Getting my life back on track

Last year, I stopped caring so much about school and spent a lot more time socializing with my floormates. Several factors to it, I would say: 1) I wanted to have college friends and fortunately, I actually clicked with my floormates last year, 2) I felt like it was a good year to finally relax, which I had not taken the time to do since 9th grade, and 3) after getting into Haas, there's a period of "falala! nothing to do now." The result of my crappier study habits has resulted in a pretty steep drop in my GPA, as I now have about two semesters worth of B's (all of which are unfortunately in my upper div business courses). It's taken me a very long time to get back into the motivated mindset, but I think today was the day. Lucky for me, because my midterms are next week.

Usually I have a one-hour accounting lecture, but today, instead of a lecture we had a panel of speakers from all the Big 4 firms come in and talk about what auditors do. I wish it had been like 2 hours. During Q&A, I always want to ask "what do you wish you had done differently in your career" but I never do because I can't bring myself to ask a question in a room of 150+ people, and while it sounds like a good question to me, I don't want to be one of those people who asks stupid questions. Speaking of which, I HATE the people who ask dumb ass questions like "what is the interview process like?" OMFG. If you haven't fucking learned by sophomore year, you're an idiot. I could practically feel a majority of the room roll their eyes.

And I think one good question that will NEVER be answered is "what's different between each of the Big 4 firms?" There is definitely a certain type of people that is attracted to each firm. I think it's different depending on the region as well. As far as I can tell, I think I would be better suited for E&Y but there also seems to be an additional level of prestige to PWC (at least in Berkeley), so I'm hoping for that instead. It would have been cool to ask the panelists, "what's your stereotype of the firm to your right?" but that kind of invites an awkward situation. Everyone always just sidesteps the question and talks about how everyone should try to talk to as many people as they can and figure it out for themselves.

Anyway, the person leading the panel seemed very eager to get the speakers to talk about compensation. And, OMG. I knew the starting salary was pretty good, especially for someone out of college. But I never really asked what partners make, or how long it takes to become partner. Turns out, if I can make it to a Big 4, my salary doubles every 5 years, for about 15 years. And if I keep going, it goes into ridiculous numbers. Apparently seven figures is not uncommon (although probably after decades of work). So this entire day, I've been going around thinking "I'll buy that if I get an internship. And that. And that. And that."

I really hope my GPA is salvageable.

If I were to get an internship, I would:

- Go out for a delicious dinner

- Buy like two outfits at Lululemon Athletica (for about $250 I would estimate)
- Buy a ton more business outfits

- Buy a pair of nice sunglasses

Maybe I can buy a house one day after all!