Raw Izms

Currently Listening To :: I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For :: U2

N.b. I've decided to include my _izms_ here before they get printed in Blitz. This way, people who don't go to uni can read it earlier, and unedited too!

What do you think when you think finance? For some, it means stocks and spreads, a job at Morgan Stanley, and a paycheque big enough to buy Enron and HIH (with enough left over to hire accountants from Andersen to manage your new purchases). Personally, I’ve always had an aversion to finance, and while it may seem crass, I’ve always seen most finance graduates as corporate raiders out for the power to collapse companies and affect markets. Why volunteer or study for interest, when there’s ‘real’ money to be made out there?

So as I trudged into what seemed like another long finance lecture the other day (my first finance subject ever), it was quite a slap in the face when the lecturer warned the class about the evils of being blinded by the material benefits of investment banking. “Find something you like, and find something you’re good at” he urged us, and sitting there, I couldn’t help wishing I’d taken this class back when I first started university, instead of spending all these years making an ass out of u and me.

While I’m no expert on the pros and cons of finance, the lecturers words really stuck with me. I’ve always felt that university is the time when we have the most options; you don’t want to go to that lecture? Don’t go! You want to take that course on the Psychobiology of Sex, Love and Attraction? You can! (See GENB 4007…I kid you not!)

But most importantly, I feel our university years are about freedom, probably the most we’ll ever. Because once you leave uni, it’s A Whole New World, and not in that Aladdin way either. It’s a world where the responsibilities are that much greater and decisions are that much tougher. Not to sound overly dramatic, but the move from university classrooms to corporate cubicles can be like waking up from a dream to a very real nightmare. For most graduates, that’s after only three years! How do we know if we’re making the “right” choices?

If you think that I’ve got the answers to these questions, then you need to actually head to some classes and realise that no one (least of all me) is here to give you the answers. But what I can say is that now is the time you will have the greatest freedom to sail where you want with the least anchors. So keep in mind that society doesn’t really care about you at the end of the day; only you can do that. Stop living for others, stop trying to please everyone, and start living more for yourself!