Career advice for geeks?

[giants92]

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well you really have two options.</p>

<h1>1. accept your geekiness and take a tech job path. you will be comfortable, afford a reasonably sized home, a toyota corolla etc. you will be able to raise a family, earn a decent living (like 120k/yr), and have interesting work. however, you will forever be a grunt at work (not rise up into management) and you will not have a prestigious place in society (which could affect everything from dating to local social clubs). this can be a good trade-off for some and i have seen many engineers in their 30’s/40’s who are quite happy with their life. they put in their “9-5” and then go home and spend time w/ family.</h1>

<h1>2. FIX your geekiness. it really is a choice. you can develop socially by joining clubs, dressing nicer, etc. if you can do CS at carneige mellon you can figure this **** out; it is not very complicated. if you manage to couple your intellect with social skills, you can really go far (ex going for a top MBA and making bank). you will be very successful, make a ton of cash, and be well accepted by society. of course this would require effort and you may not think its worth it, your choice.</h1>

<p>fyi, law is often considered a “geeky” field, at least relative to business. law school admissions is all about grades and standardized test scores, which do not generally go hand-in-hand with social skills. there are also areas of law that seem to attract “geeks” who excel in them (like tax law or patent law). if you put in an effort to increase your salesmanship you should be fine. intelligence is also VERY important because corporate law is reserved for grads from the best law schools, which require amazing grades and test scores to gain admission.

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<p>Great post. I agree with each point wholeheartedly.</p>

<p>Now for my own thoughts: Have you looked into proprietary trading firms? These days it’s more important to know CompSci than it is to know about finance/trading with these firms. If you’re smart enough, they’ll teach you how to be a good trader/algorithmic programmer and you will make bank. Interviews are all brain teasers and probability questions. Extremely competitive, but schmoozing is not necessary because a lot of these firms don’t interact with clients. They are trading their own money for their own profit. If you are smart and are perceived by the firm to be able to make them money, you will get a job (as long as you do not completely suck socially, but for that see BostonEng’s post on how to fix your geekiness).</p>

<p>What prop trading is: <a href=“http://www.davemanuel.com/investor-dictionary/prop-trading/[/url]”>http://www.davemanuel.com/investor-dictionary/prop-trading/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>(For more information, utilize Google)</p>

<p>List of many firms: <a href=“http://www.tradersnarrative.com/list-of-proprietary-trading-firms-735.html[/url]”>http://www.tradersnarrative.com/list-of-proprietary-trading-firms-735.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;