Squandered elite education

[Anonymous]

OP you have fallen for the falsehood that going to an "elite" school somehow means you got a different education and should be walking a different road than everyone else.

The reason certain schools have an elite reputation has nothing to do with the education one receives there, nor with the future accomplishments of the majority of the graduates. Most are sitting in the cubicle next to the state school grad taking orders from the small regional college grad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP you have fallen for the falsehood that going to an "elite" school somehow means you got a different education and should be walking a different road than everyone else.

The reason certain schools have an elite reputation has nothing to do with the education one receives there, nor with the future accomplishments of the majority of the graduates. Most are sitting in the cubicle next to the state school grad taking orders from the small regional college grad.

Ivy grad here. Judging from my roommates and peers in my major, that is not the case. Most work at FAANG, banks, law firms, or became doctor. I literally don’t know any that work at some random company like described in the OP — all are at top shelf companies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Literally not a single person from the NINETIES has said that this information was widely available to them as a non-UMC person on campus.

We have heard from rich people who said in the 90s they knew this info. And we have heard from non-rich people saying that they knew this info in the aughts.

But no one has said that they were non-rich in the 90s and thought this info was readily available.

But lots of non-rich people saying they were not aware of this info in the 90s.

So all the people talking about their aughts experiences are totally not relevant to this original question.

NP. DH and I are both from non-wealthy immigrant families, graduated HYPSM in the late 90s, and our first jobs were in BB and MBB, respectively. Neither of us had ever heard of investment banking or management consulting before college, but took full advantage of on-campus recruiting. The career center was our “internet.”

It’s likely as an immigrant family you grew up an urban metro and were already aware of the cost of a UMC lifestyle, and looked for a career prioritizing income.

Did your career center really discuss salary potential for various careers in concrete numbers? We’re you at Stanford, they are much more business school lite and I think more open about salaries and money in general from my experience

Do you even hear yourself. So the UMC kids had advantages because they had inside knowledge. But LC poor immigrants had advantage living in urban areas. So somehow everyone was advantaged except for the suburban MC white kid in the 90s. It’s a whole bunch of excuses

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP you have fallen for the falsehood that going to an "elite" school somehow means you got a different education and should be walking a different road than everyone else.

The reason certain schools have an elite reputation has nothing to do with the education one receives there, nor with the future accomplishments of the majority of the graduates. Most are sitting in the cubicle next to the state school grad taking orders from the small regional college grad.

Ivy grad here. Judging from my roommates and peers in my major, that is not the case. Most work at FAANG, banks, law firms, or became doctor. I literally don’t know any that work at some random company like described in the OP — all are at top shelf companies.

DP

You are assuming small regional college grads can't work at those places, but they definitely do.

Also many Ivy grads do work at non "top shelf" companies. I know several. I find all of them extremely annoying to work with. They are never the top performers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP you have fallen for the falsehood that going to an "elite" school somehow means you got a different education and should be walking a different road than everyone else.

The reason certain schools have an elite reputation has nothing to do with the education one receives there, nor with the future accomplishments of the majority of the graduates. Most are sitting in the cubicle next to the state school grad taking orders from the small regional college grad.

Ivy grad here. Judging from my roommates and peers in my major, that is not the case. Most work at FAANG, banks, law firms, or became doctor. I literally don’t know any that work at some random company like described in the OP — all are at top shelf companies.

DP

You are assuming small regional college grads can't work at those places, but they definitely do.

Also many Ivy grads do work at non "top shelf" companies. I know several. I find all of them extremely annoying to work with. They are never the top performers.

And those Ivy grads may be whiners like OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Literally not a single person from the NINETIES has said that this information was widely available to them as a non-UMC person on campus.

We have heard from rich people who said in the 90s they knew this info. And we have heard from non-rich people saying that they knew this info in the aughts.

But no one has said that they were non-rich in the 90s and thought this info was readily available.

But lots of non-rich people saying they were not aware of this info in the 90s.

So all the people talking about their aughts experiences are totally not relevant to this original question.

