"You have the role of being a total gimp," one banker says.

He rarely leaves work before 8 p.m. and says that during his first year there were spans of three to four months where he never made it home before midnight.

Wang says he, along with many of the other bankers he knows, consider the type of banking he is involved with as a temporary job. He thinks of it as a way to enter the world of buying and selling stocks and bonds, work that he finds more interesting.

Many analysts enter i-banking firms right after college and only stay for only two or three years. Hsieh cites the fact that he is going through the two-year training program with 15 others--only one of whom plans to continue with the firm after the program ends.

"The job is a great springboard to do other things in finance. It's grueling though. It is akin to slavery and it will break you," Hsieh says.

Mona Abraham '97, an analyst at J.P. Morgan, offers a more optimistic view of her investment banking job. But she stresses that she is not involved in what is traditionally thought of as investment banking.

Instead, Abraham helps clients decide in what form their debt should take. She helps them distribute their debt between stock issuance, bond purchase and borrowing. In the office, she spends most of her time trading bonds or on the phone with clients.

"It's fun and it's intellectually stimulating," Abraham says about her work.