0Ls gunning for Big Law, why not finance? Forum

[Napt]

Actually pretty credited if you look at any standardized test, e.g. ACT, SAT, PISA, etc. Though I would say East Asians rather than Chinese.

Not true at all. That is a gender and racial stereotype. Give me hard data that backs up any of your assumptions.

http://professionals.collegeboard.com/p ... report.pdf
Asian Female Mean Mathematics Score -- 583
White Female Mean Mathematics Score -- 520

http://www.act.org/newsroom/data/2011/p ... al2011.pdf
Asians do better than Whites in math and males do better than females in math.

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/34/60/46619703.pdf
East Asian countries dominate in math.

If the quote was "Women do slightly worse on standardized math tests than men" you would be totally right.

However saying women can't do math unless they are Asian is completely incorrect.

Ya well obviously, I thought we could safely infer some sarcasm there.

[Geon]

QFP

WTF?

Women can't do math? Except the Chinese women?

Boxing day?

What country/century are you from?

Actually pretty credited if you look at any standardized test, e.g. ACT, SAT, PISA, etc. Though I would say East Asians rather than Chinese.

Not true at all. That is a gender and racial stereotype. Give me hard data that backs up any of your assumptions.

Walk into an engineering program, math program at your school. Even in high school, grade 12 physics, grade 12 math and algebra 90%+ men except that one foreign chinese girl. All stereotypes have truth.

I am sure you can find that one good non china/non korea girl, but you'd be hard pressed.

[dingbat]

Walk into an engineering program, math program at your school. Even in high school, grade 12 physics, grade 12 math and algebra 90%+ men except that one foreign chinese girl. All stereotypes have truth.

I am sure you can find that one good non china/non korea girl, but you'd be hard pressed.

How much of it is cultural/self-selection?

I'm very good at it, but I still think math sucks.
I know plenty of people who could probably do well in math but choose not to, because focusing on e.g. English Lit is less strenuous

[Geon]

Serious question.

Why isn't everyone here who is gunning for Big Law trying to break in to finance instead? If you have an arts and letters background, you could get an MSF and jump into an entry gig at 60-70k and work your way into IB after a couple of years.

Also, corporate attorneys at the end of the day are little more than some banker's bitch. Bankers and lawyers work similar hours (with bankers' being a bit worse up until reaching Vice President) but bankers are paid substantially more.

What's the deal?

I worked in a VC so hopefully I can give you some insight
Lawyers ... In my area... at small 5 people firms make between 250 (new lawyers) to $750 an hour and they also make $1000, or $10,000 a DAY when they have to represent someone in a court. Lawyers make money whether or not they win or lose, do a good job or a shit job they still get paid the same in MOST cases, as they usually demand payment before work is done. Law requires no mathematical skill (a big challenge for well over 99% of the female population-except chinese girls- and maybe 80% of men.)

Lets contrast that to finance. You make $32-$37 an hour to work 80-90 hours a week. You WILL work on new years eve and New Year's day, you will work on boxing day and christmas eve, you won't really have a vacation and statutory holidays are work days and you never make overtime. You will never make $10,000 a day just to represent someone in court. You (the firm) doesn't get paid if there is no deal - unlike lawyers who get paid before they even start work with a retainer. 5 years ago the starting salary here used to be 150k with bonus for ibankers. Well it works out to 32-37 an hour. Unlike law you almost never have down time, when you are not doing nothing, there is always almost more work than time. Now the US ibankers are getting paid way worse per hour, as I heard they are often pulling like 60k-100k WITH BONUS in NYC/manhattan, which is insanely low.

Of those 21% of people good in math, they usually are good in science as well and things like dentistry, doctor, engineer are attractive careers for these people as they often are not as good in writing. Business requires strong writing and strong math skills. A very rare combination. I have friends in med school who have poor writing skills but are great with science and numbers.

Law requires going to an easy undergrad program like gender studies, doing well on the lsat, then getting into a good law school and your pretty much set.

