Any other college grads with no desire to settle for corp. America?

[newcool]

I'm going to graduate from college soon with a business/finance degree from a top 20 school. Every one of my classmates has the standard pattern of thought of going to grad school or getting a standard job in corporate America. A few times a year we have job fairs where all the top employers(google,cisco,boeing,morgan,ml,etc) come to campus and everyone tries their hardest to make a good impression and kiss ass to get hired just to settle into a typical corporate job with no other aspirations.

This just absolutely sickens me; so many bright young people who are content and eager to work for someone else, and they act like getting hired by a large corporation is a blessing and that it is the best way to proceed in life. I have periodically thought about working on wall street in sales&trading for a few years just to accumulate money.

However, I just cannot see myself taking this path and ending up in a boring 9-5 corporate job like everyone else I know. I mean my parents, relatives and friends all have regular jobs working for someone else and even though they may make a good amount of money it just seems like such a restricted standard way to live. Don't get me wrong, it is very respectable to work a steady job for your whole life. However I feel that in 60 years when I look back on my life I would feel nothing but regret at least not trying to achieve something better.

The only way I can see myself proceeding is starting my own venture and carving out my own path. However I realize that very few people actually make it bigtime, some end up as average business owners, and the majority simply fail and don't accomplish anything. I want to make it bigtime, but I realize that there is a very high probability I will end up as a failure with nothing to show for all my hopes and plans.

My relatives, especially the older ones, want me to get a good paying corporate job because they think that is the only way to become someone in life. I'm a firm believer of the phrase "If you keep doing what you've been doing you'll keep getting what you've been getting". I can see how everyone I know lives their life and by doing what they are doing, there is no way to achieve something greater. I try to explain this to my relatives and they think I'm talking out of my ass and that there is no other path to take.

Simply put, I want to accomplish something great in my lifetime, but know that chances are stacked against me and that I will end up as a failure like the millions of people before me who also wanted to achieve greatness. Do those who make it bigtime attribute it to attitude or dumb luck? Does anyone else feel the same way? Anyone been down this path before that can offer some advice? Thanks for reading.

[DcifrThs]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm going to graduate from college soon with a business/finance degree from a top 20 school. Every one of my classmates has the standard pattern of thought of going to grad school or getting a standard job in corporate America. A few times a year we have job fairs where all the top employers(google,cisco,boeing,morgan,ml,etc) come to campus and everyone tries their hardest to make a good impression and kiss ass to get hired just to settle into a typical corporate job with no other aspirations.

This just absolutely sickens me; so many bright young people who are content and eager to work for someone else, and they act like getting hired by a large corporation is a blessing and that it is the best way to proceed in life. I have periodically thought about working on wall street in sales&trading for a few years just to accumulate money.

However, I just cannot see myself taking this path and ending up in a boring 9-5 corporate job like everyone else I know. I mean my parents, relatives and friends all have regular jobs working for someone else and even though they may make a good amount of money it just seems like such a restricted standard way to live. Don't get me wrong, it is very respectable to work a steady job for your whole life. However I feel that in 60 years when I look back on my life I would feel nothing but regret at least not trying to achieve something better.

The only way I can see myself proceeding is starting my own venture and carving out my own path. However I realize that very few people actually make it bigtime, some end up as average business owners, and the majority simply fail and don't accomplish anything. I want to make it bigtime, but I realize that there is a very high probability I will end up as a failure with nothing to show for all my hopes and plans.

My relatives, especially the older ones, want me to get a good paying corporate job because they think that is the only way to become someone in life. I'm a firm believer of the phrase "If you keep doing what you've been doing you'll keep getting what you've been getting". I can see how everyone I know lives their life and by doing what they are doing, there is no way to achieve something greater. I try to explain this to my relatives and they think I'm talking out of my ass and that there is no other path to take.

Simply put, I want to accomplish something great in my lifetime, but know that chances are stacked against me and that I will end up as a failure like the millions of people before me who also wanted to achieve greatness. Do those who make it bigtime attribute it to attitude or dumb luck? Does anyone else feel the same way? Anyone been down this path before that can offer some advice? Thanks for reading.

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- you want to make it bigtime
- you want to start a venture, go down your own path...

...because you hate the possibility of being 'stuck' in a corporate 9-5.

well, guess what? you're stuck.

NOBODY who made it "bigtime" did so for those reasons. they did it because they loved what they were doing, not b/c the hated the other options.

the word "passion" or love to do something didn't appear in your post. that means that no matter what you do, you're likely to not be happy unless you find what it is you WANT to do and pursue that.

if you had $1mil in the bank right now, what would you want to do every day that would make you happy ? (hookers & blo don't count. it has to be an occupation type thing)

start from there.

my dad always had a saying:

"do what you love in life. the money will follow. if it doesn't, at least you had a great life."

