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May 29, 2009
motivation, school, career
I'm struggling with motivation today. Despite what my parents may think, vis-a-vis my brothers and I, I am not magically immune to laziness whereas they had to be cattle-prodded along to not end up failing out of grade school. Frankly, they just yelled at me more.
That is challenging, because in Real Life, there's a lot less yelling and a lot more a) doing what you want and b) silent, passive-aggressive judging. Nobody at work is going to say "hey maybe you should classify those bugs for the next project and send them off to India instead of writing a blog entry," they're just going to save it up for my next performance review and note that I'm "capable of getting things done" rather than "gets things done."
Anyway, that's where I'm at today. It's rainy in New England and I'm doing my weekly work-from-home day, hanging out with Labatt. I've got a Financial Statement Analysis paper due on Tuesday and a ton of reading to do, which may or may not get started today.
So there's a bi-polar distribution in academics with one pole being the very analytical, quantitative, "math-y" subjects, and the other being the very creative, qualitative, "English-y" subjects. On one end, obviously, is pure mathematics, and the other is probably English, or creative writing, or something like that...it's interesting that the more quantitative side of the distribution is also more concrete, whereas it's hard to tell what's more qualitative: art, literature, dramatics, etc.
At any rate, this makes sense, given a left-brain/right-brain view of the world, and fits neatly with my core elementary school subjects of English, social studies, science and math. I was best at English, then social studies, then science, then math, which made sense because the amount of qualitative insight decreases while quantitative analysis increases as you go down the list.
Biz school is very much the same, which brings us to the reason I mention it, which is that Financial Statement Analysis is fairly quantitative, and therefore, hard. Now, I should qualify that by saying that I think the first few classes are necessarily more quantitative because they're a review/refresher of basic accounting principles, which I haven't really used in a couple of years. I think as we go, the class is going to be much more of, "here's a footnote, what do you think it means and can you back it up with some basic equations?" But for right now, it's a fire hose of information.
But I do understand better the pitfalls of securitization, which is what caused the sub-prime mortgage meltdown, and I feel a little better in terms of understanding the real ramifications of accounting games on the annual report and how that can impact public (investor) perception of companies. Frankly, it makes me think that, unless you're Warren Buffett, just go ahead and buy an index fund. You're better off than trying to beat the market.
Unless you have insider information, in which case, enjoy jail!
School is going well, then, and work is going well, and I'm doing just fine with everything I'm doing. That said, I'm going through increasing anxiety of the "what should I do with my life?" variety, which is predicated on a) graduating in one year and b) noting on my LinkedIn account that I've been at this job exactly as long as I was at my first job. No, I'm not jumping ship; that would not make any sense given the present economy and my role in this job and various other reasons. I'm just "noodgy".
I think that what I want to be professionally is a Business Analyst. From Wikipedia: "A business analyst or "BA" is responsible for analyzing the business needs of clients to help identify business problems and propose solutions." So, a professional troubleshooter, which is what I do now, minus the actual software coding work, and plus a little more strategic input. I don't see myself hanging up my text editor anytime in the immediate future, but who knows.
Posted by Mark at May 29, 2009 12:43 PM
Comments
I would argue that math and science are not as polarized as you make them appear. Yes, they are unique subjects but they share a lot. English on the face is creativity, but its backbone is absolute structure, rules that you must follow to operate English properly. Math on its face is about laws and properties and structure but application of math can be quite creative: music.
Sounds like you career aspirations would make you a great candidate for a business consulting career. However, I can't see you ever working for a large firm; too much structure. I can see you telling people/businesses what they ought to be doing in a much more niche market.
Posted by: Matt D at May 29, 2009 11:34 PM
I commented on this. Why did you not approve my comment?
--Sorry, must have missed it...approving now. MWD
Posted by: Matt at June 5, 2009 01:01 AM
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