NP. DH and I are both from non-wealthy immigrant families, graduated HYPSM in the late 90s, and our first jobs were in BB and MBB, respectively. Neither of us had ever heard of investment banking or management consulting before college, but took full advantage of on-campus recruiting. The career center was our “internet.”

It’s likely as an immigrant family you grew up an urban metro and were already aware of the cost of a UMC lifestyle, and looked for a career prioritizing income.

Did your career center really discuss salary potential for various careers in concrete numbers? We’re you at Stanford, they are much more business school lite and I think more open about salaries and money in general from my experience

DH for sure was prioritizing income when he chose banking, but I wasn’t - I picked consulting because it seemed well-suited for a 22 year old who wanted to travel and explore different industries and business functions. No, the career center did not discuss salary potential in concrete numbers, but made clear that these types of first jobs would lead to bigger and better future opportunities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Literally not a single person from the NINETIES has said that this information was widely available to them as a non-UMC person on campus.

We have heard from rich people who said in the 90s they knew this info. And we have heard from non-rich people saying that they knew this info in the aughts.

But no one has said that they were non-rich in the 90s and thought this info was readily available.

But lots of non-rich people saying they were not aware of this info in the 90s.

So all the people talking about their aughts experiences are totally not relevant to this original question.

NP. DH and I are both from non-wealthy immigrant families, graduated HYPSM in the late 90s, and our first jobs were in BB and MBB, respectively. Neither of us had ever heard of investment banking or management consulting before college, but took full advantage of on-campus recruiting. The career center was our “internet.”

It’s likely as an immigrant family you grew up an urban metro and were already aware of the cost of a UMC lifestyle, and looked for a career prioritizing income.

Did your career center really discuss salary potential for various careers in concrete numbers? We’re you at Stanford, they are much more business school lite and I think more open about salaries and money in general from my experience

Do you even hear yourself. So the UMC kids had advantages because they had inside knowledge. But LC poor immigrants had advantage living in urban areas. So somehow everyone was advantaged except for the suburban MC white kid in the 90s. It’s a whole bunch of excuses

Immigrant family poster here. Yeah, I didn’t address the “urban metro” thing when I responded to that PP, but DH and I actually grew up in the suburbs. Our families were MC, just not white.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thread has obviously moved on from OP’s specific situation to a general conversation about what information sharing looked like in the late 90s when it came to the job hunt.

I’m a millennial who will concede that the Internet wasn’t as helpful back in the late 90s. It was immensely helpful to me in the late aughts. But I haven’t seen anyone answer the question of whether or not they noticed tons of kids (juniors in the spring, seniors in the fall) interviewing en masse at all there big employers. Was OCR not a thing in the 90s? Even when I was in school, my top 10 university frequently boasted about how many of its students went to Goldman or JP Morgan, McKinsey or Bain, Harvard Law or Stanford Med. Were they not doing that either in the 90s? Genuinely curious.

Those jobs are all pyramid schemes. For everyone who starts around 10% are there 10 years later...

PP. 100%. And even those that make partner don’t have a guarantee that they’ll have their jobs forever. You build the book or you get cut.

But! Those jobs are great credentials and springboards. I knew several kids who did banking > PE/hedge fund. Or people who did Big Law > in house at a well paying company. That’s why I’m always perplexed when people deride people for taking them because they “only care about money”. Money is a factor no doubt, but those jobs open amazing doors and opportunities. They create a high floor - that’s the real value in doing those jobs for a few years out of school.

Yet another thing UMC student might know, but for someone who had first heard of investment banking AT THE JOB FAIR, probably not on their radar. The only banker I knew gave us a toaster for opening an account.

PP. I was a MC kid of color who learned this freshman/sophomore year attending job fairs and speaking with other students. Again, in the aughts, but the information was there if you were willing to be proactive. (I heard kids in class talking about it and I wasn't even an econ major. That's how pervasive these jobs were at my UG.)

Perhaps it was different in the 90s. I definitely made my fair share of mistakes navigating this UMC world, but this was definitely knowable in the 2000s forward.

