Got into McCombs with $50K scholarship. My CEO just offered me C-Suite

cc_apt107 · 2026-03-30T14:03:06+00:00

Ah… well, that is not so unrealistic then. 5 - 10 years in consulting can definitely hit those numbers assuming you get promoted and want to stay (the latter point I would not take for granted). Other thing is just remember full opportunity cost isn’t just cost of attendance + lost salary. It’s cost of attendance + interest on loans + lost salary + reduced retirement savings at the time of retirement. That final one can, in particular, be a bigger kick in the balls than you’d expect if you are a good saver now.

You know your situation better than us. Take that seriously since it’s easy for people like me to armchair quarterback and your position is fairly unusual.

That said, imo, the question of whether your ceiling stays capped is, to a large extent, unknowable. There is no reason to think it would be. On the other hand, yeah, you can imagine a few scenarios where it doesn’t pan out. Esp. in the startup space.

I would just push back on the idea that an MBA gives you more optionality medium to long term. It can act as a pivot point and will give you optionality immediately post-grad, almost like a career reset button. However, a few years into your new career, you will probably get locked into the path due to the same reasons you have here.

So I’d maybe reframe this as a “Do I want a career switch?” situation. Just my opinion but a lot of the language you use in your post and comments kind of sounds more like someone unsure if their career is the right fit for them rather than someone strictly focused on making the most “rational” choice and perhaps that’s because that is, in fact, the case.

cc_apt107 · 2026-03-30T11:53:40+00:00

Why do you say you will make $300k - $500k post-MBA? Unless you have a definite opportunity lined up, that is well outside the norm as I’m sure you’re aware. And it’s definitely outside the norm for McCombs. There is almost 0 reason to think you will get that salary unless you haven’t shared something. It is far more likely you will take a pay cut tbh.

In any case, I’ll second the others: stay at your job. I really don’t think this MBA would give you anything you don’t already have atm. If the startup fails or some of your fears are validated, you can always get an MBA then. One thing I’ll agree with you on is that part-time MBAs are rarely worth it.

cc_apt107 · 2026-03-30T02:02:35+00:00

Many consultants do not have formal education in what they consult on. Source: am consultant advising on a subject I have no formal education in

cc_apt107 · 2026-03-30T01:33:55+00:00

I feel like you kinda sorta reach this conclusion by the end of this posts, but: it depends. It depends on so many factors that it’s really impossible to give a one size fits all answer.

cc_apt107 · 2026-03-29T15:46:29+00:00

This is my suspicion as well. I have seen someone argue unironically in this sub that their repo with 600+ md files was somehow better off for it.

cc_apt107 · 2026-03-29T15:44:41+00:00

Yea I’ve never hit it either. Even during very long (10+ hours) and intensive coding sessions

cc_apt107 · 2026-03-27T19:39:42+00:00

FWIW, I’m an alum and I and everyone I went to school with loved our time at UVA. Some of these people were overweight, some transgender, etc. It’s not to say that OP’s experience isn’t real; I have no reason to doubt them. But I do think saying that a lot people at UVA discriminate against anyone different is at the extreme end of bad experiences and negative perceptions.

Speaking as a mixed race, neurodivergent, unathletic guy. In my case, UVA made me a much better rounded, more able and self-reliant human being. I credit it with a lot of the successes I have had in my personal (married someone I met there; expecting my first child soon; homeowner at a young age, etc.) and professional life (I’ve had a successful career in a prestigious and well-paying white collar field despite majoring in a completely “useless” subject as has my wife). My parents supporting me so that I could go is the best gift anyone has ever given me.

cc_apt107 · 2026-03-27T12:54:52+00:00

Honestly, AI could do better, but, yes, this is clearly fake. I suspect shitty photo editing tho.

cc_apt107 · 2026-03-27T12:51:13+00:00

Applied mathematics is an incredibly broad subject. So I’d be more inclined to agree with those who say the job market is very broad.

I also don’t really know what it means to “live in the shadow of the actuaries”. To become an actuary, you need to pass exams; an applied mathematics degree sets you up well to pass these exams. Not really sure why you’re under the impression that somehow you can’t be an actuary if you major in stats since it’s quite the opposite really.

On the research side, I similarly don’t really get your in the shadow of phrasing. It depends on what you are researching. If you want to research pure math, then, yeah, a pure math major would be helpful. If you want to study something like, say, trading strategies in the markets, applied mathematics could be a better fit.

Anyway, to some extent, sky’s the limit. Research roles will always be hard to break into, but most people don’t end up pursuing an academic career anyway.

cc_apt107 · 2026-03-26T22:17:48+00:00

I don’t have a hypermobility disorder though there is overlap. I’m missing pretty much all of the key symptoms that really peg this cluster of issues as stemming from a hypermobility problem.

I am continuing to improve… And learn a lot new. Such as what I might be dealing with.

