Do I make bad career choices?

I'm sure you have certain standards to live up to that are far higher than mine, but I agree with the poster above said, you really have no idea where you're going to go in life, you can become wildly successful in something you'd never expect, so keep that in mind when you feel pressure to map out your whole future, but as far as I can see, any of these options provide you with the peace of mind that you will almost certainly be doing better than 95% of the kids your age for the rest of your life.

Once you decide where to go remember one thing.
Work your tail off. Going to a top tier school and ******* off will do you no good.
It takes a long time to climb the ladder.

Originally Posted by Fuuma

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It seems all your carreer options are based on making a Jewish mother proud...

Care to explain?

Originally Posted by taxgenius

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Care to explain?

I thought it was cutting, valid, and funny. Though I do have a Jewish mother-in-law...

Originally Posted by Joenobody0

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I thought it was cutting, valid, and funny. Though I do have a Jewish mother-in-law...

Cutting, valid and funny is not a valid license.

I would say the following...

For option A:
Take something that doesn't require you to go back to B-school. I would put good buy side hedge fund above PE. I just don't see the need for MBA in general.

For option B:
Are you really interested in it? What's your engineering degree, EE/CS I assume? Honestly I can't comment on how this route will go. All my friends who went to IP were Ph.D. guys, it's probably a good thing you skip that all together

For option C:
If you're going to stay in tech., do hardcore tech., not some Business Analyst, you would need some real hands on dirty experience to work for start up. Of course there might be different roles, but either way you would need some hardcore engineering knowledge. I am sure you have excellent intuition in engineering, but until you get to some point, that alone might not be enough.

For option D:
Ph. D. in what, most engineer get out Ph. D. program to enter industry. If it's science, I think the #1 employee for physicst is probably wall street. Professor is going to be the toughest among all of these options and if nothing works out you will go back to A, B or C anyway.

For the record I start out as a phd student (had choice between top tier programs), left after master, went to work in finance, large bank, not buy side, now end up in London...

I was a bit distressed by other things at the time as well, otherwise I probably would have stayed in engineering and worked in silicon valley and burned my way through start up as well.

i could give you some more insight on A if you ping me ... wait a sec what the?? you're a CS grad who's going to law school to do IP law???

SO many of these threads are just grandstanding.....

Originally Posted by Magician

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SO many of these threads are just grandstanding.....

Are you familiar with the other subforums here?

Originally Posted by Magician

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SO many of these threads are just grandstanding.....

I'm pretty sure the word you're looking for is "hotdogging".

And yes, hotdogging is the raison d'etre of StyleForvm.

Originally Posted by scientific

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i could give you some more insight on A if you ping me ... wait a sec what the?? you're a CS grad who's going to law school to do IP law???

Ummm what's wrong with that?

Originally Posted by taxgenius

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Cutting, valid and funny is not a valid license.

Probably because OP has basically no career ambitions, other than to be successful at something.

I have a Jewish mother. I understand.

The problem with option b is you won't know if you actually want to be a lawyer until you invest 100K+ in law school. I've known many big law attorneys who have regretted making that decision. I like a and c given the low barriers to entry. You could always fall back on law, plus at that point, you'd probably have enough cash so you wouldn't have to take out loans.

Originally Posted by JoelF

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Ummm what's wrong with that?
i was envisioning the progression from value creating to value destroying to super value destroying and i mourned for the future

Originally Posted by ambien walrus

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Probably because OP has basically no career ambitions, other than to be successful at something.

I have a Jewish mother. I understand.

It was a joke, I don't see why this Jewish stereotype of basically allowing your children 3-4 careers choices, none of them being anything more than placeholders for conventional status+money, would be actually true. I'm just saddened that someone would be so devoid of personality and passion to basically want to do anything in his 40+hrs he'll spend at his job as long as it gets him a lot of money and his parents like it. If you're that empty in your early 20s by the time you're 30 you'll be part of the walking dead. It's not like the choice is between this and starving, at least for the OP. Even if I think it is pure wankery I prefer the dudes who are all gung ho and super geekily into trading, I'm sure they have a certain motivation that is infectious.