What career now?

<p>I was always looking at a career in investment banking but with Wall Street completly messed up what alternative careers should I look into? As of now I'm thinking law school, since I'm a good writer at least based on grades/AP scores/SAT scores/etc. but am a bit unsure since I'd have to incur even more debt after graduation. My business teacher told me that the economy is in a business cycle, but in my opinion if some of the world's most largest investment banks are failing then its more like a mass failure not business cycle.</p>

<p>Your teacher is, on the whole, correct.</p>

<p>In normal time, your teacher is correct, but this time it's maybe different from many previous recession cycles.</p>

<p>but during recessions, people always say "its not the same this time"... no one knows. if you did, youd be rich and laughing away on a nice exotic island with people tending to your every need.</p>

<p>I've experienced 4-5 recessions already, at least I have some perspective.</p>

<p>USA</a> 2008: The Great Depression - Americas, World - The Independent</p>

<p>
[quote]
Dismal projections by the Congressional Budget Office in Washington suggest that in the fiscal year starting in October, 28 million people in the US will be using government food stamps to buy essential groceries, *the highest level since the food assistance programme was introduced in the 1960s. *</p>

<p>The increase – from 26.5 million in 2007 – is due partly to recent efforts to increase public awareness of the programme and also a switch from paper coupons to electronic debit cards. But above all it is the pressures being exerted on ordinary Americans by an economy that is suddenly beset by troubles. Housing foreclosures, accelerating jobs losses and fast-rising prices all add to the squeeze.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I say Wall St. will be ****ty and won't absolute smooth sailing until the next summer Olympics which is in 2012.</p>

<p>I see 2011/2012. Today's freshmen will enter a booming WS.</p>

<p>Sucks for today's seniors. Not that I have much pity for the vapid little i-banker wannabees...</p>

<p>
[quote]
Dismal projections by the Congressional Budget Office in Washington suggest that in the fiscal year starting in October, 28 million people in the US will be using government food stamps to buy essential groceries, the highest level since the food assistance programme was introduced in the 1960s.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Considering that the US had roughly 180 million people in 1960 and has around 305 million now, that means that at the start of the program 15.5% of the US population was on food assistance, and now it's about 9%. So while raw numbers might be higher, we're still doing considerably better percentage-wise than we were at that time.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/us/31foodstamps.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/us/31foodstamps.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>
[quote]
In New York, a program to promote enrollment increased food stamp rolls earlier in the decade, but the current climb in applications appears in part to reflect economic hardship, said Michael Hayes, spokesman for the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance. The additional 67,000 clients added from July 2007 to January of this year brought total recipients to 1.86 million, about one in 10 New Yorkers.
..........
Because they spend a higher share of their incomes on basic needs like food and fuel, low-income Americans have been hit hard by soaring gasoline and heating costs and jumps in the prices of staples like milk, eggs and bread. </p>

<p>...........
As a share of the national population, food stamp use was highest in 1994, after several years of poor economic growth, with an average of 27.5 million recipients per month from a lower total of residents. The numbers plummeted in the late 1990s as the economy grew and legal immigrants and certain others were excluded. </p>

<p>

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Accounting looks very good.</p>

<p>Apparently securities litigation has a pretty good outlook. What's the outlook on, say, consulting though?</p>

<p>Consulting will get even more competititve with more IB wanna be's going into consulting. If I will be graduating college in 2013, will IB recover by then? Also, how's the outlook of corporate law?</p>

<p>Check out MM & Boutique IB also, they aren't holding on to toxic assets. While its also prone to pipeline slowdown, so is pretty much everything else.</p>

<p>No one can know what exactly will happen with this business cycle, except that ups and downs are more drastic and often more prolonged due to government meddling. People will always want someone to make them money though, so there will still be at least some demand.</p>

<p>MBA</a> Admissions and Careers: private equity</p>

<p>Everything is going to **** right now and pretty much every financial institution that even had a smidgen of involvement with toxic papers is a ticking time bomb. Hoping they'll all blow up before I graduate. If the economy's still in the **** by the time I graduate, I'm thinking about going to law school-maybe in Canada.</p>

<p>^You'd have to move to Canada then, laws are different here</p>

<p>^Yes, I know. I considered moving once or twice. Moving to Toronto would be a 25-40% paycut if I were in corporate law (I don't think there's any paycut in consulting), but I'm also getting a 70% discount on tuition for law school ($35k for 2 years vs. $62k for 3 years), probably a 3-10% tax cut over NYC, and a good minimum 50% cut in the cost of living. Oh, and included in income taxes-free healthcare (add another $4-5k to the Toronto column).</p>

<p>Makes financial sense, just trying to figure out if it makes sense from a lifestyle standpoint.</p>

<p>One word: Vancouver.</p>