O Yes, and you speak of breaking into Ibanking like its easy, it is not, at not where I am, there was a time 5 years ago when if you went to a school like Queens, Schulich, Ivey and finished with B+ or better you had a decent shot, but not anymore.(I'm speaking from toronto perspective). Also after 3 years 90% of i bankers are jobless, 10% are promoted, 90% not rehired, but almost all find some employment elsewhere. Pretty much you only have 2 ways to become an analyst, get recruited out of school, or know someone. ITE with all the unemployed bankers, you'll have no chance of breaking in without having worked in the bank in a similar role. For example, in the last time I did interviews, we had guys with 15+ years of finance experience as bond traders applying for analyst as 300 got laid off in one day. So if you think you can just pop up and get hired like in the 80s or the 90s, its not like that anymore. In fact, I bet more people get into Yale, then get into legitimate Ibanking this way.

Also if you do not have the courses or the internships, then forget about it. If you don't know how to build a financial model... in fact in VC we joke, that those are the only models that I Bankers get, I digress... then fuhgettaboudit you aren't getting the job. I was lucky enough to have an I banker mentor me who was able to prepare me for the interviews so that I could get a job, but its not realistic to expect that from everyone. In fact even with that I couldn't get into a major I bank, but got hired at a major VC firm only because my mentor pulled strings- thats it, undergrads do not get hired in VCs-, why, because ITE, only people who have family are being hired, ok thats a bit of an exaggeration, but its a very very high percentage. As in we have about 7-8 major banks and all of them have hundreds of ibankers, and they all know someone who wants in, so if you do not know someone, it will be VERY HARD to get in ITE. No joke, I went to interviews, had calls from vice presidents and presidents of I banks telling me we think your great, you have a future in banking but we chose to hire internally, all to find out later the "internal hire" was a teller who was related to someone in the bank, some vp, some associate, someone,

QFP

WTF?

Women can't do math? Except the Chinese women?

Boxing day?

What country/century are you from?

Actually pretty credited if you look at any standardized test, e.g. ACT, SAT, PISA, etc. Though I would say East Asians rather than Chinese.

I'd say China + South Korea, that pretty much it, not even vietnam, indonesia, cambodians or thai are good in math. IDK about Japanese, not too many in ontario, but my guess is the japanese in Canada and america on the west coast are bad in math because they are basically americanized and as lazy and dumb as the rest of the north american populous when it comes to math.

[dingbat]

the japanese in Canada and america on the west coast are bad in math because they are basically americanized and as lazy and dumb as the rest of the north american populous when it comes to math.

So it is a cultural thing and not a race thing?

[Geon]

Women can't do math? Except the Chinese women?

http://professionals.collegeboard.com/p ... report.pdf
Asian Female Mean Mathematics Score -- 583
White Female Mean Mathematics Score -- 520

http://www.act.org/newsroom/data/2011/p ... al2011.pdf
Asians do better than Whites in math and males do better than females in math.

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/34/60/46619703.pdf
East Asian countries dominate in math.

There's a big difference between being a little less good and not being able to do something.
I'm open to arguments that the Male/Female difference is biological, but I think the Asian/Caucasian variance has more to do with culture than genetics

edit: scooped

Obviously no one is arguing that Chinese people have superior genes that makes them able to do math faster or more correctly or something. Reality is these people who are getting Cs in math are not capable of doing math. The Chinese who make it into the West are a different strand of Chinese, not the rural toothless peasants or the factory worker types who make 75% of China.

But any engineer, finance, or math based degree person can tell you women are not present heavily in these fields.

[Napt]

the japanese in Canada and america on the west coast are bad in math because they are basically americanized and as lazy and dumb as the rest of the north american populous when it comes to math.

So it is a cultural thing and not a race thing?

Except that's not true at all. Japanese in Japan do better than Americans at math and Japanese-Americans also do better than Americans at math. See: my links.

[Napt]

Walk into an engineering program, math program at your school. Even in high school, grade 12 physics, grade 12 math and algebra 90%+ men except that one foreign chinese girl. All stereotypes have truth.

I am sure you can find that one good non china/non korea girl, but you'd be hard pressed.

How much of it is cultural/self-selection?

