$80k In Debt Worth It for Ivy Undergrad?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Try to stay positive and finish the degree, OP. That Ivy name will open doors for you forever. A high school friend of mine who went to an Ivy (likely yours, based on your description) just bought a $14 million dollar McMansion at age 34! Meanwhile my DH and I will not come close to that amount over our lifetime. Then again, we didn’t go to an Ivy. We all went to the same high school and our friend wasn’t even in the top 10% academically, but he had a special interest/talent and decent grades, and I guess that was enough to be admitted to an Ivy in the 90s.

LMAO. Most Ivy grads will never get to such an accomplishment. Your friend is either an extreme outlier or had rich parents help him buy the McMansion. Absurd to use this one random anecdote as proof OP should stay.

He works for a top financial firm. I personally know a handful of Wall Street people who retired in their late 30s and 40s with $50-100 mill. My friend’s parents are middle class at best. His boss went to the same Ivy and took a chance on him early on. My friend works a ton, but he loves it.

OP here. I would literally rather go to jail than go work at Wall Street (and I was in prison for a day after getting arrested at a protest, so there's that...)

A number of posters have called you spoiled/ungrateful/entitled, and I am sensing some of that too. What separates the people on the top from everyone else is their ability to delay gratification. Grunt it out. Not everyone is cut out for this, but then don’t complain when you cannot afford stuff in life.

OP here. You're right. I guess I'm tired of delaying gratification. My entire life up until this point -- my parents screaming at me to perform academically to their standards, trying a STEM major and failing, trying to tough it out at a notoriously competitive school that I hate -- has been a series of delayed gratification. It's just that achievement seems empty at this point, and I want something more immediately tangible and pleasant. I am tired. I am so, so tired of trying to delay all these awards when fundamentally it seems like meaningless bullshit that I don't care about. I don't see the point of sticking it out in the rat race since it seems like the rewards are too far off for me to enjoy.

Yes, I'm aware that makes me spoiled/self-indulgent/entitled. I think it's because I was raised by Asian immigrant tiger parents to delay gratification for so long that I'm super burnt out and tired of everything.

PS: It's hard to delay gratification during a difficult, trying job when you're actively suicidal as a college student. Idk, I think my mental illness is calling for me to stop delaying and instead search for more immediate and more intrinsically meaningful things.

This is the most self-indulgent bullshit I've ever read. If I knew you IRL, I'd avoid you like the plague.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You act like the only choices in life career-wise are crazy high stress $$$ finance, big law and medicine careers or low paying non-profit work.
The truth is that there is a whole spectrum. Finance can be a little more chill if you are at a company like PWC rather than Goldman Sachs but you can still make decent money. There are zillions of mid tier companies where work life balance is reasonable but you are not being paid 45-50 k like at a museum. Finish your degree and get a decent job. Or take a year to go into the Peace Corp and then get a decent job. There are students at Columbia who are not interested in working for Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, Amazon and Google. They exist. You need to expand your social circle and get out of your bubble

This is what I was going to say. Get a degree your parents can live with, take a high paid job for two years and pay off as much debt as you can but not necessarily all of it, and then move to a mid level paying job, like with the government or a union or university or smaller business or something. Or in a smaller city with a slower pace of life and lower cost of living. Nonprofits need IT and Finance people too. This is how you find the balance between Goldman and toiling away for peanuts at a nonprofit.

Look, I’m not obsessed with money but it matters. When you can’t pay for your dental implant after a stray ball at a softball game knocks out your tooth because you don’t have an extra $3k sitting around so you just walk around with a hole in your mouth, or when your car blows a tire and you have to replace not just the blown one but the matching one too because that’s what you have to do, so you can get to work because you have to drive because apartments near transit are too expensive or dangerous, or when you wake up one day and realize you’d really like to have an in unit washer/dryer so you can stop hauling your laundry to the nasty basement of your building to feed quarters into the washer and having to run back down there late at night hoping that creepy dude in 310A didn’t move your underwear again, or when you have a bout of anxiety and have to pony up $275 weekly for therapy because you can’t find a therapist who takes your crap insurance, or your when your landlord jacks up your rent and you have to move and all your friends are over 30 now and won’t come move you anymore because they are adults and anyway your furniture is too heavy plus they are busy with the baby so advise you to just hire movers (and let’s not even discuss where you are getting first and last months rent plus a security deposit) or when one month you didn’t notice you had a water leak in one of your toilets so you get slammed with a water bill triple what’s normal, or when your best friend across the country’s husband dies in a motorcycle accident and you want to buy a last minute plane ticket to fly out and support her…. These things require real money. You can understand what life will be like at 25 with a low income but you can’t fathom it at 50.

