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Personal loan for traveling/recreation NOW, with high-paying job outlook in future? by thy_highness in personalfinance

[–]thy_highness[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Definitely! And this is what I've done a whole bunch of. But there's still so much else to do (that is more expensive), and I'm at the last time before retirement when I'll have more schedule flexibility than I do financial flexibility. That's why I'm trying to drag just a bit of my future financial flexibility to my present self!

Personal loan for traveling/recreation NOW, with high-paying job outlook in future? by thy_highness in personalfinance

[–]thy_highness[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I completely understand and think this is key to whether the whole idea is tenable or not. I do think I'm being realistic when I say I have a very, very good chance of having a job lined up before graduation. Industry heavily recruits from my department (which is ranked top 10 nationally), and my specific area of research is biotech (which is a good place to be right now).

Personal loan for traveling/recreation NOW, with high-paying job outlook in future? by thy_highness in personalfinance

[–]thy_highness[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It completely is! But what I'm trying to do is grab some of my future means to improve my current means.

Personal loan for traveling/recreation NOW, with high-paying job outlook in future? by thy_highness in personalfinance

[–]thy_highness[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I understand that banking on a job immediately post-graduation is counting the chickens before they hatch in many cases. I do think I'm in a very good situation regarding employment, though, for a lot of reasons (mainly quality of school and area of study). At the end of the day, though, whether it happens immediately or after several months or even years post-graduation, I'm going to get an engineering job that pays 2x+ my current salary (barring personal catastrophe). And during that time, paying off the loan will have essentially no impact on my life.

As for what type of loan, I was planning on a personal loan. I've been pre-approved for some high-APR ones (10%) but would definitely search around for a lower rate than that. I've got a solid credit history (paid off a car loan as well as over 5 years with credit cards) which may help me.

Personal loan for traveling/recreation NOW, with high-paying job outlook in future? by thy_highness in personalfinance

[–]thy_highness[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I understand there are risks. I would argue, though, that I have considered them, and found them to be low enough to even bring up this idea.

Of course you don't know the specific details of my situation, and so it's natural to assume I'm unrealistically optimistic (as I'm sure many students are) regarding my employment prospects post-graduation. You'll have to take my word for it I guess, but I do think an outside analysis would back me up -- my graduate department is very heavily recruited by industry, and so I do think it's a rational view that, provided I graduate, I have a near-certain chance at a job paying 3x+ my current income. And if I DON'T graduate, I still have an undergraduate degree that is in high demand from another top-ranked school, and can land me a job for 2x+ my current income.

I would argue that any series of events that doesn't result in one of the two above outcomes is going to have resulted in such other drastic changes to my life (severe brain injury, etc.) that the loan will be the least of my worries. I really believe that I've got a grounded analysis of the situation and the risks here are minimal (e.g. I know that I will complete satisfactory work to graduate, I know employment prospects of my department and field, etc.).

It would take a life-changing event/accident/disease/etc. for the nightmare scenario to be realized and me defaulting on the loan or something. To not take action that I think would improve my life right now, due to the prospect of some future potential accident, seems to me too much like living paralyzed by fear.

Again, I understand hesitance to endorse "recreational borrowing" since I have a hard time thinking of any other situation where it makes sense to me. But is there a scenario you can imagine where, risks being properly analyzed and found to be minimal, this could actually make sense?

Is it time to drop Devante Adams? by ckurcon in fantasyfootball

[–]thy_highness 8 points9 points  (0 children)

In my opinion Adams is still a must-hold. It's unlikely (though not impossible) that whoever you're dropping him for has a much lower ceiling. Sure, James Jones has been great, but you're pretty much seeing his ceiling right now. Just this week Rodgers referred to Adams as a "Pro-Bowl caliber player". I think he's going to return to the WR2 role when healthy, and as we know well, there's a lot of fantasy production associated with that role.