+1 that’s what bugs me about the OP and the other people making excuses about not getting enough info and blaming it on not being UMC. The information was there if you were proactive enough to learn. And that’s a good life lesson, opportunities open to those who are hungry and take initiative. I came from a blue collar background, first gen to go to college, and freshman year on campus I was already tuned in to what job opportunities were there just by observing everyone else. I made my fair share of social mistakes but learnt quickly.

Not sure why you're 'bugged'.

Most people die in to the class they are born into.

And UMC people are the most delusional group of them all. Y'all see yourself closer to billionaires than the people you're bugged by.

And newsflash... many many american children did not have a computer in the early 2000s.

When you know better you do better. In the USA, for most children their zipcode is their destiny.

If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Literally not a single person from the NINETIES has said that this information was widely available to them as a non-UMC person on campus.

We have heard from rich people who said in the 90s they knew this info. And we have heard from non-rich people saying that they knew this info in the aughts.

But no one has said that they were non-rich in the 90s and thought this info was readily available.

But lots of non-rich people saying they were not aware of this info in the 90s.

So all the people talking about their aughts experiences are totally not relevant to this original question.

And non of those people in the 90s have answered why they weren’t aware of on campus recruiting. It’s hard to avoid OCR season even without the internet. . Because it was there and they just didn’t take advantage of it.

PP millennial, and this was precisely my question. I don’t think for a second that poor people can just bookstrap their way out of poverty - it’s far more complicated than that. But as I said earlier, I’m curious how people who were savvy enough to get to the Ivy + missed OCR altogether since it was such a huge event on campus. (I totally buy that the internet wasn’t a real resource in the 90s. It’s a moot point to me.)

I think this whole debate about availability of information is a bit silly. It's obvious the information is there and available and was in the 90s too. I think many of us simply didn't think or care to think about what level of compensation we needed for the lifestyle we wanted. We assumed if we got an education in something we were passionate about, we'd be fine. I mean I knew about i-banking, I heard about it a ton and among my friends it seemed to be obviously the wrong path because it'd require working 80 hours per week and none of us wanted that, money be darned.

Yes but the lack of information due to the internet has been used as the main excuse why the students in the 90s weren’t aware of what was available that could have opened doors for them. Again, excuse after excuse.

You are a very nasty person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP you have fallen for the falsehood that going to an "elite" school somehow means you got a different education and should be walking a different road than everyone else.

The reason certain schools have an elite reputation has nothing to do with the education one receives there, nor with the future accomplishments of the majority of the graduates. Most are sitting in the cubicle next to the state school grad taking orders from the small regional college grad.

Ivy grad here. Judging from my roommates and peers in my major, that is not the case. Most work at FAANG, banks, law firms, or became doctor. I literally don’t know any that work at some random company like described in the OP — all are at top shelf companies.

I think the point she was trying to say is most live average ordinary UMC lives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Literally not a single person from the NINETIES has said that this information was widely available to them as a non-UMC person on campus.

We have heard from rich people who said in the 90s they knew this info. And we have heard from non-rich people saying that they knew this info in the aughts.

But no one has said that they were non-rich in the 90s and thought this info was readily available.

But lots of non-rich people saying they were not aware of this info in the 90s.

So all the people talking about their aughts experiences are totally not relevant to this original question.

And non of those people in the 90s have answered why they weren’t aware of on campus recruiting. It’s hard to avoid OCR season even without the internet. . Because it was there and they just didn’t take advantage of it.

PP millennial, and this was precisely my question. I don’t think for a second that poor people can just bookstrap their way out of poverty - it’s far more complicated than that. But as I said earlier, I’m curious how people who were savvy enough to get to the Ivy + missed OCR altogether since it was such a huge event on campus. (I totally buy that the internet wasn’t a real resource in the 90s. It’s a moot point to me.)

