Finance has never been one of my strong suits. I took one single course in Financial Management my junior year, had enough common-sense to matter-of-factly designate the last row in the classroom as my permanent seating area, for obvious reasons: it made being late and unconscious in class on a regular basis a lot more expedient, and inconspicuous, or so I had hoped. Perhaps it was because I truly had a knack for wolfing down whatever academic rations that was stuffed down my throat, or maybe I had the teacher to thank for curving the grade, or perhaps it was really because most of the class, even the ones who managed to stay awake throughout the semester, was just as dumbfounded as I was, in what seemed very much like a trance (which in reality, wasn't too far from the truth...), I managed to survive finance unscathed.
The very first time that I was confronted with just how financially inept I was, was during my third round of interview with McKinsey. Yes, I have succumbed to corporate recruitment and like so many innocent others was completely smittened by the brand name "McKinsey" for no particularly rational reasons. I was asked how I would advice upon my fictional superior who fancies an early retirement and plans to purchase a vineyard in Napa. Oh believe me, it was not as easy as it appeared to be, there was in fact a whole lot of financial aspects that needed to be taken into consideration given that at its core it's really an investment decision. I give myself extra brownie points for not fainting right on the spot upon being asked to solve a case that literally was a blow to my weakest of all weaknesses. Horror-stricken and with sweaty palms, I managed to come up with series of complicated calculations based on assumptions that were required to be rooted in common sense (I had serious doubts as to having any throughout the interview...). The nightmare lasted for two hours or so. By the end of the interview, my interviewer looked over my resume and transcript and posed a question that till today still makes me wonder whether it was meant as a revelation to explain my poor performance or admiration that I had pulled the case off with so little financial knowledge and background. .
"So you only had one course in finance?"
I'm guessing the former probably made more sense
I can now proudly (?) say that no, in fact, I'm starting my very second course in finance, and this time round I have every intention to stay 120% lucid and focused, ready to soak up every single word the teacher has to say, all those vital pieces to the diabolic finance puzzle that had once upon a time been so easily engulfed and choked out by the multitudes of z's which had so clobbered my consciousness.
And so we got our finance midterms back today(10/24/09). Praise God for how gloriously generous she was in grading us. For that one question that I was so devastated about, she had awarded me with near-perfect points, even though I plugged in the wrong number, and ultimately came up with answers that were far from correct. On the otherhand, I felt that there was still major room for improvement in that there was this one question which I lost the most points on simply because I had been in too much of a rush to actually read through the problem properly.
Looking down at my exam, there were still parts of me that wished that I could be seeing something that began with a 9. It's not so much because I'm trying to live up to unwarranted reputation that I have been labeled with, it's wanting to know that I have what it takes to excel not just on paper, but in addition to. It's almost comical how much our lives are governed by numbers. We step on the scale each morning and lose our breath when the needle slips a bit too much to the right; our brows furrow a little bit more when we read our latest bank statement (I'm guessing it's the same all around these days); and for us students who not only have to worry about all of the above, but simultaneously must suffer the trauma from receiving quarterly report cards.
To a certain point, learning in essence isn't so much about getting A's anymore. I feel like once you hit that, you know that the process of acquiring knowledge is for your own good, and that meant taking in whatever came your way. Like Finance. And Stats. Standing at the juncture right now, I know that I have risen above my previous juvenille ambitions to merely see my name on an honor roll; I want to walk away with as much as I can possibly extract out of this experience, and it sure as heck isn't just about passing and failing in class, but passing and failing in real life.
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