sure about how to stop them from looking, and I'm the prototypical good kid for pretty much everything (my inside jokes are about how my ocal college campus chabad's child wear's his father's hat and it is huge on him for god's sake! I want to have a Audrey Hepburn movie night with Nailpolish! Stay out employers!! there is really nothing to see except me in a funny hat and some drawings…)

    I'm thinking of a total wipe- I'm a young person who has some more conservative leanings, and does value the idea of “Facebook is my hangout, man”

  • http://shanacarp.com/essays ShanaC

    They gave me Entrepreneurship and M&A not IB. I think they may be a tad nervous and I may try switching sessions.

    I can't do that for the resume, it's a college thing, and the people showing up are the Bain crowd and the MorganStanley Crowd. I don't think HR would like me very much, even if the media guys would love it. And HR, rules the world, secretly. Better be nice to HR. Considering it is my first real job (Though the other consideration is I'm 23, know nothing about the world, why not get set up with a partner and go start up something, though I keep thinking that skill building and meeting people is important. Fred's post on Ycombinator and a meal with a friend made me think a lot about what to do in the next year or so, such a scary thought.)
    If it were IDEO, or some other really hip place, I think they might find that acceptible to skip the resume and go straight to the non-exient about me and why this might matter way more than a resume ever did.

    I have to wipe down my Facebook (which I've actually managed, despite FredLand, to keep relatively quiet and private, despite not touching a lot of the stuff there regularly in years for myself.) In corporate land, I may or may not be controversial, too relgious, not religious enough, too conservative, not conservative enough, have artwork up that is offessive, not offiensive enough, be bad for the insurance pool, be good for the insurance pool, be too female, be not feminine enough. I miss the days when Facebook was a college thing and it did hang lose (or for me, with my hair barely down…I'm a dork.)
    I would make a profile of just link shortners to a post about stop looking at my facebook, It's my private space to arrange shopping dates and coo at my friend's kids, thanks. Everyone needs one on the 'net. I'm sorry. I'm just not sure about how to stop them from looking, and I'm the prototypical good kid for pretty much everything (my inside jokes are about how my ocal college campus chabad's child wear's his father's hat and it is huge on him for god's sake! I want to have a Audrey Hepburn movie night with Nailpolish! Stay out employers!! there is really nothing to see except me in a funny hat and some drawings…)

    I'm thinking of a total wipe- I'm a young person who has some more conservative leanings, and does value the idea of “Facebook is my hangout, man”

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