I hear a lot of stories about people receiving their bachelor's degrees in non-technical fields like literature, arts, etc., but who end up working in finance, investment banking, and trading. How so and why?

Why?  Because investment banking is all about sales and human relations, and if you have a degree in Greek history, that qualifies you as much as a degree in economics.

One dirty secret of Wall Street, is that most of what you learn in school is pretty useless for non-technical positions.  Degrees are just a useful way for HR to toss away resumes.  The important part of a college education is that you've shown that you can deal with procedure and get things done according to a schedule.  If the professor gives you an assignment, you think is totally stupid, you will complain, you will get annoyed, but in the end, you will do the assignment and you won't do something crazy like punch the professor in the face.

What that means is that if you get a job, you think your boss is an idiot, and you hate your work, you will obey and the work will get done.

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Joseph Wang on Quora:

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