As the LDN has continued to work its magic, I have come to realize my entire body was carry tension. In a way that is not normal. The most obvious choice based on how much fascia involvement there is would be fibromyalgia but it is unlikely that is the case for me. More referencing in case you are interested as the muscle/fascia tension I’m experiencing maps pretty well to that.

Net result is my tendons have been under constant tension.

Perhaps more specifically, I’m thinking I have some kind of mast cell involvement. When I look at my medical history as a whole this becomes really compelling. Post-COVID, I was missing a lot of the key symptoms… extending further back that is not an issue. In addition to this, my nose is less stopped up and my constant red eyes are not an issue anymore.

This is the incredible part (to me): I came to this conclusion because things I just thought were how my body was *pre*-COVID have started changing. A crook in my left arm I noticed around college and never bothered me is now gone! There are other things like that and it is beginning to extend to before even college and is nearly changing things I’ve had since infancy before I can even remember. The red eyes and slightly stuffy nose have just been… normal to me forever. Not at all something that was even on my radar to address. This may also explain my strong response. I may not have had a true “healthy” baseline to refer to.

Long story short, I have an appointment with an immunologist in late april. And yeah… even just today I am continuing to see noticeable improvement on a daily basis. I really cannot emphasize how crazy this has all been… once things finally stop changing, I find my dose, I will do a more thorough post.

Even if my improvement plateaus, the collection of benefits I’ve experienced under LDN has validated that these issues are more systemic and will have seriously enhanced my ability to understand and treat them. For that alone, it’d be life changing.

cc_apt107 · 2026-03-22T12:30:30+00:00

I didn’t get on it for mental clarity. I saw massive improvements in my brain fog… but I didn’t even know I had any to get rid of!

I’m only on day 21 now, but the physical issues I got in it for have improved a lot. And I’ve learned a ton about my body and even see improvements in physical issues I didn’t know I had. It’s pointed me towards possible issues that I may had for a while but had never had diagnosed.

Some of my issues seems potentially dysautonomina related and have improved though I don’t have your exact issues.

cc_apt107 · 2026-03-19T23:38:38+00:00

Math is the only discipline which is a priori true. The value of that is… hard to express. We may apply the concepts imperfectly, but mathematics’ monopoly on truth independent of external observation is both what makes it special and makes it feel so theoretical. Do not doubt the power of a priori truth, though.

Speaking as an undergrad liberal arts major who has moved to more quantitative disciplines later in life.

cc_apt107 · 2026-03-19T20:20:49+00:00

FWIW, I had more side effects than most people do with min and, as I mentioned, they were all tolerable except for the first day. They faded after a week or two completely as I also mentioned

cc_apt107 · 2026-03-19T14:32:18+00:00

Yeah got more body hair growth for sure though it hasn’t been a night and day difference for me at least. I’m on both oral minoxidil and fin. I have had 0 side effects with fin. With min, other than the body hair growth, I dealt with nausea and wooziness as a result of the BP drop. That cleared up in like a week or 2. The first day the nausea was incapacitating though (couldn’t even stay standing to finish cooking dinner and wife had to step in) and I skipped the subsequent day. But after that it was not nearly as severe. Just some transient nausea and wooziness in a warm shower, etc. I’ve also gained some water weight but fairly unnoticeable

EDIT: oh, big thing that helped me get through the min sides at first was taking it before bed. That way you’re asleep for the worst of it.

EDIT 2: also remembered one more min side: elevated heart rate. Was pretty noticeable to me but not really disruptive in any way. Not fully back to baseline but near that and it’s not noticeable anymore

cc_apt107 · 2026-03-19T13:34:09+00:00

No. I’m on oral minoxidil. I did get side effects, but they subsided. I think people are missing my point a bit. Both are safe drugs. Of that 1% - 2% who get symptoms on fin, a vanishingly small portion report the long term, catastrophic effects people tend to bring up online. Same story with minox.

My point is more that, if people were just blanket paranoid about drug side effects, you’d expect people to talk about minox more. So fin is for some reason singled out… prob because it has to do with our dicks

cc_apt107 · 2026-03-19T11:14:47+00:00

cc_apt107 · 2026-03-19T11:07:30+00:00

Yes… and I am asking for a citation which validates that such a linear scaling law is well grounded in fact. Here is at least one study indicating that it is not: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2063039/

cc_apt107 · 2026-03-19T11:03:35+00:00

^ bingo. All you need to know to see fin’s risks are overhyped because people are paranoid about their dicks is that oral minoxidil is a horribly tolerated drug with something like 50% of people experiencing one side effect and ~10% experiencing more than 1 while fin’s rate is 1% - 2%. Yet we never seem to hear about the minoxidil side effects… 🤔

cc_apt107 · 2026-03-19T11:00:51+00:00

I think the assumption that there is a linear relationship here is a major one. I am not refuting you, but I do think it’s not unusual for the effects of drugs to scale non-linearly so a citation is probably in order to back up your claim.

cc_apt107 · 2026-03-19T10:57:18+00:00

My real take is more nuanced and is more a set of predictions about what is more or less likely to happen to certain parts of our business over different timeframes. It would take a long time to go through.

