I have lived through so many "revolutions’ in my corporate life (including a group of administrative assistants sobbing the day desktop computers were installed in my company way back when) that I am leery of my ability to predict who will be impacted with what.
But for the longest time prognosticators were claiming that health care was safe- couldn’t be outsourced, off-shored, or made obsolete by technology- and yet my radiologist is in India, and studies seem to indicate that diagnoses made by a computer (with millions of datapoints) are much less likely to be wrong than a diagnosis made by an MD (who has seen- what-- a few hundred cases or maybe a few thousand?)
So I wouldn’t be avoiding a particular career-- buggy whip manufacturer notwithstanding-- because of AI. Especially since the underlying skill- math- does not seem to have been made obsolete by all the previous technological revolutions. You’d think that most of the “mathy” careers would be gone by now-- nobody argues that a computer is much faster and better than a human brain- but every day, people with strong quant skills manage to cash their paychecks.
I’m going to guess you’d feel less morose about this thread if you had put forth an argument that your D was passionate about X (X being something relevant to finance) in which case we’d all be rallying to help you optimize for X. But trying to get a kid into Ross- absent a compelling reason to BE at Ross besides “portfolio analyst is the easiest way to make a living”, you’re going to hear contrarian points of view.
And one person’s “peanuts” is another persons fine lifestyle. I’ve posted before about a family member and spouse- live in a lovely house in a midwestern city, essentially two civil servants, two cars, a nice vacation every year. They are facing retirement and their packages are just gobsmackingly good. They whined at a family gathering that their prescription co-pay was going up (from 2 bucks to something outrageous like 4 bucks) which got a lot of snorting from the corporate types at the table who know their pension payouts will be zero except for what they’ve saved out of their paychecks, IRA, etc. So sure- peanuts. Dual career couple, one with a Master’s degree, one with a doctorate, earned significantly less than they could have in the private sector. Except their plush retirement… kinda makes up for it.
Hugs to you. Ain’t easy getting our kids launched. But I’m sure there are dozens of fine careers your D would love if the finance thing doesn’t turn out to be her jam.
I am sure you are aware but Economics is a humanities major. I will take you at your word about 100% but am skeptical. I am impressed your daughter knows the entire analyst classes academic majors. When I started my career at a BB firm there were 300+ I bankers and 200+ sales and traders. The two groups hardly interacted.
She must be very gregarious to have visibility across several banks.
Actually I am currently the CEO of a 1,000 person+ bank that extended offers to 60+ prospective analysts. Of that pool about 1/3 are finance, 1/3 are economics and the last 1/3 are a mix of history, math, english , linguistics, and Spanish are the ones I recall.
Finance majors bring something valuable to the table- their training and familiarity with the tools, the lingo, etc. Econ majors bring something valuable to the table- a broad understanding of the ecosystem that an I-bank operates in. It does no good to model out 30 scenarios where interest rates are 2-6% if you are operating in an environment where interest rates are 9-10%. And the other humanities majors bring something valuable to the table- the ability to question the “received wisdom” of the first two groups. Why is this data relevant? (sometimes it’s not-- but everyone is so absorbed in collecting it accurately, that nobody thinks to ask “what does this tell us”). What type of threat or black swan event could render our assumptions moot? (would that more people were asking this question at Lehman or Bear Stearns back in 2007).
For every stellar banker who majored in finance, you can find an equally gifted colleague or competitor who majored in Poli Sci or History.
And it’s nice that one’s career path or success isn’t determined by a decision a 17 year old makes senior year of HS!
She is very social. It is a good trait to have.and a lot easier in the era of chatrooms and listserv than when you were young.
From your post in other words, 2/3 of your new hires at your bank are indeed finance ( in colleges with business schools) or econ ( which is the usual acceptable substitute at other schools). All other majors can fight it out for the remaining 1/3 of open spots, which would include cs kids who decided not to go into tech, engineers aiming for business, math/physics kids who don’t want quant work but are willing to try finance, and of course, all the humanities, social science and fine arts majors. Yes, we can agree on that.
It is not 2017, and the younger classes are different. Maybe some wish that were not the case, but a reality check is useful. No, there are not many if any polysci majors running around this year’s analyst class, or any class since covid. The world has changed.
A respectful exception in some narrowly defined areas where we do tend to have a specific subject matter need or desire for local familiarity. As you say they aren’t slots but a targeted profile even for undergraduates.
Examples being for our commodities or metals and mining teams we will take a kid or two who went to Colorado School of Mines, Food and Agriculture Texas AM kids, infrastructure or project finance we will look at urban planning or engineers, or for our Dallas or Houston offices SMU or Rice with local roots so we can continue to recruit on campus.