u/LibraCuz

I took the S79 today and passed. Honestly, I was a nervous wreck the entire way there.

I procrastinated hard and only started casually studying Monday, with my exam on Friday. I didn’t actually lock in until Tuesday night, after taking a diagnostic and scoring 50%.

Wednesday morning I’d only done about 120 practice questions total. Took my first practice exam that afternoon and got 55%. Grinded through everything I got wrong, took a second practice exam and got 61%.

Thursday I finally watched the video lectures I’d been putting off, focused on my weak topics. I kept flip-flopping under pressure between the textbook, the videos, and more practice questions bc I wasn’t sure where my time was best spent. I prioritized videos over custom quizzes. But I always reviewed my exams question by question.

Thursday evening I took benchmark exam, and got a 55% again. I was mortified and reviewed everything via custom quizzes until 1am, woke up early, and got in one more hour with the key concepts sheet before the exam.

I was not confident walking in. I flagged at least 25 questions and only had 15 minutes left to review them. I also changed 2-3 answers. Then I sat on the legal attestation screen for 10 mins before hitting submit, because I knew my peers were waiting outside to compare notes and I didn’t want to have to tell them I failed. So figured I’d wait 10 mins for them to leave so I wouldn’t have to face them.

I passed but don’t really have advice. Am I that good? Was the exam easy? Both? Neither? Idk but it was a genuinely brutal, anxiety-soaked experience on almost no sleep. During the exam I had to re-read questions multiple times because they just weren’t landing, which I think was as much my mental/physical state as the material.

Mostly I’m posting this for whoever’s scoring well under the passing threshold in KM practice and spiraling about it. It’s still possible to turn it around.

I’m 1Y Aso on a Tech IB coverage team in the Bay Area at a BB. We are a part of the broader TMT team but our deals mostly focus on tech specifically (Software, Semiconductors, Internet etc.)

The deals and industry are existentially interesting to me and I like the team and feel like I’m learning. I don’t know if I want to be a banker forever, but it’s not out of the question.

I have a medium-strong community in the Bay but the WLB ofc makes it hard to socialize. My strongest connections/friends are in NY and so is my family. Every time I go home to visit, I love being back.

Lately I have been playing with the idea of joining a Tech ECM team in NY at my bank or another one for my 2Y. I figure if I want a sustainable career in banking, this will give me the best WLB balance (comparatively) to be able to achieve that and still do stuff I’m interested in. The pay difference between coverage vs product feels immaterial to me right now.

I don’t know if this is just a fleeting idea or if i should actually start making moves to transfer to NY. On one hand I feel like I haven’t given the Bay a fair shot since I’ve been here less than a year and I actually like the deals my platform does. And on the other hand, I feel like NY has stronger connections and is the HQ of nearly every bank so it could be better for my career to go there…but maybe their tech focus won’t be as strong. But maybe I could improve my current WLB by moving to product group (and yes ik the risks of being in a market/cyclically risk job like ECM).

What should I do? Should I wait it out longer here? Or start setting plans in motion? What factors would you weigh?

Also wondering is tech banking better in the bay at most banks? Or is there a strong tech (not media/telecom) deal flow at banks in NY too? Besides pay/work what are tradeoffs between tech coverage vs tech ECM?

I’m 29M…know I’m a bit old to be writing in here but as I approach 30 soon, I’ve been getting a lot of dread about my friendships.

I just got out of a masters program where I saw my classmates daily. We went to class together and would hang out after and on weekends for 2 years. It was amazing.

Now everyone has spread across the country for their jobs. I’ve barely even started the job yet and have this feel sense of dread about my social life changing for the worse as I age.

I keep hearing/reading about how as you enter 30s, the time with friends gets exponentially smaller and drift is inevitable as people get busy with work, partners, and kids. And by 40s+, you basically see them every couple years, if at all.

I know that is existentially true, but it hurts me to think that some of these meaningful relationships from my masters program (and before) will decline no matter what I do. People just get busy.

I went thru this post undergrad when I started working and time w friends was more limited. But we all lived in the same city so it still felt kind of like a community. Tho I suppose even then I felt lonely at times.

I have a cohort of people from the grad program in my new city, but idk the more I keep hearing about friendships waning as you age I can’t help but get sad about it.

Idk what I’m looking for…but would love to hear some thoughtful perspectives here. It’s really been weighing on me heavily. I dont like to think of me losing friends. 30s seems like it goes downhill from here. But I also hear a lot about how great 30s are. How can it be so great if your connections will inevitably weaken? Do I have to just accept this as a part of life?

I (31M) have been dating this girl (28F) for about 2 months. We met a month before I graduated law school this past May and hit it off instantly and went on several dates after.

I was always up front with her that I would be gone for a couple months this summer and am a bad texter and can’t do the whole back and forth. The day before I left I asked her if she wanted to pick things back up when I’m back or if she wanted to put some label on it now or something else. We agreed to be exclusive/dating.

I don’t have much hard relationship experience. Just a series of situationships over the years. Most whom I always started as friends with before it turned romantic so I’m used to knowing my partner a bit more at this stage. Im finding that this label, which felt inconsequential at the time, now feels really serious to me and is giving me a lot of anxiety.

The last couple times I’ve seen her it was just sex and pillow talk and I feel like in a lot of ways I’m still getting to know her. So this label feels a but premature but at the same time ik it’s not a big deal. I keep telling myself not to put pressure on it, but idk why it’s giving me so much stress.

At this point we’ve had 1 month together and 1 month apart. I’m in between jobs right now and my calendar has been filled with international travel and social and family plans and will continue to be for at least another month. I’ll send a meme every other day and we will text and share photos of our life for a bit every week but I can’t do constant texting every day.

We spoke over the phone recently and she told me that it had been a week without texting and could we work on that? I was traveling so it was hard to find good timing but I said yes I agree. Honestly it was nice to talk over the phone tho vs text and made some of my anxiety go away.

Another thing I’m thinking about is that I have an itch to move back to my hometown. Realistically the earliest that can happen is in a year. So I’m wondering if I’m just wasting both of our times? Or maybe we/I can just take a chance on eachother and romance. I also don’t know if I will be able/wanting to make this move at the end of a year so maybe this is all stupid contemplations.

I wonder if we jumped into this a little prematurely. Or maybe it’s just my lack of experience. I do really like her underneath the anxiety. But I’m going thru some difficult life change right now that I think is bringing some avoidant tendencies/self-sabotage in me out. I’m really trying hard to fight hard against it. But everything is giving me so much anxiety. Sometimes I get intrusive thoughts that we need to break up but I know that these are irrational. I want to continue seeing her but this distance is making it tough and we still have another month and half apart.

Looking for words of wisdom/encouragement please?