Motivations for pursuing Finance

Genre and Sub Genre — Verbal Folklore: Orally relayed experiences and beliefs

Language: English

Country where Item is from: United States

Informant Data:  Agastya Gupta is a junior at Dartmouth College majoring in Computer Science. He is originally from the town of Saratoga in the Silicon Valley region of California. Both of his parents work in business development or finance, and he has participated in corporate recruiting here at Dartmouth for finance careers as well. He has been very successful in receiving both winter and summer internships, where he will be working at a private equity firm and a hedge fund. On campus, Agastya is a member of Chi Gamma Epsilon and does research at the Tuck School of Business.

Social Context: Given the very grueling nature of Finance jobs and the host of sacrifices one is compelled to make as a junior employee, prospective graduates must have a high level of conviction that a career in Finance is truly something they want to pursue. In light of that, senior undergraduate students will often question those younger than them who ostensibly want to go into Finance why exactly it is they think they might be interested in Finance. As such, the folklore in question is not only circulated among Econ and Business majors more generally, but among those who are more junior and those who are more senior in their undergraduate careers. This verbal folklore is shared amongst both males and females who aspire to careers in Finance.

 

Cultural Context: In a country where employment opportunities abound, it is often hard for people to decide what it is they want to do professionally. And given the myriad of choices one often has, it becomes imperative to do one’s due diligence about different fields of work so one can make an informed decision about what one’s best career path may be. In the same vein, it is also important for one to pursue something they’re passionate about. This is something particularly emphasized in American culture and impressed upon graduating college students. And so, in order to understand this particular aspect of corporate recruiting, we collected folklore surrounding the experiences and beliefs people had with respect to pursuing particular fields of work, and in this particular case, Finance. To this end, Agastya was interviewed by Joseph Wang one-on-one in a quiet area in the library. We interviewed other individuals as well, but for the sake of brevity, have simply included some of their insights here as opposed to creating another submission entirely.

 

Item: Agastya Gupta cited a host of different reasons for pursuing a career in Finance. The prestige, power, and clout associated with a job in Finance were things he cited as motivating his interest in Finance. He also noted the ability to work with really intelligent, ambitious, and driven people as being particularly compelling things about working in Finance. The exit opportunities available to one after a stint in Finance was also among the things he cited that made Finance particularly compelling. Interestingly enough, he also noted that people pursue Finance because everyone else is doing it or to secure external validation.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Relevant Portion: From 00:00 — 1:42

Transcript of Associated File:

  • Joseph Wang: Can you talk to me about some of the common beliefs you’ve heard in regards to motivations in the Finance Industry…. and can you talk a little about the of the positive and negative stereotypical motivations regarding the Finance Industry?

 

  • Agastya Gupta: Yea….  so…. I mean you typically hear that it’s all about the money, the power, the prestige and ahh….  you know, I think, you know a big reason people pursue Finance is because everyone else seems to be doing it and they don’t actually understand the nature of the job and what they want to do with it long term. I don’t think any of these things, seeking out money, power, and prestige early in your career are necessarily bad things, it’s important to do that right… it’s important to cultivate your network early on in your career… what I do think is problematic is everyone sort of falling in and just applying for Finance Jobs without actually understanding the nature of the role and where they want to be in five years. Its.. it’s… the hours tend to be very long.. The job tends to be very grueling… people assume that it’s just the thing to do… without really understanding what they want to get out it… that’s what really problematic… not the fact that people are motivated by Finance or the desire to build their network….

 

Informant’s Comments:

  • Informant just finished recruiting and feels particularly relieved. He credits his success in the recruiting cycle to his clear understanding of why he wanted to pursue Finance.

Collector’s Comments:

  • Informant was very lucid and had a good understanding of the motivations behind pursuing a career in Finance and why he himself was particularly drawn to Finance.

General Comments:

  • What is cited here with respect to the motivations for pursuing Finance largely jibe with what our other informants told us. Another thing we found that our informants cited as a motivating force is the monetary compensation that one receives that ultimately enables one to pay off the student loans incurred pursuing a degree at a preeminent institution like Dartmouth. Beyond some of positive aspects of working in Finance, some people cited a general interest in the actual subject matter of Finance. The opportunity to work on a host of different transactions was something people cited as being particularly compelling.

Collector’s Name:

  • Joseph Wang

Tags/Keywords:

  • Verbal Folklore / Experiences

 

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