James Muench, a 22-year-old business student at the University of Maryland, College Park, interned at Lehman Brothers on Wall Street this past summer.
He received a job offer from the bank, which recently was bought by the British bank Barclays Plc.
The offer, he says he was told, still stands, but he has not accepted it.
Muench spoke with The Examiner about how he had been hoping to work for Lehman, and now what it’s like to watch that company collapse.
What were you thinking when you watched your potential future employer collapse on Wall Street?
You see Lehman on the front page [of the newspaper]. You try to see what the article is about: Is it good or bad? Of course, it wasn’t usually good. And, of course, you catch a lot of grief from your peers.
Do you feel anxiety about going into the business world now?
It’s going to be a huge risk to get into it now, and, definitely, competition [for jobs] is a lot higher. You have to be a lot more on top of your game and know a lot more about a lot more things. You don’t know where the opportunities are going to be.
What are you and other business students doing to cope and give yourselves the best chance to succeed?
A lot of kids have really taken a step back to say, “Hey, what’s out there?” Last year, if you said, “Where do you want to be?” [the answer would be] “I’m looking to work for a big bank.” Some kids want to work in New York, some kids want to work in D.C., but overall agreement is, some big bank. But now, a lot are looking toward consulting.
So are you going to stick with a career in business or have the market troubles made you want to pursue another field?
I’m one of the ones who’s going to stick with it. It’s an industry I like. I like the market, and I like trading.
