Fast Five: Robert Wagner ‘97GS on Juggling Family Life while Exploring Careers from Architecture to Wall Street

Welcome to Fast Five: Rapid-fire, insightful interviews with GS students and alumni! 

Entering Columbia GS as a husband and father with a full-time job, Robert Wagner ‘97GS understands how to pivot from one role to another. While many settle on one career path for a lifetime, Wagner explored many from architecture, to law, to art, and finally Wall Street. But the secret to his ability to pivot from one industry to another: knowing when to quit. Wagner shares how a creative solution to some of Columbia’s biggest challenges instilled a confidence in him to “make it happen” and the extraordinary path that followed.

What is your GS story in one sentence?

Growth is something you do for yourself that benefits everyone around you.

You came to GS as a married student with kids and a full-time job, what did that experience teach you about yourself?

Juggling a job, wife, kids, and school taught me how to work within the paradigm of being fully engaged with the present. When I’m with my wife and kids, school and work are banished; similarly, I give work or academics my full attention when that is what I am engaged with. Obviously, there are always exceptions, but GS made me understand that to do well in school I had to focus on my academics even if my job or family were vying for my attention. But by being fully present in each case, I was a better husband and father, a better employee, and a better student. GS reinforced the value of being able to focus.

While you were a student, you built a phonebook directory and turned it into the most profitable student enterprise at that time. What gave you the confidence to take the leap? 

I was frustrated with the existing situation. I had friends at Barnard, Columbia College, and SEAS, but no easy way to contact them—or for them to find me. This also reinforced the idea that GS undergrads weren’t “real” Columbia undergrads, which really bothered me. Then I found that grad students were similarly unable to find other grad students not in their school. Lastly, I heard from professors and administrators that it was cumbersome at best to find simple directory info for students, and bothersome to have to repeatedly answer questions about departmental hours, locations, and phone numbers. I knew what I wanted: to be connected to the rest of the University, starting with my fellow undergrads, and figured I was not alone. Student Enterprises (now a part of CCS) was willing to sponsor the project. I found a good partner, and I believed in my own ability to get it done. I figured if I could get into Columbia, I should certainly be able to produce a phone book. GS strengthened my confidence and gave me the resolve to “make it happen."

You started in architecture, explored law, studied art history, worked on Wall Street, and built a real estate project finance career. When you look back, what connected all those pivots?

Solving problems and engaging in the process. In each case I saw my role as having to solve a particular problem or learn how others solved the problems they identified. Within that, I have always loved the process, the “doing” of the thing. While construction is the most literal example, the logic applies to every pivot. Figuring out the best use for a piece of land, then working through the plans and convincing the stakeholders, putting a shovel in the dirt and day-by-day raising a structure out of the ground, getting it finished and approved, and then turning it over to the end users—this process is incredibly satisfying, often rewarding, and always unique (even within the larger similar framework of construction in general). For me, the end of the process was always a bit of a let-down, as there was then no “next” to accomplish.

What advice would you give to a GS student who feels pressured to have their career path perfectly mapped out?

Be really okay with quitting. This word has such terrible connotations, but if you’re going to be successful, you need to be able to just stop what you’re doing at any time, regardless of the consequences, and take a breath. Yes, the sunk cost fallacy is well known, but in practice it’s difficult to stop when everything about us says stick with it, keep going, don’t be a quitter. And yes, there is merit to that, but at a certain fulcrum, a certain point of inflection, you need to be able to stop what you’re doing without beating yourself up. In almost every instance, rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic won’t keep the ship from sinking.