Job Day

It is a whole year gift that I receive an offer with JPM. After celebration with friends and parents, I come to these three realizations below.

1. Finding an internship may not be as hard as I thought before. Neither are other things. As a young man, we just began our journey to the real world. Opportunities are plenty. So the things that matter are that we need to have confidence. Confidence keeps my eyes open and thus willing to give a shot to things that someone else assume impossible. In fact, the biggest cost is not failure, but opportunity cost. If I decided to take an easier intern instead of a tough one, then I would sacrifice this great opportunity, the cost of which is big!

2. Academics and real business world could be every different. Think of what factors evaluate academic success and what factors measure career success. Examinations, grades, GPA are really standardized measurements of academic success, but there is no measurement of initiative, passion, in person skills, etc. On the other hand, career success is measured by non-standardized factors. Either competent jerks or lovable fools can have their achievements in the office.

3. Money is a matter that doesn't matter. I was shocked at first that I am paid so handsomely. But soon I realized money could be good thing if I don’t pay attention to it but can be a very bad thing if I always want to know how to spend it. Right now I spend an average $650(tuition not included) every month to fulfill my basic needs. I live happily and healthily, so any extra amount of money spent on fulfilling basic needs would be unnecessary. So, say hi to money and then walk away from it (making investments is another topic).

These are my realizations within the past 24 hours after receiving the offer. I will keep posting my new thoughts and hope everyone can leave your comments on these thoughts. 

The End of the Old College Life

There is nothing in this world that is not possible. We refuse to believe in something before we get our hands on it. We are too often scared by the opportunity cost and neglect the true expectation of an event. I was convinced by myself that at the beginning of my college life that I cannot crack into one of the top master programs in China, but now all my 3 roommates make this happen. There is one more year left before the end of the college life, where is my dream? I should believe I can make this happen too!

Life Style

The happiest people all have schedules for their lives. Routines keep a person busy and thus healthy. So keeping a life style is really vital. I will choose simplicity as I did before. This conception should serve as the guideline for every aspect of my life, including studying methods, electronic devices usage, eating habits, shopping checklists, so on and so forth.

Mathematics frustration

Sometimes the math homework can be so hard that I need to stand up and walk away from it. I know that as long as I sit down and keep working on it, I can work out every single problem.

A lost place

I have literally abandoned this place for almost half a year. It is also in this period of time that I found myself lost.

Memories often occurred to me that how positive and hopeful I was when I first stepped on this continent.

But they all gone.

I know the greatest enemy is always the person himself. Not his or her competitors, not destiny.

Human beings may never have full control over themselves, but the better they control themselves, the better the persons will be.

If I want to regain the hopeful, positive, and optimistic mind that I used to own, this is probably the first place to start. I will keep posting blogs about how I am going to improve myself. It also serves as a way to practice English.

See you tomorrow.

A Sleep

After a short sleep, I feel like waking up after a long frozen winter.  The streams of life are flowing in my body. I am reborn.

Places Where I can Practice My Knowledge

Last blog helps me straight up things. Now I am much more balanced and can calm down to think about how to strengthen my specialization knowledge. I always have the ideas that I can close the gap between classrooms and real world problems. For later reference, I write them down here.

1. Case studies in the class. We often have very challenging case studies in our business classes assigned by instructors. The sad thing is that after several all-nighters to barely finish the business memo (usually 7 pages long), we ended up leave it there for grading and never come back again. I think the best part of the case study lies not in the process of working it out, but after being provided the keys. I think I should at least spend half of the time that I spent on doing the case on the graded case. 

2. In our coporate finance class, we covered a lot of real business topics such as payout policy, coporate governance, etc. However, the time is so limited and I don’t have enough time to process them. I don’t have a chance to examine every theory and formula we learned in classroom to the real business world. In fact, there are a lot of ways I can extend my study. I read news everyday, from technology industry to banking industry. I can just select one of the events that is going on in the real business world and apply my knowledge gained from the classroom to the problem. Then I can even start a discussion with our dear professor. This will be fun. 

3. I may start to consider the CFA exam. Since it is hard to demonstrate my specialization skills based on my past experience, then this exam may give me a lift. The thing is once I registered, I need to commite myself to it with at least 50 percent of my free time. That means I may give up something. Time is so valuable to me at this stage of my life, every minute now will make difference in the future.