My degree, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, is in economics. While I loved this study of the more philosophical side of business, I always imagined that, upon graduating with said degree in hand, I’d pursue the more practical world of finance, as was the norm for my Manhattan College brethren.

But then, something pulled the wool from my eyes. A few months before graduation I sat through a research presentation by a candidate for a vacant position within the Economics and Finance Department. This person’s area of expertise was firmly in the field which I had seen myself thriving in my post-college years.

Basically the presentation, which I had so looked forward, broke my heart. Not only was I bored to tears, but I realized I’d been deluding myself for far too long. There was no way on God’s green earth that I could do that for a living.

It wasn’t the number crunching that was the problem. I liked crunching numbers. It was that, to my ears, discussions of asset management, stocks prices, options, mutual funds, cash equivalents and the like sound something akin to the droning of adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon. Give me a good old economic indicator or a discussion about economies of scale any day, but the mere mention of financial planning and investment strategies and I promptly exhibit coma-like symptoms.