Valid, but you can do all this with a salary in a non-finance-tech-consulting-medicine-Big Law type job and a degree from a state school (as long as you have minimal student debt and live in an area without a HCOL).

Yes, but that is not currently an option for OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You act like the only choices in life career-wise are crazy high stress $$$ finance, big law and medicine careers or low paying non-profit work.
The truth is that there is a whole spectrum. Finance can be a little more chill if you are at a company like PWC rather than Goldman Sachs but you can still make decent money. There are zillions of mid tier companies where work life balance is reasonable but you are not being paid 45-50 k like at a museum. Finish your degree and get a decent job. Or take a year to go into the Peace Corp and then get a decent job. There are students at Columbia who are not interested in working for Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, Amazon and Google. They exist. You need to expand your social circle and get out of your bubble

This is what I was going to say. Get a degree your parents can live with, take a high paid job for two years and pay off as much debt as you can but not necessarily all of it, and then move to a mid level paying job, like with the government or a union or university or smaller business or something. Or in a smaller city with a slower pace of life and lower cost of living. Nonprofits need IT and Finance people too. This is how you find the balance between Goldman and toiling away for peanuts at a nonprofit.

Look, I’m not obsessed with money but it matters. When you can’t pay for your dental implant after a stray ball at a softball game knocks out your tooth because you don’t have an extra $3k sitting around so you just walk around with a hole in your mouth, or when your car blows a tire and you have to replace not just the blown one but the matching one too because that’s what you have to do, so you can get to work because you have to drive because apartments near transit are too expensive or dangerous, or when you wake up one day and realize you’d really like to have an in unit washer/dryer so you can stop hauling your laundry to the nasty basement of your building to feed quarters into the washer and having to run back down there late at night hoping that creepy dude in 310A didn’t move your underwear again, or when you have a bout of anxiety and have to pony up $275 weekly for therapy because you can’t find a therapist who takes your crap insurance, or your when your landlord jacks up your rent and you have to move and all your friends are over 30 now and won’t come move you anymore because they are adults and anyway your furniture is too heavy plus they are busy with the baby so advise you to just hire movers (and let’s not even discuss where you are getting first and last months rent plus a security deposit) or when one month you didn’t notice you had a water leak in one of your toilets so you get slammed with a water bill triple what’s normal, or when your best friend across the country’s husband dies in a motorcycle accident and you want to buy a last minute plane ticket to fly out and support her…. These things require real money. You can understand what life will be like at 25 with a low income but you can’t fathom it at 50.

Valid, but you can do all this with a salary in a non-finance-tech-consulting-medicine-Big Law type job and a degree from a state school (as long as you have minimal student debt and live in an area without a HCOL).

Yes, but that is not currently an option for OP.

Why not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You all are missing the point that OP is directionless. If she found something that sparked her interest, an $80K loan might be worth it, but she hasn't found IT. For me it was architecture/urban planning/geography, which all use STEM as a means not an end. Find the end you want and the means will be more than tolerable to get you there. Without a goal it's all meaningless. Does anybody still use "What Color is My Parachute?"

-1

Spoken like a true rich kid who majored in architecture.

OP, the goal for you is to START BUILDING GENERATIONAL WEALTH, which your parents clearly failed at. It doesn't matter which job you choose -- all jobs suck eventually. Just take the highest paying one possible -- McKinsey, Deloitte, whatever -- and start job hopping every two years until you hit 30. Meanwhile, live as frugally as possible so you can pay off your loans and start saving for a downpayment.

Seeking fulfillment or happiness out of your career is for rich kids only. Chase the bag, OP. No first-gen Asian has ever regretted taking a high-paying job.

You are literally the bad guy in every modern movie and story about Asian families.

Who cares. PP is right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
OP here. If I stay at Columbia, I'll have to take out $80k in loans. I can't go into the Peace Corps or do something similar post-grad because I'll have to start paying my loans off immediately.

Paying off $80k in loans pretty much dictates that I'll have to take a super intense, high-paying job after graduation if I want to chip away at the principle. Which I am NOT mentally healthy enough to do.

OP, I applaud you for recognizing this and drawing the line. And let's be honest - will your parents EVER be happy and satisfied? Ok, so you get the ivy degree. Then what? Pressure for a high paying, high prestige job? To marry someone they approve of? To have perfect babies that they can start indoctrinating? And you can bet your arse that will never hear the end of "we sacrificed everything for you - you owe us!"

And here's the irony - if your parents cut you off, you will then be able to get financial aid again. I think moving to a Seven Sisters school would be a good step towards a fresh start.