I think this whole debate about availability of information is a bit silly. It's obvious the information is there and available and was in the 90s too. I think many of us simply didn't think or care to think about what level of compensation we needed for the lifestyle we wanted. We assumed if we got an education in something we were passionate about, we'd be fine. I mean I knew about i-banking, I heard about it a ton and among my friends it seemed to be obviously the wrong path because it'd require working 80 hours per week and none of us wanted that, money be darned.

Yes but the lack of information due to the internet has been used as the main excuse why the students in the 90s weren’t aware of what was available that could have opened doors for them. Again, excuse after excuse.

You are a very nasty person.

DP. This response is mean but so are the constant comments about people in higher paid careers being “Gordon Gekko” types who were “obsessed” with money. A far more accurate description, at least for me, would be that I wanted intellectually rigorous work that would allow me to have a nice home, educate my children, and not be stressed about money. So I became a corporate lawyer. I’m not inferior or superior to anyone because of it.

[Anonymous]

The whole immigrant vs non-immigrant thing is a red herring. It has nothing to do with it. Some people are driven (personally, culturally, or otherwise) to excel and seek the means to do so.

Others who are just as capable or smart don't sense the game/structure of life and assume that hard work will yield success because that's the general message we've all been fed. They don't know there are extra steps and calculations along the way and that those decisions build upon each other over time.

If the people who are successful want to feel better about themselves by declaring the necessary knowledge was obvious or it was within reach to everybody, I guess that's their right. But the fact of the matter is that society is losing out by not making the rules of the game clear to everybody. Do we really want Ivy grads regretting the under-utilization of their education? Do we want smart people who are unable to fully apply their intellects because they didn't appreciate the value of an internship during undergrad?

We should strive to inform the OPs of tomorrow of the steps needed for success and the compounding consequences of decisions. And retroactively stating "that's what google is for" or pointing out past job fairs is clearly insufficient.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP you have fallen for the falsehood that going to an "elite" school somehow means you got a different education and should be walking a different road than everyone else.

The reason certain schools have an elite reputation has nothing to do with the education one receives there, nor with the future accomplishments of the majority of the graduates. Most are sitting in the cubicle next to the state school grad taking orders from the small regional college grad.

This could not be further from the truth. It is not a falsehood. That does not mean every grad but for the overwhelming number they did get a different education. Don’t fool or lie to yourself. Most are on a different road. No most do not do the same things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On campus recruiting. It’s a fairly formal process where students drop their resumes and firms fly out teams of people to conduct interviews on campus. (For example, when I was in college, all the banks interviewed over a week or two. So you would see students in class in suits as they had interviews in between classes.)

Top candidates are then flown to the home office for a second round of interviews, typically lasting a day. Successful candidates then get an offer whether it’s for an internship or a Ft job.

In some industries (banking, consulting, law), you have to get the summer internship to get the job. It’s nearly impossible to just interview in your last year as nearly all spots have been filled.

My top school but not ivy did not have this in the 90s. Or if it happened, it wasn't widely publicized. No one wearing suits in class or anything. I don't remember seeing anyone in a suit on my campus in four years.

Then your top school wasn’t top enough for companies to recruit at.

Or it could have meant that “it wasn’t widely publicized “. If by 90’s the PP means the times before every student had internet, finding out might have meant seeing a flyer on the bulletin board in the Econ/Policy department. If that wasn’t your major, or your professor didn’t announce it, or you passed by the bulletin board before the flyer went up, you were sool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP you have fallen for the falsehood that going to an "elite" school somehow means you got a different education and should be walking a different road than everyone else.

The reason certain schools have an elite reputation has nothing to do with the education one receives there, nor with the future accomplishments of the majority of the graduates. Most are sitting in the cubicle next to the state school grad taking orders from the small regional college grad.

This could not be further from the truth. It is not a falsehood. That does not mean every grad but for the overwhelming number they did get a different education. Don’t fool or lie to yourself. Most are on a different road. No most do not do the same things.

That is because the schools select the students with either the best grades/scores/extracurriculars or the most money. The picked the winners and convinced them to pay $200k to put the Ivy name on their resume.

The Ivy grads I know are not particularly competent, often a PITA to work with, but they get hired so orgs can say they have Ivy grads.