<p>I suppose it depends why they want to be in finance. if they saw “the wolf of Wall Street” and thought it looked like a great future, or if their impression of the Goldman Sachs et al meltdown was that they’d like to have gotten rich, yes that’s shameful and I would not want to tell folks that my kid had such shallow and /or misguided ambitions.</p>
<p>I’ve got nothing against adults who work hard in the banking industry, but as @JHS said above, when a teen latches onto this particular cliche, it does suggest a lack of intellectual curiosity and a certain set of values about what is important in life.</p>
<p>I think that why you are having the reaction you are.</p>
<p>No matter what our kids do, someone is going to judge. As consolation said, try having a kid in an impractical, “unemployable” major. Try having a northern kid in college in an obscure southern state. Try having a serious kid at a notorious party school.</p>
<p>Ha ha ha I was talking to a mom all FOUR of whose kids are going into finance/banking! It was as if she could not conceive of anything else! She was shocked when I told her my son’s school did not admit undergrads to the business school (as she was considering it for her youngest). I am more of a science gal, so the world of finance major is new/foreign to me. I guess to each his own!</p>
<p>H was very successful in finance, though it wasn’t his original “dream.” They just offered him a signing bonus at a time when he wanted the signing bonus. He never intended to stay in the field, but he did. As long as your daughter understands what it is she is signing up for, good luck to her. But, it’s not a field you can go into in the same way as the medical field. You can get a try out for a couple of years, but if you aren’t good at it, and many really aren’t good at it, most are not, in fact, you won’t get anywhere. Still, a few years in finance will teach you how to work an 18 hour day 6 days a week. that alone is an education! </p>
<p>My Dh is in finance, and he’s about the most ethical person you could ever meet. He didn’t start out in finance. He wanted to be a history professor in the 70s, jobs were not there, so he bagged his Princeton PhD in history after his general exams and found a publishing job, but eventually found himself in finance, trading and managing securities. 30 years in the business, he’s currently working as an investment manager for high net-worth clients at a large firm. He meets some of the most interesting people, most of whom have sold successful businesses that they started themselves and now need to know how to best invest their millions. Dh enjoys his job, but he’s not a workaholic. His passion is hiking and the outdoors, and he has found a way to thrive in the field and still live a balanced life.
Believe it or not, honest, reliable people in the financial industry are golden. Their reputation precedes them, and they will rarely be in need of a job, even in a poor economy. If your kids want to go into this business, tell them to hold on to their integrity; it will always pay off. </p>
<p>yes, it’s true. H is ethical to a fault and that reputation preceded him and really kept him at the forefront of his field. His life was not balanced for the most part, but he was able to retire before fifty and move into non profit work in a field he finds incredibly meaningful and give back in a way he really values at this stage of his life. But there are a lot of unethical people in the business, probably about the same as in “the law.”</p>
<p>@ellen3, could we have some more details regarding this assertion made in your OP?
Unless you’re on the scholarship review committee, I don’t understand how you’d know what these peers wrote on their scholarship applications. Apparently knowing the stats of a child’s peers, impressive or otherwise, is indeed a thing in some places? I’m skeptical.</p>
<p>Sometimes you have to BS. My oldest daughter put on her NMF application that she wanted to be a doctor, she didn’t know what the heck she wanted to be yet, doctor seems like a respectable ambition.
For my second daughter, I often joke that she is going to be a hedge fund manager, we know somebody in the business, but after a brief internship in NYC for the summer, she changed her mind and decided to be in technology. So I now joke around that she is the next venture capitalist. Who knows it might work her subconscious and she might turn out to be. I joke a lot on most things in life and it must have worked my sub consciousness because they all become true today. Who knew?</p>
<p>There is a difference between wanting to work in banking or financial services, and wanting to work in “investment banking”. And I happen to work for bank and financial services client in my business a lot. I agree with JHS, 17 year olds who want to be “investment bankers” just want to be rich.</p>
<p>I feel like it is way more cliche for people to go into college as “premed”… and them and their parents brag about it until after first semester when they change to something else…</p>
<p>@frazzled1 scholarship winners are announced. And GPAs are known via class rank and honor chords. Even awards she wasn’t up for I would read so and so won “s/he intends to pursue medicine…” more often than not. I rarely see award winners who “intends to become a Wall Street banker.” I think scholarship selection committees love anything stem or non-profit. Mind you this was pre Wolf of Wall Street as well. I don’t think the movie created any new wanna be bankers.</p>
<p>Actually not embarrassed about art school. Kid has talent. (H and I have degrees in history and literature. . .) The world needs a little bit of everything. As long as it isn’t immoral or illegal, I’m OK with it. I do worry about my kids making a living, but it is up to them to figure that out, and I’m sure they will not starve.</p>
<p>I don’t know…“engineering” is becoming pretty cliche as a major among D’s friends. It seems like that has become the default option for many smart kids who don’t hate math and science, sort of like how pre-med used to be. But I wonder how many have given much thought to what the profession entails. </p>
<p>atomom, I would very proud of my kid pursuing a career as an artist if he/she had that level of talent. My brother-in-law was a talented art student in high school and college, winning all kinds of awards. He took a circuitous route to get where he is now, including a stint in the military, but now he is an art teacher at a public school in a diverse small community and couldn’t be happier. He is still doing commissioned work (sculpture) on the side and by almost any measure has a rich and rewarding life.</p>
<p>Yes, revealing that your child’s career choice is banking is socially risky for the reasons already cited. So many high school and even college kids wax sentimental about their futures. The standard accepted cliche is to say “I just want to help people.” Clearly, pre-med and biomedical engineering are at the top of the parent prestige scale for those who think a kid is nice if he’s a kid who wants to “help people,:” but is greedy scum if he wants to be a businessman or banker. What people fail to understand is that if you earn a good living, your money can do a whole heck of a lot to “help people.” I am not sure why it is assumed that everyone will just keep it all for themselves.</p>
<p>My favorite anecdote about this (sorry to those who’ve seen me post it already): S really liked a girl at college, but she had a tough time respecting him as a “nice person” because of his career goal of going into finance or banking. She couldn’t get past the pre-conception that career goal must mean he was materialistic. So she chose to date a kid who was interested in a service profession. One day, a year or so after graduation, she commented to S that her BF was so wonderful because he had just skateboarded across the country to raise money for a charity. After expenses, he only managed to raise a very small amount, like $7,000. Ironically, S had recently donated three times that amount to charity by actually using his economics degree. He said nothing of course…</p>
<p>PS–Doctors do indeed make a whole lot of money, but aspiring physicians can hide the financial consideration of the career decision behind the helping people comment.</p>
<p>Your son is much better off without this girl.</p>
<p>I’ve told my kids that I don’t care if they drive a cab. Pick something to do, and do it well. But try to be self-aware enough to not wind up complaining your whole life that someone else earns more than you do. If its going to bother you, either go earn that yourself, or move to one of those countries where they make sure everyone is equal.</p>