PP you're horribly misinformed. OP, don't listen to this person -- stay at Columbia NO MATTER WHAT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Try to stay positive and finish the degree, OP. That Ivy name will open doors for you forever. A high school friend of mine who went to an Ivy (likely yours, based on your description) just bought a $14 million dollar McMansion at age 34! Meanwhile my DH and I will not come close to that amount over our lifetime. Then again, we didn’t go to an Ivy. We all went to the same high school and our friend wasn’t even in the top 10% academically, but he had a special interest/talent and decent grades, and I guess that was enough to be admitted to an Ivy in the 90s.

LMAO. Most Ivy grads will never get to such an accomplishment. Your friend is either an extreme outlier or had rich parents help him buy the McMansion. Absurd to use this one random anecdote as proof OP should stay.

He works for a top financial firm. I personally know a handful of Wall Street people who retired in their late 30s and 40s with $50-100 mill. My friend’s parents are middle class at best. His boss went to the same Ivy and took a chance on him early on. My friend works a ton, but he loves it.

OP here. I would literally rather go to jail than go work at Wall Street (and I was in prison for a day after getting arrested at a protest, so there's that...)

A number of posters have called you spoiled/ungrateful/entitled, and I am sensing some of that too. What separates the people on the top from everyone else is their ability to delay gratification. Grunt it out. Not everyone is cut out for this, but then don’t complain when you cannot afford stuff in life.

OP here. You're right. I guess I'm tired of delaying gratification. My entire life up until this point -- my parents screaming at me to perform academically to their standards, trying a STEM major and failing, trying to tough it out at a notoriously competitive school that I hate -- has been a series of delayed gratification. It's just that achievement seems empty at this point, and I want something more immediately tangible and pleasant. I am tired. I am so, so tired of trying to delay all these awards when fundamentally it seems like meaningless bullshit that I don't care about. I don't see the point of sticking it out in the rat race since it seems like the rewards are too far off for me to enjoy.

Yes, I'm aware that makes me spoiled/self-indulgent/entitled. I think it's because I was raised by Asian immigrant tiger parents to delay gratification for so long that I'm super burnt out and tired of everything.

PS: It's hard to delay gratification during a difficult, trying job when you're actively suicidal as a college student. Idk, I think my mental illness is calling for me to stop delaying and instead search for more immediate and more intrinsically meaningful things.

Ok so then quit, move out, get a job (or more likely two is what will be required to make ends meet) pay your own way (and try not to get into credit card debt) and go back to school when you are older. I mean what do you want us to tell you? There’s no magical third option beyond go back to school or get a job. You have declared it an impossibility for you to go back to Columbia and your parents won’t be moved so the choice is clear. Thousands and thousands of young people every year don’t go to college or enroll in community college because they have parents who can’t or won’t pay for their school. So they get jobs, and make do, and scrape by somehow. Nothing is stopping you from doing this. Literally nothing.

Actually one thing is stopping you. Deep down, you do care about prestige, but just of a different nature than what your classmates care about. I know this because you fixate on prestigious sounding albeit low paid careers. You know where you could really make an impact? Working as a health care aid in an Alzheimer’s facility, or in a drug rehab center, or cleaning cages in an animal shelter, or some equally unglamorous job that actually helps people. You could just quit, get a Starbucks job, and never go back to college. But instead you want an “acceptable” sounding job in publishing” or “helping the environment.” Ok, so do that, but you know what help the environment needs? Scientists and engineers who grind it out in labs to come up with innovative solutions to huge problems, and smart lawyers and policy makers who grind it out in law school or grad school so they can draft and implement legislation and regulations and lobby to get them passed, and IT folks who grind it out over the weekends to keep the Sierra Club’s network up and running so they can do their business, and HR employee benefits folks, who put in overtime to hire and onboard and pay the employees to do all those things, and fundraising folks who are out at events nights and weekends at events to raise money for the research and advocacy, and the list goes on. Do one of those things, or be a waitress, but don’t you dare sit here and lecture us about being prestige obsessed when your immediate solution to dropping out of Columbia is not to get a degree from your local CalPoly or whatever but rather to hoof it to a blue blood Seven Sisters school. I mean come on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You act like the only choices in life career-wise are crazy high stress $$$ finance, big law and medicine careers or low paying non-profit work.
The truth is that there is a whole spectrum. Finance can be a little more chill if you are at a company like PWC rather than Goldman Sachs but you can still make decent money. There are zillions of mid tier companies where work life balance is reasonable but you are not being paid 45-50 k like at a museum. Finish your degree and get a decent job. Or take a year to go into the Peace Corp and then get a decent job. There are students at Columbia who are not interested in working for Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, Amazon and Google. They exist. You need to expand your social circle and get out of your bubble

This is what I was going to say. Get a degree your parents can live with, take a high paid job for two years and pay off as much debt as you can but not necessarily all of it, and then move to a mid level paying job, like with the government or a union or university or smaller business or something. Or in a smaller city with a slower pace of life and lower cost of living. Nonprofits need IT and Finance people too. This is how you find the balance between Goldman and toiling away for peanuts at a nonprofit.