I'm very good at it, but I still think math sucks.
I know plenty of people who could probably do well in math but choose not to, because focusing on e.g. English Lit is less strenuous

The female IQ is lower than the male IQ. The female IQ also clusters at the median while the male IQ is more variable -- meaning that females tend to be average without many extremes while males have more variability with more really stupid people and more really smart people. The high IQ people tend to do very good at upper-level math like calculus, and there are more high IQ people among the male population for the prior reasons I mentioned (males have higher average IQ and more variability).

[dingbat]

Obviously no one is arguing that Chinese people have superior genes that makes them able to do math faster or more correctly or something. The Chinese who make it into the West are a different strand of Chinese, not the rural toothless peasants or the factory worker types who make 75% of China.

Just to be clear, you're saying that the asiatic/caucasian difference is purely a matter of selection bias?

Reality is these people who are getting Cs in math are not capable of doing math.

I don't know to what extent it's a matter of not being capable, or a matter of not doing their utmost best to try to figure it out. I used to tutor people in math and found that the difference between a C and a B+ (or possibly an A-) was a combination of effort and explanation

The Chinese who make it into the West are a different strand of Chinese, not the rural toothless peasants or the factory worker types who make 75% of China.

This is not entirely true, as there are quite a few rural peasant or factory worker types who make it into the west (not too sure about the toothless part).

[Geon]

Walk into an engineering program, math program at your school. Even in high school, grade 12 physics, grade 12 math and algebra 90%+ men except that one foreign chinese girl. All stereotypes have truth.

I am sure you can find that one good non china/non korea girl, but you'd be hard pressed.

How much of it is cultural/self-selection?

I'm very good at it, but I still think math sucks.
I know plenty of people who could probably do well in math but choose not to, because focusing on e.g. English Lit is less strenuous

It is largely cultural. Small parts of it could be self selection (but it ain't racial).

The Japanese who came to the Americas where not necessarily the cream of the crop, they came here to work low wage jobs and build railroads and they have largely been influenced by Western culture. The Chinese in San Fran who came long time ago are just as dumb as the white counterparts in math. The Chinese who come as immigrants recently come through a process of self selection

1. They must already have highly desirable talents to enter America or Canada - more true for America than Canada as your immigration system is far more restrictive.
2. A minority of the Chinese and Korean immigrants come as refugees, these types often come from low class Chinese families and often are as dumb or dumber than Americans, speak no english and make up the majority of Toronto's low class Chinese in areas like China town - which use to be called jew town.
3. I'm good at math as well, but find it very stressful, it is far more difficult to solve 50 math problems than write a paper for geography or psychology or business ethics. Reality is those, those of us who find math stressful are not very good at it. We spend a large amount of time to get the same result as someone better in math would. And when you start taking advance senior math, you'd find it be a struggle and eventually your grades would slip.
4. I grew up around many upper class chinese and koreans, and their parents physically beat them pinch, and come within inches of what most whites would call child abuse if they do not get As in math and science.

[Geon]

the japanese in Canada and america on the west coast are bad in math because they are basically americanized and as lazy and dumb as the rest of the north american populous when it comes to math.

So it is a cultural thing and not a race thing?

Yes

[dingbat]

The female IQ is lower than the male IQ. The female IQ also clusters at the median while the male IQ is more variable -- meaning that females tend to be average without many extremes while males have more variability with more really stupid people and more really smart people.

Please show me research that has been published in a well-respected peer-reviewed journal proving that point.
I will accept this as true upon being presented with proper evidence hereof.

The high IQ people tend to do very good at upper-level math like calculus

I'm pretty sure this is a Tautology

[dingbat]

3. I'm good at math as well, but find it very stressful, it is far more difficult to solve 50 math problems than write a paper for geography or psychology or business ethics. Reality is those, those of us who find math stressful are not very good at it. We spend a large amount of time to get the same result as someone better in math would. And when you start taking advance senior math, you'd find it be a struggle and eventually your grades would slip.

I agree (somewhat) with all your other points except this.
I actually find math problems easier to solve than writing a paper. I was known for walking out of math exams in about 1/4 to 1/2 the alotted time and getting excellent results. I do not find math stressful at all.
I just don't like math and dropped it at the first opportunity I had. Because Math sucks.

