Change Decisions

If You Could Change One Decision in Your Career, What Would It Be?

This applicant was accepted by the following business schools: Columbia University and New York University (Stern).

Shortly after I graduated from college, when I was laid off from my job at Bank of America, I accepted a position in the margins department at T. Rowe Price. An ambitious self-starter, I was frustrated by the menial nature of the job. My duties were significantly less challenging than my role at Bank of America, which offered managerial possibilities. When I didn't see an immediate opportunity to prove myself, I began to question whether a financial career was right for me. Rather than consider an alternative position in finance, I decided to pursue my childhood dream of running my own business. After less than a year, I resigned from T. Rowe Price and started www.FlashWeb.com, a web design firm.

As an early "internet junkie," I was definitely ahead of the curve, both creatively and financially. Few other small companies were designing web sites in 1996, and my firm enjoyed a huge competitive advantage. Yet within a matter of months, I realized that I had made a terrible mistake. I missed the fast-paced environment of finance and became restless in a sedentary job in front of a computer screen. Many days, while completing a project with Flash animation, I found myself listening to the market reports on CNBC. After careful introspection, I admitted to my myself that my true calling was to work in finance, regardless of the time required to prove myself.

Unfortunately, I re-entered the job market during one of the worst economic climates in recent memory. After an extensive search, I accepted a position as a human resources coordinator at the Royal Bank of Scotland. Although the job is only tangentially related to finance,