Look, I’m not obsessed with money but it matters. When you can’t pay for your dental implant after a stray ball at a softball game knocks out your tooth because you don’t have an extra $3k sitting around so you just walk around with a hole in your mouth, or when your car blows a tire and you have to replace not just the blown one but the matching one too because that’s what you have to do, so you can get to work because you have to drive because apartments near transit are too expensive or dangerous, or when you wake up one day and realize you’d really like to have an in unit washer/dryer so you can stop hauling your laundry to the nasty basement of your building to feed quarters into the washer and having to run back down there late at night hoping that creepy dude in 310A didn’t move your underwear again, or when you have a bout of anxiety and have to pony up $275 weekly for therapy because you can’t find a therapist who takes your crap insurance, or your when your landlord jacks up your rent and you have to move and all your friends are over 30 now and won’t come move you anymore because they are adults and anyway your furniture is too heavy plus they are busy with the baby so advise you to just hire movers (and let’s not even discuss where you are getting first and last months rent plus a security deposit) or when one month you didn’t notice you had a water leak in one of your toilets so you get slammed with a water bill triple what’s normal, or when your best friend across the country’s husband dies in a motorcycle accident and you want to buy a last minute plane ticket to fly out and support her…. These things require real money. You can understand what life will be like at 25 with a low income but you can’t fathom it at 50.

Valid, but you can do all this with a salary in a non-finance-tech-consulting-medicine-Big Law type job and a degree from a state school (as long as you have minimal student debt and live in an area without a HCOL).

Yes, but that is not currently an option for OP.

Why not?

Because her parents won’t pay for it, and she is not old enough to be financially independent of her parents for school, so she can’t afford it right now. Her options are Columbia or a job. It will be in option in four years I suppose. Even then it doesn’t make sense financially. She’ll still have to pay for the rest of school and likely will have to take out loans to do that because state schools won’t give outright grants like Ivys do. And of course she’ll still need housing and food and books and insurance at this state school and that’s just the minimum. She’ll save no money over the next four years because without a college degree she’ll have to work a low wage job, so those years will be a financial wash, and she’ll likely will even accrue some debt because who goes 4 years without unexpected expenses?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Try to stay positive and finish the degree, OP. That Ivy name will open doors for you forever. A high school friend of mine who went to an Ivy (likely yours, based on your description) just bought a $14 million dollar McMansion at age 34! Meanwhile my DH and I will not come close to that amount over our lifetime. Then again, we didn’t go to an Ivy. We all went to the same high school and our friend wasn’t even in the top 10% academically, but he had a special interest/talent and decent grades, and I guess that was enough to be admitted to an Ivy in the 90s.

LMAO. Most Ivy grads will never get to such an accomplishment. Your friend is either an extreme outlier or had rich parents help him buy the McMansion. Absurd to use this one random anecdote as proof OP should stay.

He works for a top financial firm. I personally know a handful of Wall Street people who retired in their late 30s and 40s with $50-100 mill. My friend’s parents are middle class at best. His boss went to the same Ivy and took a chance on him early on. My friend works a ton, but he loves it.

OP here. I would literally rather go to jail than go work at Wall Street (and I was in prison for a day after getting arrested at a protest, so there's that...)

A number of posters have called you spoiled/ungrateful/entitled, and I am sensing some of that too. What separates the people on the top from everyone else is their ability to delay gratification. Grunt it out. Not everyone is cut out for this, but then don’t complain when you cannot afford stuff in life.

OP here. You're right. I guess I'm tired of delaying gratification. My entire life up until this point -- my parents screaming at me to perform academically to their standards, trying a STEM major and failing, trying to tough it out at a notoriously competitive school that I hate -- has been a series of delayed gratification. It's just that achievement seems empty at this point, and I want something more immediately tangible and pleasant. I am tired. I am so, so tired of trying to delay all these awards when fundamentally it seems like meaningless bullshit that I don't care about. I don't see the point of sticking it out in the rat race since it seems like the rewards are too far off for me to enjoy.

Yes, I'm aware that makes me spoiled/self-indulgent/entitled. I think it's because I was raised by Asian immigrant tiger parents to delay gratification for so long that I'm super burnt out and tired of everything.

PS: It's hard to delay gratification during a difficult, trying job when you're actively suicidal as a college student. Idk, I think my mental illness is calling for me to stop delaying and instead search for more immediate and more intrinsically meaningful things.