[Geon]

Walk into an engineering program, math program at your school. Even in high school, grade 12 physics, grade 12 math and algebra 90%+ men except that one foreign chinese girl. All stereotypes have truth.

I am sure you can find that one good non china/non korea girl, but you'd be hard pressed.

How much of it is cultural/self-selection?

I'm very good at it, but I still think math sucks.
I know plenty of people who could probably do well in math but choose not to, because focusing on e.g. English Lit is less strenuous

The female IQ is lower than the male IQ. The female IQ also clusters at the median while the male IQ is more variable -- meaning that females tend to be average without many extremes while males have more variability with more really stupid people and more really smart people. The high IQ people tend to do very good at upper-level math like calculus, and there are more high IQ people among the male population for the prior reasons I mentioned (males have higher average IQ and more variability).

If the brain is a muscle, it makes sense that the larger muscle be the stronger muscle. Therefore men are generally larger than women so it makes sense they have larger brains and have the ability to be smarter with similar level of work. Ie. a woman must work hard to be equally smart as her male counterpart. This is probably why you see men at the top of all areas, even traditionally female things like cooking (top chefs), writing (top novelist/writers mostly me although mostly women care about shakspearean poems), fashion (karl lagerfield + 1 million gay designers), emotional intelligence (most the top books are written by men on the subject). They claim women are better at multi-tasking than men, but to me that just means they have more difficulty focusing on a single subject which would explain why they have difficulty being the best at anything even the top perfume makers of female perfume are all men, in fact it is almost as solidly gay men perfume designers as gay men female jean designers and gay men ceos.

[Napt]

The female IQ is lower than the male IQ. The female IQ also clusters at the median while the male IQ is more variable -- meaning that females tend to be average without many extremes while males have more variability with more really stupid people and more really smart people.

Please show me research that has been published in a well-respected peer-reviewed journal proving that point.
I will accept this as true upon being presented with proper evidence hereof.

It's near consensus that males have a slightly higher average iq than females so I'm not gonna bother linking you to a bunch of studies on that; but here's some of the studies on variability:
http://precedings.nature.com/documents/3238/version/1
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7604277
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2008/07/sta ... -male.html[/quote]

ETA: I should add that the PC/liberal/feminist explanation for the lack of high-scoring/intelligent women is more due to cultural, discrimination, and socialization issues rather than a sheer lack of aptitude. See: Lawrence Summers-Harvard controversy re: lack of women in science and engineering in academia.

[Geon]

Obviously no one is arguing that Chinese people have superior genes that makes them able to do math faster or more correctly or something. The Chinese who make it into the West are a different strand of Chinese, not the rural toothless peasants or the factory worker types who make 75% of China.

Reality is these people who are getting Cs in math are not capable of doing math.

The Chinese who make it into the West are a different strand of Chinese, not the rural toothless peasants or the factory worker types who make 75% of China.

Just to be clear, you're saying that the asiatic/caucasian difference is purely a matter of selection bias?
I don't know to what extent it's a matter of not being capable, or a matter of not doing their utmost best to try to figure it out. I used to tutor people in math and found that the difference between a C and a B+ (or possibly an A-) was a combination of effort and explanationThis is not entirely true, as there are quite a few rural peasant or factory worker types who make it into the west (not too sure about the toothless part).[/quote]

