In my view, the problem about studying is that you spend a good two years of your degree essentially learning how to study – and my final year was crammed with technical training and what I’d like to call the real stuff.
Essentially, I was trained in basic techniques for two years, got a huge amount of subject knowledge in the final year and then found myself within an analyst training programme that was like an executive MBA and brought everyone up to speed. At the end of ten weeks of sitting in the stuffy training centre at Smithfields meat market, every last “I’ve got a masters in Shakespeare” spoke banker lingo. So why study business if you get taught seemingly everything you need to know by your employer?
Let’s revisit my idea of learning everything in the last year of a business degree – essentially, with a one-year masters degree, you double your training time used on teaching advanced, truly value-adding concepts. And this time, it’s at masters’ level – this time, our professors mean business. At London Business School, where most students are coming out of two to six years of work experience, your background is taken into account. Coming out of an investment banking job puts you right in the limelight. And unfortunately for me, our professors are aware what you’ve done before.
The problem with being an investment banker is that everybody you meet always wants to talk about the economy, and “the Crisis”, and what is gonna happen next. Honestly, try it out – become an investment banker and then go to a dinner party and try having a conversation with people. It will invariably hinge around your job – and to what people think you do.
And people always assume you will know everything about just about anything and will expect that you speak knowledgeably about any industry, the gold price, WTI (“Texas light sweet”) forwards, and that crazy son-of-a-gun M&A deal that happened in Libyan telecoms last week and how that’ll affect the long-term regional value creation aspects in the TMT sector.
If you’re really unlucky, you find yourself having been singled out, separated and monopolised by someone eager to fight a pitched battle over LBO valuation nitty-gritty, while you try to convince the waitress to bring you two mojitos at once to make your situation more bearable. No wonder investment bankers normally stick to their own kind.
So, there and back again, do I really know everything?
Essentially, I was trained in basic techniques for two years, got a huge amount of subject knowledge in the final year and then found myself within an analyst training programme that was like an executive MBA and brought everyone up to speed. At the end of ten weeks of sitting in the stuffy training centre at Smithfields meat market, every last “I’ve got a masters in Shakespeare” spoke banker lingo. So why study business if you get taught seemingly everything you need to know by your employer?
Let’s revisit my idea of learning everything in the last year of a business degree – essentially, with a one-year masters degree, you double your training time used on teaching advanced, truly value-adding concepts. And this time, it’s at masters’ level – this time, our professors mean business. At London Business School, where most students are coming out of two to six years of work experience, your background is taken into account. Coming out of an investment banking job puts you right in the limelight. And unfortunately for me, our professors are aware what you’ve done before.
The problem with being an investment banker is that everybody you meet always wants to talk about the economy, and “the Crisis”, and what is gonna happen next. Honestly, try it out – become an investment banker and then go to a dinner party and try having a conversation with people. It will invariably hinge around your job – and to what people think you do.
And people always assume you will know everything about just about anything and will expect that you speak knowledgeably about any industry, the gold price, WTI (“Texas light sweet”) forwards, and that crazy son-of-a-gun M&A deal that happened in Libyan telecoms last week and how that’ll affect the long-term regional value creation aspects in the TMT sector.
If you’re really unlucky, you find yourself having been singled out, separated and monopolised by someone eager to fight a pitched battle over LBO valuation nitty-gritty, while you try to convince the waitress to bring you two mojitos at once to make your situation more bearable. No wonder investment bankers normally stick to their own kind.
So, there and back again, do I really know everything?
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