Jaeha LeeNew York

NYU, part 5 of 5

Why consulting, and an extra year

I pushed my graduation back a year on purpose.

2023 – nowStern, Finance, Statistics and Mathematics

Context

By my third year at NYU, I had worked in real estate, at a search fund, in structured finance, in M&A and restructuring, and in wealth management research, and then in strategy and growth at a startup. I was also taking strategy classes at Stern.

The problem

Each job had taught me something real, but each one showed me a single part of a business. At the startup I had a taste of something different: deciding what the company should do next, across marketing, product and money at the same time. That was what I wanted more of.

I also had a rough idea of where I wanted to end up: running a business of my own someday. The question was what would prepare me best for that, and finance on its own wasn’t it.

What I did

Changing what I recruited for

I decided to recruit for consulting instead of finance. Consulting would let me work on many businesses’ hardest problems in a short time, across industries, which is the closest thing I could find to learning business as a whole. I received an offer to join McKinsey & Company as a summer business analyst in 2027.

Taking an extra year

I also moved my graduation from 2027 to 2028. It was a deliberate decision, for three reasons:

  • Credits. Moving from math to business meant a long list of courses to complete.
  • Real work. Through most semesters I had been working part time, about three days a week. I wanted to keep doing that without squeezing it.
  • Timing. Consulting recruiting runs on its own calendar, and the extra year let me line my classes, internships and recruiting up properly.
  1. 2023Started at NYU
  2. 2023–24ACatalystsearch fund, first year
  3. Summer 2024GreensLedge
  4. Summer 2025Piermont
  5. Fall 2025Morgan Stanleypart time, alongside classes
  6. Dec 2025Bonditstrategy and growth
  7. 2026JuicyBitethe summer, then through the fall
  8. Summer 2027McKinsey & Companysummer business analyst
  9. 2028Graduationmoved from 2027
Fig. 1 What the extra year made room for.

It also left room to keep working at JuicyBite through the fall of 2026 instead of stopping after the summer.

What I learned

A graduation date is a tool, not a finish line. I could have finished on time and arrived at the end of college with less of what I actually came for. Taking the extra year means I’ll leave with more real work behind me and a much clearer idea of what I want to build.