Ok so then quit, move out, get a job (or more likely two is what will be required to make ends meet) pay your own way (and try not to get into credit card debt) and go back to school when you are older. I mean what do you want us to tell you? There’s no magical third option beyond go back to school or get a job. You have declared it an impossibility for you to go back to Columbia and your parents won’t be moved so the choice is clear. Thousands and thousands of young people every year don’t go to college or enroll in community college because they have parents who can’t or won’t pay for their school. So they get jobs, and make do, and scrape by somehow. Nothing is stopping you from doing this. Literally nothing.

Actually one thing is stopping you. Deep down, you do care about prestige, but just of a different nature than what your classmates care about. I know this because you fixate on prestigious sounding albeit low paid careers. You know where you could really make an impact? Working as a health care aid in an Alzheimer’s facility, or in a drug rehab center, or cleaning cages in an animal shelter, or some equally unglamorous job that actually helps people. You could just quit, get a Starbucks job, and never go back to college. But instead you want an “acceptable” sounding job in publishing” or “helping the environment.” Ok, so do that, but you know what help the environment needs? Scientists and engineers who grind it out in labs to come up with innovative solutions to huge problems, and smart lawyers and policy makers who grind it out in law school or grad school so they can draft and implement legislation and regulations and lobby to get them passed, and IT folks who grind it out over the weekends to keep the Sierra Club’s network up and running so they can do their business, and HR employee benefits folks, who put in overtime to hire and onboard and pay the employees to do all those things, and fundraising folks who are out at events nights and weekends at events to raise money for the research and advocacy, and the list goes on. Do one of those things, or be a waitress, but don’t you dare sit here and lecture us about being prestige obsessed when your immediate solution to dropping out of Columbia is not to get a degree from your local CalPoly or whatever but rather to hoof it to a blue blood Seven Sisters school. I mean come on.

OP here. You're right. And I know that fundamentally I'd get equally jaded with something in publishing or NPO work as I would with MBB/BB IB/FAANG/Big Law.

Just a clarification though -- I'm currently living on my own with roommates on the other side of the country from my parents (easy to do when my current FAANG internship pays pretty well). After my summer internship ends, I'm planning on finding a cheap sublet in a LCOL city and living with roommates while working a barista gig.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stay at Columbia and take as many credits as possible in the next two semesters (easy classes, easy major) and over the summer so you can graduate a semester early to save money.

This seven sisters idea is deluded - if you get in (unlikely) you're definitely not getting a full ride and your credits might not transfer. It'll take you longer and you'll have to take huge loans to end up in the same position that you're in now. Even if you get in, there's no guarantee you'll like it any better.

You are also being totally naive about the reality of nonprofit/artsy jobs. You will get bored and tired of it very quickly and your exit options will be worse. It's a dead end and you will regret it. Instead, target non-MBB consulting firms (EY-P, S&, Deloitte)

Big Four consulting is worse. Equally long hours, lower pay.

Big 4 will lead to a decent 40 hour job in 2-4 years that pays 6 figures. OP can go to university of Maryland, do KPMG for 2 years, hop over to Cap1 or a Freddie for a 25hr work weeek gig, and volunteer at the Kennedy with the other 15 hour while remote.
But no, she prefers 7 sisters and calls me obsessed with prestige.

[Anonymous]

Op, I was also directionless and dropped out of college when I was your age. Unlike you, I had parents who were too busy doing drugs to encourage me to pursue any college path. I'm married to an Asian who immigrated to the US to do a second masters in the same subject he already had a master's in. He put up with many bs like it's common to not finish your bachelor's degree in no less than five years because of administration issues, i.e.professors don't want to grade. His college chose what he could major in. It was engineering or statistics for him. Unlike you, he didn't go into debt and now has a stem Ph.D. Is there any way that you could get a state scholarship? Since you don't know what you want to do, don't go into a lot of debt. What if you want to be a stay at home mom, but you can't get this debt paid off? Going to an expensive school so you can get a low-paying rich people job doesn't make sense. I work in a similar public-facing Starbucks job, and it's not fun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You all are missing the point that OP is directionless. If she found something that sparked her interest, an $80K loan might be worth it, but she hasn't found IT. For me it was architecture/urban planning/geography, which all use STEM as a means not an end. Find the end you want and the means will be more than tolerable to get you there. Without a goal it's all meaningless. Does anybody still use "What Color is My Parachute?"

Interesting combination- architecture/urban planning/geography - what do you do now?

A bit of each but wound up happiest in construction management, thanks for asking!