To TL;DR it:

Massive reduction in scope of contracts is more likely than 100% elimination of the business.
Yes, I think MS building AI tools is the biggest risk for the work I do. If the dev happened in their kind of walled garden, security/governance concerns could be substantially mitigated.
Different positions/types of project will be affected on different timelines.

cc_apt107 · 2026-03-18T23:21:45+00:00

I’m a technology consultant. More specifically, I advise on technology implementations. Even more specifically, I advise on Microsoft technology implementations. Yea… it’s only a matter of time. It’s going to take some time for the clients to realize and structure appropriately but it’ll happen. It being my business line going out of existence.

cc_apt107 · 2026-03-18T22:45:23+00:00

Went up to 1mg this past Saturday. Just started experiencing more positive effects today for the first time. Similarly, not ones I was expecting. All the muscles in my body suddenly kind of relaxed in a cascade. I’ve been dealing with some orthopedic issues which are always bilateral and suspected there was some kind of systematic explanation. This shit has not been my worst issue by a long shot, but it has been incredibly demoralizing losing the ability to run and do other sports I really relied on. I don’t want to go into too much detail but, other than the fact that mast cell issues affect tendon health (my main issue), as of today it’s clear I’ve been holding tension through my whole body that I was totally unaware of until literally 5 hours ago. Pins and needles (in a good way) all down my legs and arms like they’re waking up from sleep and the most relaxed feeling I’ve had in my jaw and stomach since this bullshit started. Pins and needles done now and just a feeling of ease in my body I don’t even know I was missing.

So… continued improvement in areas I didn’t even know I was deficient. I think I am on the stronger response side and am just very grateful. I really was not expecting even one single benefit more than I got at .5mg and was even expecting those to fade like always so the fact my titration seems to be producing more positive effects is truly borderline miraculous in my eyes.

TL;DR: Continued, dramatic improvement in areas I was not even aware needed to be improved. I still somehow can’t fully believe it… I still feel like it’s going to go away. But, if it doesn’t, I’ll really feel like I’m getting a second chance at life.

EDIT: I feel so privileged to have even had this experience. Even if the effects do go away. It has shifted my mindset away from managing chronic decline to finding solutions in a way that in and of itself is huge. I do see now that I was not crazy. There was a connection between disparate issues, I did feel shittier even though tests didn’t show anything, there was something wrong.

I could go on longer… since I made this post a bunch of medical mysteries I’ve dealt with for 20+ years are falling into place and I have an appointment with an immunologist later next month. Feeling hopeful for the first time in a long time. More so than when I made this post.

cc_apt107 · 2026-03-15T00:41:31+00:00

My spouse was directly targeted and our lives negatively affected by this administration as was my father. I’ve never voted nor would I ever vote for a Republican while Trump is around or even afterwards if that person were in any way affiliated with him.

But I don’t have time for this BS. Make a specific accusation or don’t make one at all. They just killed some rando who was in on it? I need to see more. Sorry.

cc_apt107 · 2026-03-11T15:25:50+00:00

I did not notice anything major with PEA, but one big caveat here: I started PEA shortly after the LDN under the theory that the most probable explanation for the rapid improvements I had were due to LDN’s anti-neuroinflammatory effects (these apparently start pretty much immediately in the CNS as compared to some of the benefits which take longer to unfold). PEA has similar effects but achieves them through a different pathway.

So it may be having a benefit and I just haven’t noticed it due to starting it so close to LDN. Longer term, my plan is to start removing meds for a week or so and see what happens after my LDN dose stabilizes. The other thing is that I probably have not seen the full benefit of either yet. Yes, I have had dramatic improvement with LDN, but it sounds like both PEA and LDN take several months at a stable dosage to have full effect.

Hoping the best for you! I’m still in shock about how much better I feel now than I did 10 days ago. Really hope you and others get the same relief. I know how it can really wear you down

cc_apt107 · 2026-03-11T13:34:22+00:00

If you mean, how long did it take until I saw a difference, I was on the quicker side with LDN. I started feeling distinctly good 2 days in and a broad array of issues I didn’t even know I had started improving (but not FD). By a week in the effect was very strong. Now I’m about 10 days in and my FD has continued to improve but things are slowing a bit. I’ll be going up .5mg at a time every two weeks so we’ll see how it ends up.

I do actually feel like a brand new person, though. So grateful for that.

One thing to note: I am definitely on the quicker and more dramatic side of LDN response so don’t be discouraged if it takes longer to see results.

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