How I became a quant

I bought this book several days ago. I thought that I had an electronic version from mitbbs.com but nowhere to be found. The following is a quote from Gregg E. Berman's experience:

In the end, the decision was relatively obvious because I didn't have to decide the "big question" of wheather I wanted to be a physicist. Instead, I started by deciding whether I thought I would be happy and fulfilled being a postdoc for the next two to six years. I thought not. But of course being a postdoc was only a temporary position. The real goal was to work your way up to associate professor, eventually becoming a full, tenured professor at a place like Princeton University. So I looked around, thought about all the tenured professors I worked with, and realized that I did not want to be one. I have nothing against physics, but it was clear that the academic life was not in my blood. Given the realization that another 15 years of work was itself not something I desired, then it was crazy to continue on that path. If attaining a position similar to that held by your boss's boss is not your goal, then your should seriously consider whether you're in the right job now.

And from Neil Chriss:

Returning to my main point,another reason to consider not doing mathematics is that it is hard to do well and it is ultimately very competitive. From the outside, academia--where much of the research in pure mathematics takes place--may seem placid or even sleepy, but inside it is anything but. Mathematics may be isolated from the real world, but mathematicians are not isolated from one another. The field of mathematics has a natural hierarchy. Mathematicians generally work in research problems. There are problems and then there are hard problems. Mathematicians look to publish their works in Journals. There are good journals and there are great journals. Mathematicians look to get academic jobs. There are good jobs and great jobs. Mathematicians want to do well relative to one another. It is hard to do mathematics and not care about what your standing is.

I was so happy to read this. I felt that it was written by me or for me. :)