Life one year later

I am writing this almost a year later and it's so much related to the last post. I had mentioned in the last post about my MBA essay dilemma, and right now I am interning at a boutique investment bank in San Francisco. It's been a rough ride so far. Things were not easy. I joined USC Marshall School of business in August 2009. I was determined to go into investment management. I had no doubts about it, but my confidence definitely wavered during some of those tough moments. The economy has not shown enough signs of improvement and as I am writing this post, there is a murmur of double dip recession.

So, talking about this journey of making my transition into financial services field. I have a stereotypical Indian software engineering background in technology(will need another post to explain the reason) with a top MNC. However, I had realized that this was not the path I wanted to get into. At school, I started off by talking to several second-years who were in the middle of storm. They were helpful and had good advice. But, there was a word of caution everywhere. I started off with informational interviews around October. The pace picked a little with talking to more alums. However, as spring approached, I was not getting much traction. In my opinion, the primary reason was that my resume was too technical and there was nothing on it to show my financial knowledge. I had few interviews for corporate finance positions. By the end of March, it started affecting my nerves. I was not sure what I was going to do for the summer. However, I was still talking to lot of alums. I had my stock pitch, investment thesis and stuff to talk about. But, it was not leading me anywhere. I spoke to a friend of mine, who had secured an internship with a shop in LA and was the president of AFA for next year. He walked me through his approach for contacting employers and making contacts. I realized that I was so much off-track. I had been pursuing things in a haphazard manner. It was already end of April. I had 3 weeks before finals and heading to China.

I started off on a fresh note and started blasting emails to senior executives at all the financial firms in California. It was time consuming and tiring, but I received some responses and things started picking up. I landed a position with a boutique bank in Newport Beach and another one in San Francisco after I got back from China in late May. I accepted the position with San Francisco one. I will be writing my next post on my internship experiences.

Overall, it was a tough time on the career front with lots of depressing moments. However, there were few lessons learned - to be aggressive, make good contacts, approach the process with a very structured process and above all, don't lose HOPE.

Why I-Banking?

Today, while pondering over my short-term goals, I had to justify my decision to go into i-banking post MBA. I have to be convincing enough for the adcom. Why can't it be as simple as a tick mark on the form? But, alas! it was my own decision to go for MBA and hence am forced to answer/justify each and every past and future move.Here's what I thought -
I was exceptionally good at maths through the school. I remember solving mensuration and calculus problems months ahead of class. Maths and Physics were the subjects, I loved because I had numerical problems and not the prose or history to write, where I sucked. In college as well, we had Maths till 4th sem, I was extremely disappointed after that because I used to score highest and these marks used to cover up for other papers.
Then came the professional life. Even after 4 years, I am still comfortable with coding or decoding, and dread those boring documents and presentations which abound in s/w field. I would never want to become a PM just for the phobia of documents and ppts.
Since last year, I have had good exposure to financial data and statistics. I have been analyzing and dissecting those numbers.
All in all, I have a strong analytical acumen. I-banking requires such skills and a strenuous work life, which a software guy can never complain about. So, doesn't this all make me best suited for the course. But, I personally feel adcom will just trash away my above argument.

God help poor soul like me :(