Barron

[Thremp]

Barron,

You're somewhat right and somewhat wrong. Money does follow from what you love. But that saying doesn't hold true in all cases. I could give up gambling tomorrow if I knew I had the freedom to wake up each day, decide on a plan of action, and have the financial resources to carry it out. I do enjoy gambling, but I don't enjoy it as much as I enjoy other things. Though I'm 100% positive some people who ended up by some definitions of "bigtime" (retired <35), hated what they did or atleast disdained it enough to eschew it completely post retirement.

newcool,

Bigtime really depends on what you mean by that. If you want to become and entrepreneur earning a few hundo a year, that isn't out of the world and very easily achievable by those who're talented and work hard. Some element of luck comes into play for those who're very wealthy.

I was in a position similar to yours (not as many recruiting ops) and ended up doing fairly well gambling initially. My expectations have soared as it is 1) something I enjoy 2) I have success at. I am now on pace to earn more than any first year kid on WS with about half the hours, but I do enjoy what I do and I work hard at it. I'm not going to say one path is better than another. (I have not some much regrets... But more of curiosity over what would have happened if I had gone to public school or etc etc.) But sit down one day and decide if you want to roll the dice or just grind it out. Then again there are people who grind it out, but move beyond that to change the world. I don't know where this is going as this subject is very philosophical and probably deals too much with happiness research and disappointing topics like that. Good luck.

[jman3232]

I am in a similar situation. I still have a couple years till graduation, but I know what you are saying. I would like to get something going, but I do not know where to begin or what to do.

[BuddyQ]

[ QUOTE ]
my dad always had a saying:
"do what you love in life. the money will follow. if it doesn't, at least you had a great life."
Barron

[/ QUOTE ]

Barron, these twenty words are better than the millions (billions?) of words Al Gore has bloviated in the past twenty years, I'm nominating your dad for the next Nobel.

[newcool]

Wow guys thanks for all of the interesting replies.

In response to spider: When I graduate I won't have much money(a few thousand) but I will have tons of student loans. No specific plan either, but I do have some potential ideas, that I could try to turn into something solid. I will have some perspective though from various college experiences(real field stuff, not from inclass learning). My main asset will be perspective and a sheer passion to build up a company from scratch into something big.

In response to someone who asked what I would like to do if I had a million in the bank, I would have to say I would honestly want to be leading my own company, making decisions, and growing it. This is what my passion basically is. Just as long as I am working on it, and not in it. I think the ride is a lot more important then any possible money.

Its the perennial fear that a 9-5 job will result in a mediocore quality of life such as described by above posters, and that it will inevitably delay for a few years any ideas of entrepreneurship. Also as GoblinMason said the feeling of settling the standard will always remain by taking a job.

I dont know, but I am considering taking a job at a small startup company because of the unusually innovative culture.

[Tien]

Just because you are new to being an entrepreneur doesn't mean you can't go out there and start up a new company today.

Being an entrepreneur is often times a skill that needs to be practiced. The more you are out there figuring out ways to implement your own ideas, the more you train your entrepreneurial skill.

Unless you are naturally gifted like Michael Dell or Bill Gates, your first big company you start will rarely be the one that hits the home run. For the rest of us, we need to constantly be in the trenches tinkering new businesses failing over and over until we hit something big.



When I first started out I had a lot of problems trying to come up with ideas that can make me money or how to implement those ideas. But as the years go by, it gets easier and easier to come up with ideas as well as implement them.

[kimchi]

I felt the same when I was finishing Uni. I hated the idea of doing what everyone else was doing, and my family hated my alterniative plan (which involved living in a cottage with a mountainside community).

You should do what you want to do and not be governed by what is considered 'standard'. If you surround yourself with people who can have a +EV influence, while being as polite as possible while you distance yourself from the opinions of those with a -EV influence on your plans (relatives), then you'll have a much greater possibliility of whatever 'achievement' means to you.

I chose to reduce my costs and have lots of time off every year, instead of stressing myself out so that I can buy a new Beemer or something else I don't need but society requires I purchase to keep me from stopping grinding.

[SunOfBeach]

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I chose to reduce my costs and have lots of time off every year, instead of stressing myself out so that I can buy a new Beemer or something else I don't need but society requires I purchase to keep me from stopping grinding.

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vnh, sir. I wish I thought like this more often...

[Mark1808]

I knew many people who used the experience and contacts from a corporate job to successfuly go out on their own in a niche business they could never have done without the corporate job. The corporate job enables you to learn and gain experience while getting paid and forming some good bonds. I was in the corporate world for about 15 years before striking out on my own 16 years ago. I get much more enjoyment and fullfillment out of my own deal but I do not think I could have pulled it off without the corporate experience.

The previous poster gave geat advice, you really have to enjoy what you do. The cycles in business mean that sometimes you will really struggle and it is imperative that you enjoy what you are doing. If I was you I would take a job I found challenging working with people I enjoyed and keep my eyes and ears open for entreprenurial ideas.