Finance students ponder a Plan B

Banking crisis dries up opportunities

OXFORD, ENGLAND -- Business school students at Oxford University plan to spend at least one of their breaks in Dubai, not just to swap gray skies for sunny ones but to secure something more lasting: a job.

With job opportunities dwindling in London and other financial capitals, particularly in banking, Oxford's business school is organizing a trip to the wealthy emirate so students can network with companies there. School advisers say the oil-rich Persian Gulf region is a bright spot in an otherwise grim global economy.

As the global financial meltdown shakes up the free-market, capitalist system, it has also prompted some of the best and brightest at the world's elite schools to rethink their careers. Banking jobs that until recently were there for the plucking have all but dried up. Students are scrambling to assess options they once would have scorned: teaching, academia, engineering, manufacturing, the nonprofit and public service sectors.

"Nobody knows where he sees himself in a year because of the markets," said Egor Nikolayev, a business school student at Oxford. He said he'd love to work at an investment bank in London but thinks that is impossible now and fears he'll probably have to return home to Moscow.

It's the same story on the other side of the Atlantic.

"There are a lot of people who just want to have Goldman Sachs or J.P Morgan on their resume. Now people have to really evaluate what they want, and they have to find out what their true passions are," said Kevin Tolson, a third-year undergraduate at Duke University.

On Wall Street, the banking industry lost 70,000 jobs during the past year, according to the Financial Services Roundtable, an industry trade group. It predicts additional cuts in the coming months.

These days even government -- long viewed on Wall Street as the bane of the capitalist system -- is attracting some would-be bankers.

Similarly, students who might otherwise look for high-paying business jobs seem to be eyeing public service professions such as teaching. Nonprofit organizations in Britain and the United States that recruit undergraduates to teach in poor schools have seen an increase in interest from college students. In a slow economy, teaching often becomes more attractive because it is generally considered stable.

The health care sector is another place where some would-be bankers are looking.

Jane Zhou is a Duke senior from Troy, Mich., double-majoring in economics and biology. She worked as an intern in investment banking last summer at Wachovia and likes the idea of staying in finance. But the crisis on Wall Street has forced her to cast a wider net, and she's now closely eyeing pharmaceutical companies.

"The market's changed a lot," Zhou said. "It's very difficult to find jobs, so I'm applying to more places and exploring different options that I didn't know I would be interested in before."