[Anonymous]

Point is, OP's way out of this is to figure out what she enjoys and find courses at Columbia that she will WANT to take. The degree will be easy then and the career worth the $80K

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Try to stay positive and finish the degree, OP. That Ivy name will open doors for you forever. A high school friend of mine who went to an Ivy (likely yours, based on your description) just bought a $14 million dollar McMansion at age 34! Meanwhile my DH and I will not come close to that amount over our lifetime. Then again, we didn’t go to an Ivy. We all went to the same high school and our friend wasn’t even in the top 10% academically, but he had a special interest/talent and decent grades, and I guess that was enough to be admitted to an Ivy in the 90s.

LMAO. Most Ivy grads will never get to such an accomplishment. Your friend is either an extreme outlier or had rich parents help him buy the McMansion. Absurd to use this one random anecdote as proof OP should stay.

He works for a top financial firm. I personally know a handful of Wall Street people who retired in their late 30s and 40s with $50-100 mill. My friend’s parents are middle class at best. His boss went to the same Ivy and took a chance on him early on. My friend works a ton, but he loves it.

OP here. I would literally rather go to jail than go work at Wall Street (and I was in prison for a day after getting arrested at a protest, so there's that...)

A number of posters have called you spoiled/ungrateful/entitled, and I am sensing some of that too. What separates the people on the top from everyone else is their ability to delay gratification. Grunt it out. Not everyone is cut out for this, but then don’t complain when you cannot afford stuff in life.

OP here. You're right. I guess I'm tired of delaying gratification. My entire life up until this point -- my parents screaming at me to perform academically to their standards, trying a STEM major and failing, trying to tough it out at a notoriously competitive school that I hate -- has been a series of delayed gratification. It's just that achievement seems empty at this point, and I want something more immediately tangible and pleasant. I am tired. I am so, so tired of trying to delay all these awards when fundamentally it seems like meaningless bullshit that I don't care about. I don't see the point of sticking it out in the rat race since it seems like the rewards are too far off for me to enjoy.

Yes, I'm aware that makes me spoiled/self-indulgent/entitled. I think it's because I was raised by Asian immigrant tiger parents to delay gratification for so long that I'm super burnt out and tired of everything.

PS: It's hard to delay gratification during a difficult, trying job when you're actively suicidal as a college student. Idk, I think my mental illness is calling for me to stop delaying and instead search for more immediate and more intrinsically meaningful things.

Ok so then quit, move out, get a job (or more likely two is what will be required to make ends meet) pay your own way (and try not to get into credit card debt) and go back to school when you are older. I mean what do you want us to tell you? There’s no magical third option beyond go back to school or get a job. You have declared it an impossibility for you to go back to Columbia and your parents won’t be moved so the choice is clear. Thousands and thousands of young people every year don’t go to college or enroll in community college because they have parents who can’t or won’t pay for their school. So they get jobs, and make do, and scrape by somehow. Nothing is stopping you from doing this. Literally nothing.

Actually one thing is stopping you. Deep down, you do care about prestige, but just of a different nature than what your classmates care about. I know this because you fixate on prestigious sounding albeit low paid careers. You know where you could really make an impact? Working as a health care aid in an Alzheimer’s facility, or in a drug rehab center, or cleaning cages in an animal shelter, or some equally unglamorous job that actually helps people. You could just quit, get a Starbucks job, and never go back to college. But instead you want an “acceptable” sounding job in publishing” or “helping the environment.” Ok, so do that, but you know what help the environment needs? Scientists and engineers who grind it out in labs to come up with innovative solutions to huge problems, and smart lawyers and policy makers who grind it out in law school or grad school so they can draft and implement legislation and regulations and lobby to get them passed, and IT folks who grind it out over the weekends to keep the Sierra Club’s network up and running so they can do their business, and HR employee benefits folks, who put in overtime to hire and onboard and pay the employees to do all those things, and fundraising folks who are out at events nights and weekends at events to raise money for the research and advocacy, and the list goes on. Do one of those things, or be a waitress, but don’t you dare sit here and lecture us about being prestige obsessed when your immediate solution to dropping out of Columbia is not to get a degree from your local CalPoly or whatever but rather to hoof it to a blue blood Seven Sisters school. I mean come on.

OP here. You're right. And I know that fundamentally I'd get equally jaded with something in publishing or NPO work as I would with MBB/BB IB/FAANG/Big Law.

Just a clarification though -- I'm currently living on my own with roommates on the other side of the country from my parents (easy to do when my current FAANG internship pays pretty well). After my summer internship ends, I'm planning on finding a cheap sublet in a LCOL city and living with roommates while working a barista gig.

