Hi FT,

Long time reader here, thanks for the amazing amount of knowledge this community has imparted!

Hoping you all might be able to give me some ideas for career direction - I'm a bit lost at the moment and not sure what I want to do.

Basically, I'm wondering if anyone can suggest careers that I might enjoy given that I enjoy playing the miles and points game. Note - I'm NOT necessarily looking for a job with lots of travel involved (I'm totally indifferent on that, wouldn't mind) - but a job that uses similar skills/functions as are employed in playing the miles and points/credit card churning games and related activities.

I've found that I really enjoy this hobby - enough that I spend lots of otherwise 'free' time devising ways to maximize my miles/points earning and spending. Like many of you probably, I'll create models in Excel to determine the optimal combination of store/portal/card to use on any given purchase in order to maximize my value. I've also created tracking spreadsheets for everything from credit card applications to VR purchases to various promos I've completed (waiting to make sure the points post).

I've also noticed that maybe as a broader theme, I enjoy things where there's a lot of knowledge to be gained by research - I actually enjoy filing my taxes and I exclusively use the original forms (online or on paper), reading the instructions line by line to understand all the technicalities. I've also spnt a lot of time reading about personal finance to optimize my financial life and investments, although they're fairly small so far. I even read all the disclosure statements on my 401k to make sure I know the ins and outs, options, etc.

Anyway, I guess this is a long shot, but I haven't really found a career path yet that I really enjoy, and I'm hoping someone might be able to suggest something that employs some of the above skills.

My background so far - graduated from a fairly good undergrad in the DC area 3 years ago with a degree in economics, and so far I've mostly spent time in mergers & acquisitions as well as corporate strategy, and a bit of computer programming work. I'm pretty left brained - quantitative, logical, usually prefer concrete to abstract, etc, although don't need to do something that is strictly like that.

I haven't hated the jobs I've held so far, but I definitely haven't feel like I'm in my element. Also note: I'm in position to (hopefully) get into and attend a top MBA program in the next year and a half if it makes sense for my career, so any corporate discipline that doesn't require specific academic training (like engineering or computer science) is probably attainable via the MBA 'career reset'. I've been considering a default to management consulting, but not sure I'll love that either.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this, I'm looking forward to any help I can get!