I can’t help but think and regret that if I worked as hard in Uni as I am now for the CFA then I would have come out with a top grade. A few of my uni pals landed analyst roles in Goldman straight after university…I know if only I got a few more marks…did a few more questions, concentrated a bit more I could be living high life now…just like them.
I really regret not working hard and being dilligent at university.
I think I smoked too much…had too much to drink…and certainly shagged my way through to many women…
You have joined a huge group of people that have looked back and realized they should have worked harder back in school.
There are even people that would take it a step further and say they should have worked harder in high school, to get to a top college, and get into that “elite club status”
I was one of those people. Young, first time away from home, a uni with over 60% being female. I regret not spending more time studying. But that was in the past and now it’s time to focus on the goal ahead.
Yeah, it sucks bc one wrong step has such a strong impact on the future. What we can do now is to make the best of the situation e.g the game isn’t over till it’s over, LOL
First, I wish I had worked harder, for personal reasons. I wish I had paid more attention in my CS classes. It would have made my life much easier, as I slogged through re-learning everything I had been taught. I also could have said somewhere on my resume that I earned some top honors or something like that (if that sort of thing matters to people).
Second, I graduated into such a terrific job market that it wouldn’t have made a difference in the world. I landed a front-office trading job without even looking for one. I batted away offers of positions I had absolutely no chance of doing successfully. Lucky circumstance, for sure.
I seriously dicked around my entire undergrad and finished with a subpar gpa. I wish I had worked harder as I would have gotten off to a better start and wouldn’t have had to waste valuable years in the back office and as a retail broker. I have had to make up for my poor performance in undergrad by graduating with honors in my MSF program and completing the CFA program. However, I find that no one ever asks about my undergrad performance. They really are most concerned with my experience, graduate studies and the fact that I earned the CFA charter.
I worked pretty hard in college. Definitely harder than I am accustomed to working now. It was quite a stressful environment. Not really a party school.
I worked just enough in college to get B+ grades. I studied much harder for the CFA exams and passed quite easily. A finance degree or the CFA exam is not rocket science. You put in the time and you’ll be fine.
I did diddly-squat in college as far as studying goes and don’t regret it at all. The only regret I have is that I spent too much time getting drunk with my friends and not enough time with the ladies.
Did not do much in college and wasted 1.5 years getting some work experience after college since I never bothered to do real summer jobs or other kinds of jobs.
But do i regret it? No!
I now know what it is like to have to work hard to get something and I learned many other skills back in those days that are not being taught in college. The harder it was to reach my goals the more proud I am of them now!
I guess that some of the hard working people who landed nice jobs right after college will also regret never kissing a girl or smoking some weed. They spend their best years with their nose in the books and now live unhappily in a big house with a bitch of a wife. Who knows…
I finished with a 2.8 or 2.9 I think. Living with 8 of my best buds probably wasn’t a good idea… going to only a handful of lectures per semester? I’m suprised I even passed. The crazy part is I got basically straight A’s in all my econ/finance classes, it was the retarded options (spanish, art history, etc) that killed my GPA.
I sure miss those days though. The only hesitation i have about any of it is that IF I decide to go for an MBA I don’t know how to get past the shitty gpa
I came originally from Korea and have been living in London for 10 years. Being an Asian, I have studied really hard and I got very very good gpa (4.1 out of 4.5). On my master’s degree, I didn’t get distinction but I had a good pass, graduated with a good mark on my dissertation.
When I was trying to get a job in London first time, even with the good grade, I don’t think it benefited me anyway at all. The reason I got the job was due to my work experience with PWC etc, not my grade.
I never put in a lot of time but was able to get a pretty good GPA in math at a good LAC basically because I have an affinity for math and test-taking in general (even did pretty well on the Putnam and a couple other similar exams). High school was the real issue for me, as my working style wasn’t suited to the “busy work” mentality of most public school teachers…had under a 3.5 and was well outside the top 10% at my rural HS when I applied to schools…my SATs and probably essay contests I had won were the only thing that got me into where I did.
I never had any ambition to work in finance or Wall Street, just wanted to do my PhD in econ and teach. Partway through my program I got bored, left to teach English abroad, traveled a lot and developed pretty good proficiency in a couple foreign languages, then got a job at a bank (where I first heard about CFA) and have decided that finance-related stuff actually is a pretty good match for my skill set and interests. No regrets, and I’ve always got MBA/JD as a backup option.
2.7 GPA from a mid-tier university. Worked as a cold caller out of college. No regrets though, I had a great time in the ten years post-graduate and did not accomplish too much professionally. Just now deciding to work pretty hard and learn a bit more.
my story exactly, had a 3.5 major average. Borderline passed every other elective I took, which killed my overall gpa. Still remember showing up to my 2nd year french exam still drunk from the night before, and left after 30 mins when the prof told me I can’t draw on the exam papers.
Hoping the CFA, work experience, and 2 years in a non-profit will get me into a top 20 MBA program.
I worked too hard in school, didn’t sleep with enough different ladies, blah blah. Graduated with like a 3.6 overall GPA. Not like it wound up mattering. Got my worse grades in the stupid required core, liberal arts classes…damn C+ in english lit, a B in philosophy. Useless crap. Only C anything I ever got was that english class.
Its kind of funny, grades both matter and are irrelevant at the same time. They use them as a screening mechanism, but then you can lose out on a job to somebody with worse qualifications.
