What to Study

It is not uncommon for current high school seniors to be completely clueless concerning their future. What to study, what career path, will I like it, will I make enough money? There are other kids who are already dead set on specific career goal, whether they actually follow through is a different story. If you talk to a jaded college student, chances are they will tell you it is not that hard to choose. Assuming a reasonable work ethic and intelligence, the following fields are most highly recommended with a career goal in mind. If you have an extraordinary talent for something, the following probably does not apply to you, as you will succeed in whatever something that is. This post is more for the average undecided student. Also the following is more of a list with opinions and not definitive overviews of each discipline. Wikipedia exists for that. Forgive me for being so one track minded but Barrett Strong knew what was up.

Engineering- Electrical, Chemical, Mechanical
 
   I would say these are the big three of engineering. Each is well worth taking a look and seriously considering. Electrical is very solid as technology is everywhere today. Chemical is good, the energy industry provides an almost insatiable demand and a high starting salary. Mechanical is a very fundamental discipline and people who study it are in demand wherever mechanical systems are involved (everywhere). In addition, because of the rigor of most engineering programs, engineers tend to be well respected for their problem solving skills, analytical thinking, and quantitative skills so it is not uncommon to work in an unrelated industry after school.


Engineering- Civil, Bio-medical, Environmental, Systems -

  I am personally less familiar with each of these fields. Civil is the oldest discipline and involves infrastructure from bridges to waterworks. Bio-medical is hard to define, I guess it's the engineering that's involved in medicine, such as medical devices. Environmental is basically a subset of Civil. Systems addresses stuff like process control and manufacturing efficiency. These fields are generally stable, many work in governmental agencies and municipalities. Less exciting in my opinion.


Computer Science

A very good field, lots of prospects in any industry. Teaches a fundamental understanding of computation which leads to software engineering, artificial intelligence, graphics, data processing, and much more.

Maths-

Excellent if you are willing to study it. A bit of mental agility would help.


Physics- Same as maths.


At this point, all of the disciplines I've mentioned tend to be viewed as tough fields, and that's not an incorrect assumption. But one certainly does not need to be anything close to genius to study them, especially at the undergraduate level. A good work ethic and strategic planning is far more important.

But of course there are other very good careers and fields.

Pre-med/other health- You can major in pretty much anything, biology and chemistry often preferred as those majors automatically satisfy the science requirements for med school.

Law- Go to law school after college, become a lawyer.

Economics- At top 10 or top 20 schools, studying economics is usually a very good choice as financial firms are drawn to prestigious schools as moths are attracted to light. Can expect to make 60-80k out of college at a Wall Street firm. If you survive for 5 years, rising up the ranks 200-300k annually is reasonable. Other finance locations are Boston and Chicago. There is investment banking, trading, asset management and each contains many subcategories.



Am I missing anything? Other common career paths for college students that I failed to mention? Please leave a comment if you know of one or would like to voice an opinion on anything else.

Rejected today? More bad news for you...

March 28, 2013 Another D-Day 

Thousands of dreams were made today and many more broken, when the Ivy League released its  regular admissions decisions for the class of 2017. Many years ago, when I was a little high schooler, I heard this analogy. Going to an ivy league or similarly elite school is just like riding in a luxury car, the ride might be nicer but the destination is the same. These words were comforting at the time but I am here today to tell you that those words ring more false than true.

The Importance of Being Elite

Attending a top school conveys advantages that last for life. If you are thinking that the education at Harvard, for example, must be so much better than at let's say Penn State, then you are missing the big picture. The power of a Harvard grad over anyone else is in the brand name, the prestige, and the ocean deep connections. An analogy that I came up with is Nike Sports. Say there are two pairs of shoes on sale and they look almost identical, except one  has the swoosh and the other has an X logo. Which pair would you buy? Nine times out of ten the buyer will choose the swoosh. Why? No particular reason, except for the fact that branding is powerful. In a similar vein, if you are an employer, would you take the Harvard guy over the SUNY grad? Some "shallow" industries hire exclusively based on branding, think consulting or finance. The reality is that many doors are closed to those of you not attending an Ivy+. The truth isn't pretty but then again few things are.

The View From Under The Bus

Before you work yourself into a fury, let me remind you that I am not writing from an ivory tower, I am  on the outside looking in. In fact I have already experienced the disadvantages of attending a state school. I am simply telling it as it is. On campus recruiting is mediocre at best, and supposedly UNH had a decent year attracting employers. We are mostly limited to local firms and some large companies looking to fill sales or IT drone positions. For example, recently I inquired about equities research or analyst positions at Fidelity Investments and was told by the campus recruiters that they don't recruit for those positions at our school. A quick look at several other Boston area schools showed that the coveted "front office" positions were available, just not to us. I know of a few students who tried to reach out to some better known firms such as Goldman, Citi, Morgan Stanley, of course with no success, and it was not due to lack of competence. The closest anyone has come to getting on the Street was Eric, who somehow landed a summer analyst position at Nomura, and that's because he has so much relevant experience. For those of you unfamiliar with the firms in banking, Nomura is one of the new comers.  I myself did not even bother, despite my strong interest in markets, I knew that my resume would be sent straight to the trash at anyone of these places.

All Is Not Lost (and another way to get that Ivy green)

My quick and simple advice is this, if you didn't make it past the ivy walls, do well at wherever you end up going (high GPA) and apply as a transfer. Work hard and try to stand out in order to get a strong recommendation from your professors. Cornell University has a 30% transfer admissions rate, although that number is artificially inflated by its guaranteed transfers program, it still provides a relatively easy entrance. I have one more tip that will get you in but I will keep it a secret  for now as it's something I am planning to do myself, to give myself one last shot. I guess you will have to check back in a few months to find out what I'm up to.

Career Fair follow-up

So as I mentioned earlier, UNH had its spring career fair a few weeks ago. Unfortunately I was busy with work and only made it to the last 20 minutes, not a good time to go as the recruiters have already talked to hundreds of students and are getting ready to leave. All was not lost, however, as I picked up some goodies such as a Red Hat hardcover notebook and a drawstring bag. I managed to make some contacts at Red Hat, OPNET, Fidelity, and some other ones. They were all looking for technical IT type students. Hopefully I will be able to get an internship at one of these places in the future.

For this coming summer, I am interning at Liberty Mutual, also for a technical position. I am very happy with the offer as it should be a great chance to gain experience and the pay is also quite generous as far as internships go, ($20/hour + $1000 stipend).

I've always thought it is wiser to start out at a well established firm in a traditionally strong sector. There is however a tradeoff, by taking this more conservative approach you are of course losing out on the excitement and potential pay outs of working at a younger company, perhaps the next red hot startup. For internships, I think the firm you are at doesn't really matter as long as the job itself provides a learning opportunity and the chance to gain valuable experience.
     Even for technical internships I always try to find out what interns spend most of their time doing, is it a lot of irrelevant busy work? It can be quite tricky to extract this sort of information, one cannot simply ask if interns get lots of busy work, that would be career suicide. I usually ask what skills they want in their interns, what a typical day is like, how to get the most out of the internship. If the recruiter responds vaguely to what skills are needed, that may be a sign that not much technical work is involved. Of course it may be just an uninformed recruiter.

Do you have any tricks for getting information out of recruiters or general tips for the internship search and interview process? Please leave a comment if you do, looking forward to hearing from you.