1. Yes it is selection bias from what I've seen.
2. Its not all Asians, just Chinese and South Koreans really. Cambodians, vietnamese. etc just as bad in math as any other country I've seen
3. I think many people are incapable of math because it requires a long memory of past math rules.
4. What do you mean by explanation? I know plenty of people who try really hard in math, dedicating 3-4x more time to solving math than other courses and still nothing.
5. China is still a communist country that restricts the movement of its people in and out of the country. It'd be very difficult for a rural China person or factory type to get out of China. You also have to understand that many of the refugees lie and are coached by Chinese-Canadian/american lawyers into saying xyz to get asylum and they must publicly stick to this story. I knew a chinese who was from the upper class of some part of China and was a low level delegate to Sri Lanka, basically didn't leave when they were suppose to and came to Canada and claimed asylum, lied about their background and basically says that they were some peasant farmer who was tortured and escaped. The truth is if you are a poor chinese, you cannot just hop on a plane and LEAVE china. The fact that they are able to leave china 1 usually already indicates they are very wealthy. Think of what the average Chinese factory workers makes, and then think of what a plane ticket cost. Then ask yourself how an unskilled factory worker can LEGALLY immigrate to a place like Canada or USA that has 5-10 year waiting list for unskilled labourers who are approved. There are poor chinese (poor by chinese standards), but they are the minority coming to the west.

[dingbat]

The female IQ is lower than the male IQ.

average sex differences have been generally small and stable over time

The average (mean) scores for males and females for a variety of
quantitative traits, including IQ, are almost identical

The research you presented does back up your comment on the variance and I will accept it as truth.
Therefore, it does make sense that there are more men working in fields that require a very high IQ.

However, it does not mean men are smarter than women, it just means that proportionally there are more very smart men than very smart women.
(I know, semantics, but it still has a very different meaning)

[Geon]

The female IQ is lower than the male IQ. The female IQ also clusters at the median while the male IQ is more variable -- meaning that females tend to be average without many extremes while males have more variability with more really stupid people and more really smart people.

Please show me research that has been published in a well-respected peer-reviewed journal proving that point.
I will accept this as true upon being presented with proper evidence hereof.

It's near consensus that males have a slightly higher average iq than females so I'm not gonna bother linking you to a bunch of studies on that; but here's some of the studies on variability:
http://precedings.nature.com/documents/3238/version/1
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7604277
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2008/07/sta ... -male.html

I should add that the PC/liberal/feminist explanation for the lack of high-scoring/intelligent women is more due to cultural, discrimination, and socialization issues rather than a sheer lack of aptitude. See: Lawrence Summers-Harvard controversy re: lack of women in science and engineering in academia.

I am inclined to agree with you, white women are just not particularly good in math.

Ironically women are going to find themselves INCREASINGLY POOR, as they continue to "outlearn" men. I just saw an article in the seatlle times about how this illegal alien man owns a half a million dollar home and then see the article linked from this site about 10 unemployed grads and how this law school white girl has no job and is on food stamps. That looks like the future, the women will continue to pour into universities and pursue useless degrees, and men will say screw school go work in a job after high school that requires no debt, and women will complain of income inequality and how it is somehow men's fault for starting all those companies that make money and tricking them into useless degrees that cost lots of money and lead to the same jobs as if they didn't pursue them. Or one could just say men outsmart women by voluntarily not going to college.

[dingbat]

1. Yes it is selection bias from what I've seen.
2. Its not all Asians, just Chinese and South Koreans really. Cambodians, vietnamese. etc just as bad in math as any other country I've seen agreed
3. I think many people are incapable of math because it requires a long memory of past math rules. I think part of it is laziness, but there are many people incapable of higher-level math
4. What do you mean by explanation? I know plenty of people who try really hard in math, dedicating 3-4x more time to solving math than other courses and still nothing. some people aren't as capable as other people. Sometimes it's just the way that math teachers explain how to solve a problem that doesn't gel in someone's head. Everyone learns differently, so tailoring the education method can make a big differene
5. China is still a communist country that restricts the movement of its people in and out of the country. It'd be very difficult for a rural China person or factory type to get out of China. You also have to understand that many of the refugees lie and are coached by Chinese-Canadian/american lawyers into saying xyz to get asylum and they must publicly stick to this story. I knew a chinese who was from the upper class of some part of China and was a low level delegate to Sri Lanka, basically didn't leave when they were suppose to and came to Canada and claimed asylum, lied about their background and basically says that they were some peasant farmer who was tortured and escaped. The truth is if you are a poor chinese, you cannot just hop on a plane and LEAVE china. The fact that they are able to leave china 1 usually already indicates they are very wealthy. Think of what the average Chinese factory workers makes, and then think of what a plane ticket cost. Then ask yourself how an unskilled factory worker can LEGALLY immigrate to a place like Canada or USA that has 5-10 year waiting list for unskilled labourers who are approved. There are poor chinese (poor by chinese standards), but they are the minority coming to the west. there is validity to this argument but i think you're overestimating/overstating. this is a longer discussion than I care to get into, so how about we agree to disagree on this point.

