Reply to What's the appeal of working on Wall Street?

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[quote=Anonymous]Private equity associate here who left IB last year (I was at an elite boutique, but did my summer internships at two bulge bracket banks).  For me, the appeal of Wall Street was quite simple:

1) I was genuinely interested in finance and investing in college.  I read investing books for fun and really enjoyed going to my finance classes.  Getting to use what I was passionate about in college on the job appealed to me as I was setting my sights on graduation and the world beyond.
2) I wanted to live in New York immediately after graduation, giving me lots of options if my first-choice employer didn't work out.
3) The money didn't hurt, of course.  The hours, while not appealing, were brutal (I was at a sweatshop, even amongst the banking set) but I'd be lying if I said that I didn't learn a ton about time management, bull-shitting, working around office politics with some extremely strong personalities in play, and valuing companies/using Excel.  I've used all of those skills successfully in pro-bono efforts, among other, non-work settings.

In the end, I got 5 years of work experience out of 2 years in banking.  The hours were tough, the work could get mundane (as is the case at any entry-level job, really) but banking was a good place to sit and think about what I wanted to do going forward.  If nothing else, the skills I gained are valued, at present, in the job market, and are easily transferrable elsewhere should I decide to get out of finance entirely.  I can't say the same for other entry-level career paths.

I hope some of that was useful.  Happy to talk further about the job, both pluses and minuses.[/quote]

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