Crisis has business students rethinking their plans

Pat Pow-anpongkul spent his summer interning as an analyst at Lehman Bros. in New York. He received a job offer in mid-July and was looking forward to returning to Wall Street after graduating from the Wharton School next May.

But the finance major, like many others in his senior class, has been forced to reassess his career path after Lehman filed for bankruptcy last week and the U.S. financial system buckled under the increasing weight of the year-long credit crisis.

"It was definitely a shock, and for the first day or so, I was feeling very defeated. I think I got physically sick as well," said Pow-anpongkul, 21, who is from Douglas, Ga.

Though Pow-anpongkul has not yet spoken to his bosses at Lehman, he has begun sending resumes to other firms and tapping into his network of contacts to see what his options are.

"It's just one of the risks of choosing an industry that's based on the markets," he said. "Everyone who chooses investment banking or sales and trading, anything like that, knows that the markets work in cycles and, at some point, the market is going to be down."

This week, more than 900 people packed a roundtable discussion with senior Wharton professors about the impact of the financial crisis. Throngs of students were turned away at the door, and many lingered nearby hoping for last-minute admission.

"There is certainly an added level of stress. Because so many of our students go into financial services . . . there is a real sense of unsureness," said Barbara Hewitt, director of Penn Career Services' Wharton division. Hewitt said that over the last few days, worried students had come to her for advice on how to deal with the changing financial landscape.

"The tension all over campus is almost palpable," said Sarah Gibbons, a senior at Penn's College of Arts and Sciences. "This is such a preprofessional school that channels so many students into Wall Street and the business world that it almost feels like the rug is being pulled out from underneath us."

Gibbons, 21, an economic history major from Bordentown, N.J., is looking to secure a consulting job when she graduates in May. She anticipates a more competitive job hunt as many students, disillusioned about their prospects in financial services, look for jobs at consulting firms, too.

The Wall Street crisis may even cause some Wharton students to throw in the towel on business, at least for now.

One student, Megan Chan, 20, a School of Arts and Sciences economics major from Los Angeles, said she believed "a lot of students are considering taking a year off or going to law school or grad school."

"Students are beginning to realize that finance is not the best industry to start their careers. Many of the top banks did not even come to Penn this fall for on-campus recruitment," said Anna Harris, 21, a Wharton senior from Norwalk, Conn., who is double majoring in management and business and public policy.

This week, several companies, even the leading private-equity firm Blackstone Group, sent e-mails to students canceling or reducing the number of scheduled interviews without offering any explanation. Hewitt said banks had posted fewer jobs than in previous years.

Deutsche Bank and HSBC are not recruiting at all, and Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley posted no jobs in banking or sales and trading, students said.

Seniors have been struggling to maintain a semblance of normalcy, tweaking resumes in the evening after spending the day watching stocks plummet and hearing professors liken this week's events to the Great Depression.

"It's a very tough situation, going to career fairs, because at the back of our minds, I know that we're all pretty worried," said Radhika Sen, 20, a Wharton senior from Phoenix, who is double majoring in marketing and management. "It's definitely a very, very scary time to be going into the financial services industry."

"If I failed to get a job and it was my fault, that's one thing. But it's another thing when you can't do anything about it, when you know you're qualified," said Chan, the economics major.

Chan has secured several investment-management interviews at Goldman Sachs but says she is unsure whether the postings are for appearance's sake. A day after Lehman's bankruptcy made international headlines, Chan received e-mail from her uncle in Hong Kong urging her to brush up on her Chinese and pursue finance jobs in Hong Kong or Shanghai.

"It's time to start exploring new options," especially overseas, she said.

Pow-anpongkul added, "For the most part, people realize that a lot of these jobs might not be available and are branching out and looking for other things to do after college."