[Geon]

3. I'm good at math as well, but find it very stressful, it is far more difficult to solve 50 math problems than write a paper for geography or psychology or business ethics. Reality is those, those of us who find math stressful are not very good at it. We spend a large amount of time to get the same result as someone better in math would. And when you start taking advance senior math, you'd find it be a struggle and eventually your grades would slip.

I agree (somewhat) with all your other points except this.
I actually find math problems easier to solve than writing a paper. I was known for walking out of math exams in about 1/4 to 1/2 the alotted time and getting excellent results. I do not find math stressful at all.
I just don't like math and dropped it at the first opportunity I had. Because Math sucks.

What about Math sucked.

I found math easy to a point. When you get to 3rd level stats, you have to be remember the rules from grade 5 math and that is the trickiness of math. You do not use it everyday, you use language every day. At a certain point you find yourself heavily reviewing to solve problems and thats why I got tired and sick of math and found it frustrating.

[dingbat]

What about Math sucked.

I found math easy to a point. When you get to 3rd level stats, you have to be remember the rules from grade 5 math and that is the trickiness of math. You do not use it everyday, you use language every day. At a certain point you find yourself heavily reviewing to solve problems and thats why I got tired and sick of math and found it frustrating.

I never enjoyed it. I guess because once I got past the basic stuff, I didn't see the point (e.g. Sine, Cosine. I later learned why these were useful, but at that point the damage was done).
Also, I didn't having to show all the steps. When solving problems, I would skip steps. While I got the right answer, I'd have to force myself to go back and do the problem the way the teacher taught it.
I was very good at it, so I just took advanced courses and finished my math requirements at 14, just so I could drop the subject early

In college I then took a class in advaned finite math (don't ask) and while I could follow it perfectly fine, I didn't see the point (e.g. in how to solve for the square root of a negative number), so I dropped the class.

You do use math almost every day, but not the circlejerk type math we're taking about.

[Napt]

The research you presented does back up your comment on the variance and I will accept it as truth.
Therefore, it does make sense that there are more men working in fields that require a very high IQ.

Good.

However, it does not mean men are smarter than women, it just means that proportionally there are more very smart men than very smart women.
(I know, semantics, but it still has a very different meaning)

Uh, men do have a higher average IQ than females as well. Do you not accept this?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/educ ... 183166.stm
"A study to be published later this year in the British Journal of Psychology says that men are on average five points ahead on IQ tests."
--LinkRemoved--
"A meta-analysis is presented of 57 studies of sex differences in general population samples on the Standard and Advanced Progressive Matrices (SPM and APM, respectively). Results showed that there is no difference among children aged 6–14 years, but that males obtain higher means from the age of 15 through to old age. Among adults, the male advantage is 0.33d equivalent to 5 IQ points. These results disconfirm the frequent assertion than there are no sex differences on the progressive matrices and support a developmental theory that a male advantage appears from the age of 15 years. A meta-analysis of 15 studies of child samples on the Colored Progressive Matrices showed that among children aged 5–11 years boys have an advantage of 0.21d equivalent to 3.2 IQ points."
--LinkRemoved--
"In this study we found that 17- to 18-year old males averaged 3.63 IQ points higher than did their female counterparts on the 1991 Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT)."

Same thing on ACT, SAT, LSAT, PISA, etc. as well -- boys always score slightly better than girls. Though I suppose that you could make the argument that IQ or standardized test scores do not necessarily mean smarter or more intelligent.

[dingbat]

I'm not going to read that research (it's a little late), but I'll take your extracts as an accurate synopsis.

I will accept this as true upon being presented with proper evidence hereof.

[howlery]

Can't believe I stopped studying for this. TLS, I'm gonna need you to do better.

[sighsigh]

Hmmm.