Take a leave of absence for a year to do this. Do not quit Columbia!
You may find you hate the barista life. And randomly moving to a LCOL city where you don’t know anyone might not be fun either

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Try to stay positive and finish the degree, OP. That Ivy name will open doors for you forever. A high school friend of mine who went to an Ivy (likely yours, based on your description) just bought a $14 million dollar McMansion at age 34! Meanwhile my DH and I will not come close to that amount over our lifetime. Then again, we didn’t go to an Ivy. We all went to the same high school and our friend wasn’t even in the top 10% academically, but he had a special interest/talent and decent grades, and I guess that was enough to be admitted to an Ivy in the 90s.

LMAO. Most Ivy grads will never get to such an accomplishment. Your friend is either an extreme outlier or had rich parents help him buy the McMansion. Absurd to use this one random anecdote as proof OP should stay.

He works for a top financial firm. I personally know a handful of Wall Street people who retired in their late 30s and 40s with $50-100 mill. My friend’s parents are middle class at best. His boss went to the same Ivy and took a chance on him early on. My friend works a ton, but he loves it.

OP here. I would literally rather go to jail than go work at Wall Street (and I was in prison for a day after getting arrested at a protest, so there's that...)

A number of posters have called you spoiled/ungrateful/entitled, and I am sensing some of that too. What separates the people on the top from everyone else is their ability to delay gratification. Grunt it out. Not everyone is cut out for this, but then don’t complain when you cannot afford stuff in life.

OP here. You're right. I guess I'm tired of delaying gratification. My entire life up until this point -- my parents screaming at me to perform academically to their standards, trying a STEM major and failing, trying to tough it out at a notoriously competitive school that I hate -- has been a series of delayed gratification. It's just that achievement seems empty at this point, and I want something more immediately tangible and pleasant. I am tired. I am so, so tired of trying to delay all these awards when fundamentally it seems like meaningless bullshit that I don't care about. I don't see the point of sticking it out in the rat race since it seems like the rewards are too far off for me to enjoy.

Yes, I'm aware that makes me spoiled/self-indulgent/entitled. I think it's because I was raised by Asian immigrant tiger parents to delay gratification for so long that I'm super burnt out and tired of everything.

PS: It's hard to delay gratification during a difficult, trying job when you're actively suicidal as a college student. Idk, I think my mental illness is calling for me to stop delaying and instead search for more immediate and more intrinsically meaningful things.

Ok so then quit, move out, get a job (or more likely two is what will be required to make ends meet) pay your own way (and try not to get into credit card debt) and go back to school when you are older. I mean what do you want us to tell you? There’s no magical third option beyond go back to school or get a job. You have declared it an impossibility for you to go back to Columbia and your parents won’t be moved so the choice is clear. Thousands and thousands of young people every year don’t go to college or enroll in community college because they have parents who can’t or won’t pay for their school. So they get jobs, and make do, and scrape by somehow. Nothing is stopping you from doing this. Literally nothing.

Actually one thing is stopping you. Deep down, you do care about prestige, but just of a different nature than what your classmates care about. I know this because you fixate on prestigious sounding albeit low paid careers. You know where you could really make an impact? Working as a health care aid in an Alzheimer’s facility, or in a drug rehab center, or cleaning cages in an animal shelter, or some equally unglamorous job that actually helps people. You could just quit, get a Starbucks job, and never go back to college. But instead you want an “acceptable” sounding job in publishing” or “helping the environment.” Ok, so do that, but you know what help the environment needs? Scientists and engineers who grind it out in labs to come up with innovative solutions to huge problems, and smart lawyers and policy makers who grind it out in law school or grad school so they can draft and implement legislation and regulations and lobby to get them passed, and IT folks who grind it out over the weekends to keep the Sierra Club’s network up and running so they can do their business, and HR employee benefits folks, who put in overtime to hire and onboard and pay the employees to do all those things, and fundraising folks who are out at events nights and weekends at events to raise money for the research and advocacy, and the list goes on. Do one of those things, or be a waitress, but don’t you dare sit here and lecture us about being prestige obsessed when your immediate solution to dropping out of Columbia is not to get a degree from your local CalPoly or whatever but rather to hoof it to a blue blood Seven Sisters school. I mean come on.

This. This. 1,000,000x this. Most jobs that truly make a difference aren't anywhere near as exciting as they sound.

Get the darn degree, OP. It will open doors you don't even know about now. Public interest loan forgiveness programs exist for a reason.

-BTDT

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Try to stay positive and finish the degree, OP. That Ivy name will open doors for you forever. A high school friend of mine who went to an Ivy (likely yours, based on your description) just bought a $14 million dollar McMansion at age 34! Meanwhile my DH and I will not come close to that amount over our lifetime. Then again, we didn’t go to an Ivy. We all went to the same high school and our friend wasn’t even in the top 10% academically, but he had a special interest/talent and decent grades, and I guess that was enough to be admitted to an Ivy in the 90s.

