ZL-1 thanks for your comments.
Honestly the things which are driving me are:
1. Motivation and determination, and 2. Desire to achieve something higher and something which I know I am capable of doing.
On a personal note ZL-1, I was in a car accident almost three years ago on my 25th birthday and it has given me some disability in my left arm (it helps to be ambidextrous). That said the good things which came out of the it was that it made me more determined, calm and patient under stress and helped me gain better focus to my life. I am coming to a point where I think that I am stagnating in Civil Engineering. I do not want to stagnate. I will not mind to go to B-school, but if I can get my experience and my education to work for these firms without going to B-school, why not try this route? I know it is going to be difficult, but hey at least I am moving to achieve something. Will I be successful? I do not know, but I will certainly give it a more than 100% try.
And as regards to my inclination to Non-Profits, there are two main reasons:
1. My foster mom passed away on Dec 31, 2006. She was one of my main influences in shaping me, especially when I came to United States. Her brother and I started a fund to help the special education kids in her school for their extra and co-curricular activities. He and I are the trustees, and I want that fund to grow and be a national fund and to shoot the moon an international fund. For that it would be better to understand how Non-Profits work, and rather than going in one Non-Profit organization and studying it, why not see a lot more with different backgrounds? The only way that will help is joining a Consulting firm which caters those firms. Like I said earlier, that is where McKinsey got more brownie points, as it was one of the few who had detailed section about Non-Profits.
2. I was very influenced by the writings of Peter Drucker and his ideas of Non-Profits, and how corporate management can benefit by following Non-profit model of management.
Although I love finance, my inclination is more towards strategic, and organizational-operational forms of management consulting. I play chess, and strategy always fascinates me, and I think I am reasonably good at it. The is one thing I have been learning over the past few weeks, to help me in strategic management consulting is the GAME THEORY. It is really a fascinating subject.
I think I am emotionally quite strong to handle the fast paced, demanding consulting life. I have no burdens or holding backs to not to do consulting. Besides off the record, is it not cool to offer two cents to a CEO? :AH-HA_wink: and get paid for it. ( )