Teacher guide · Unit 12 of 13
Career Paths
What the finance jobs actually involve, day to day, hours included.
- Lessons
- 5
- Reading
- 39 minutes
- Unit quiz
- 5 questions
- Class time
- 2 periods
Class time is a guide: 45-minute periods, with the lessons, the unit quiz and a discussion. Students can read lessons at home and take the quiz in class, or the other way round.
By the end of the unit, students can
- describe what investment bankers, consultants, venture investors and asset managers actually do day to day
- weigh the pay, hours and later options of each path honestly
- explain what tends to predict success in running your own business, and the tradeoffs of trying
The lessons
Each ends with a one-question check, and students who pass the unit quiz can go on to three optional stages of harder lessons, for bronze, silver and gold medals.
- 12.1Investment banking8 min
80 to 100 hour weeks are standard for the first two years. The exits are the real product.
- 12.2Consulting8 min
You will know a little about many industries and be an expert in none.
- 12.3Venture capital (as a career)7 min
You find out whether you were right in seven to ten years.
- 12.4Asset management8 min
Frequently the best lifestyle-to-compensation ratio in finance.
- 12.5Entrepreneurship (as a career)8 min
About half of new businesses are gone within five years. Do it with clear eyes.
New Jersey Standard 9.1
This unit goes beyond Standard 9.1: none of the state’s grade 12 expectations is mapped to it. See the full alignment for the units that teach them.
Questions for discussion
- Which job in this unit would suit you least, and why? What would you have to believe to choose it anyway?
- First-year investment bankers often work 80 to 100 hours a week for very high pay. Is it worth it, and for whom?
- A venture investor may not know whether a decision was right for seven to ten years. What kind of person does well with feedback that slow?