LMAO. Most Ivy grads will never get to such an accomplishment. Your friend is either an extreme outlier or had rich parents help him buy the McMansion. Absurd to use this one random anecdote as proof OP should stay.

He works for a top financial firm. I personally know a handful of Wall Street people who retired in their late 30s and 40s with $50-100 mill. My friend’s parents are middle class at best. His boss went to the same Ivy and took a chance on him early on. My friend works a ton, but he loves it.

OP here. I would literally rather go to jail than go work at Wall Street (and I was in prison for a day after getting arrested at a protest, so there's that...)

A number of posters have called you spoiled/ungrateful/entitled, and I am sensing some of that too. What separates the people on the top from everyone else is their ability to delay gratification. Grunt it out. Not everyone is cut out for this, but then don’t complain when you cannot afford stuff in life.

OP here. You're right. I guess I'm tired of delaying gratification. My entire life up until this point -- my parents screaming at me to perform academically to their standards, trying a STEM major and failing, trying to tough it out at a notoriously competitive school that I hate -- has been a series of delayed gratification. It's just that achievement seems empty at this point, and I want something more immediately tangible and pleasant. I am tired. I am so, so tired of trying to delay all these awards when fundamentally it seems like meaningless bullshit that I don't care about. I don't see the point of sticking it out in the rat race since it seems like the rewards are too far off for me to enjoy.

Yes, I'm aware that makes me spoiled/self-indulgent/entitled. I think it's because I was raised by Asian immigrant tiger parents to delay gratification for so long that I'm super burnt out and tired of everything.

PS: It's hard to delay gratification during a difficult, trying job when you're actively suicidal as a college student. Idk, I think my mental illness is calling for me to stop delaying and instead search for more immediate and more intrinsically meaningful things.

Ok so then quit, move out, get a job (or more likely two is what will be required to make ends meet) pay your own way (and try not to get into credit card debt) and go back to school when you are older. I mean what do you want us to tell you? There’s no magical third option beyond go back to school or get a job. You have declared it an impossibility for you to go back to Columbia and your parents won’t be moved so the choice is clear. Thousands and thousands of young people every year don’t go to college or enroll in community college because they have parents who can’t or won’t pay for their school. So they get jobs, and make do, and scrape by somehow. Nothing is stopping you from doing this. Literally nothing.

Actually one thing is stopping you. Deep down, you do care about prestige, but just of a different nature than what your classmates care about. I know this because you fixate on prestigious sounding albeit low paid careers. You know where you could really make an impact? Working as a health care aid in an Alzheimer’s facility, or in a drug rehab center, or cleaning cages in an animal shelter, or some equally unglamorous job that actually helps people. You could just quit, get a Starbucks job, and never go back to college. But instead you want an “acceptable” sounding job in publishing” or “helping the environment.” Ok, so do that, but you know what help the environment needs? Scientists and engineers who grind it out in labs to come up with innovative solutions to huge problems, and smart lawyers and policy makers who grind it out in law school or grad school so they can draft and implement legislation and regulations and lobby to get them passed, and IT folks who grind it out over the weekends to keep the Sierra Club’s network up and running so they can do their business, and HR employee benefits folks, who put in overtime to hire and onboard and pay the employees to do all those things, and fundraising folks who are out at events nights and weekends at events to raise money for the research and advocacy, and the list goes on. Do one of those things, or be a waitress, but don’t you dare sit here and lecture us about being prestige obsessed when your immediate solution to dropping out of Columbia is not to get a degree from your local CalPoly or whatever but rather to hoof it to a blue blood Seven Sisters school. I mean come on.

OP here. You're right. And I know that fundamentally I'd get equally jaded with something in publishing or NPO work as I would with MBB/BB IB/FAANG/Big Law.

Just a clarification though -- I'm currently living on my own with roommates on the other side of the country from my parents (easy to do when my current FAANG internship pays pretty well). After my summer internship ends, I'm planning on finding a cheap sublet in a LCOL city and living with roommates while working a barista gig.

Take a leave of absence for a year to do this. Do not quit Columbia!
You may find you hate the barista life. And randomly moving to a LCOL city where you don’t know anyone might not be fun either

I'm one of the PPs encouraging you to break free from your parents and their cycle, but I agree with this. Don't burn a bridge until you really have to. Defer at the very least so you can get your feet back under you before you make irreversible decisions. You can use that year to explore options at other schools and various financial aid vehicles.

Does Columbia offer any online courses? It could be good for you to be off campus someplace with less stress but where you can still finish your degree. Also push back on your parents to split the loans with you. $40k for a working couple and $40k for a college student shouldn't be too bad.