IlliniProgrammer and MilitarytoFinance's comment about SCUBA diving on another thread made me wonder if there are any other certified divers on the site. What are your favorite dive locations? What dive certifications do you have? What is your dream vacation dive?

Currently I am a Personal Banker for Bank of America and I run my own online investment website. I also am finishing up my economics degree at San Francisco State. I want to get into wealth management or hedge funds. Any career advice on what I should do?

So, I will be starting an audit internship at a big 4 in a few weeks and I am trying to get a better idea about the firm, life style, etc. Although the forums here have helped enormously, I wanted to sit down and have a decent face to face conversation with someone who knows what they are talking about from experience.

I thought I had a pretty good connection with one of my interviewers during ocr and I was wondering if it would be odd if I emailed them for a coffee and to talk a little bit. I wont be working in the same office as them because I have an out of state internship, but I will be home for a couple of weeks near the city they work.

What do you guys think of a third party distributor for equity research targeting buy side shops? I liked what I see with this shop but also want some more input.

What do you all think?

EDIT: name of shop is PCS Research

I just have a quick question; I saw Google's stock price is up in the $900 range, and got curious: why would they not do a stock split?

Their p/e ratio is like 27, wouldn't doing a stock split make the shares more affordable, thus creating higher demand, and driving up the price per share? Seems like a no brainer to increase market cap, are there cons to a stock split that I'm unaware of?

I have an interview next week for a Transaction Services Advisory - M&A Support position at E&Y. I have been in audit for the last 3 years at another Big4 Firm. What should I expect in this office interview. Apparently, it will be 2 different interviews, both 2 hours.

which resp is better group resp or single resp?

A bit about me. I have just recently graduated with an ECON major and have always been keen on working in financial industry. However not so long ago, I found myself crazily interested in doing something revolutionary in technology. I saw a video regarding how humans' interactions with each other would be so much different with the introduction of fiber optics technology (here is the video's link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-GXO_urMow). I would love to ask any WSO member here about this technology with a few questions:
1. How much do you know about this revolutionary technology that is going to change the world?
2. How am I going to get myself involved in this R&D?
3. Which companies are currently doing R&D in this technology?

I was offered a position with a buddy of mine in the Natural Gas industry working on the job site in a non labor intensive role. The role would require managing equipment coming on and off the job site and confirming project completions.

The position is a 60-80 hour a week gig with pay in the in the high 100K area with most of my personal expenses paid for. This is easily doubling my current salary.

The part I would like some of your input on is what does this do to my long term job prospects if a year or two from now (after I have a nice nest egg of cash) when I want to reenter the real estate market.

I am a 3rd year medical student at an upper tier medical school on the west coast. I'm curious what you (as a wallstreet type) would do if you were in my position and liked medicine enough that you would finish medschool and residency.

Would you choose a specialty like EM (3y residency) with a low time commitment (~36h/wk) post-residency to earn capital (average salaries ~250K) to apply in investing/entrepreneurial activities during free time?

or

Would you choose a surgical/medical subspecialty (~6y residency) with a high time commitment (55-70hr/wk) post-residency to earn considerably more capital (~350-450K) which you would likely not be able to invest yourself or spend time in entrepreneurship.

Trying to do some research on winter internships and it is kinda tough since there is not a whole lot of information. I did a search and most just send networking and getting in touch with recruiters which I plan on doing but I was wondering about just how hard it was to land a gig.

I am a finance and accounting double major at a non-target. I have a 3.6 GPA (rounded from like a 3.57 if that matters) and decent internship experience considering I am only a sophomore (F500 place, some fin/acct in that role. Not amazing but decent). Still working on getting a boutique gig this summer, might have found one that is only part time and would fit my schedule.

Hello all,
As the title reads, I am going to be an intern at one of the Big 4 firms this summer. I know 90% of the people here shit on Big 4 but I didnt want to go that route and I was happy to get the offer I did. It is for an audit position in financial services and is located in a major city on the east coast (think NYC, Boston, Philly). I have been researching the various boards and forums, and speaking to some people about the experience of public accounting, specifically Big 4 audit. However, I keep getting varying answers depending on where the sources come from.

I am starting a big 4 audit internship this summer and wanted to know if any former interns or associates have any guides or training materials they would be willing to share. I am really just trying to get a handle of whats ahead and would really appreciate it. Silver bananas for those that can help.Thanks.

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I was just wondering what are some activist funds in San Francisco / Bay Area.

What saving plans are useful for child's education? Is Opting to Heritage Education Funds a good decision?

I left my trader job not to long ago because I didnt like where it was going (long story). It's week 3 into my job search and I somehow manage to get an offer at a non-finance management job at a fortune 500 by working the alumni list.

The salary is $95k with avg of 10% end of year bonus. So about $105k in total. I was getting paid around $70k at my most recent job.

It seems like a no brainer, but the management job comes with a tight limit as to what I'll be able to make. I got into the finance industry to make boatload of money. And theres almost zero chance of making that happen if I take the offered job. Even five years from now, I'll probably be stuck at $150k at max.

So the upside for the potential new job is:
1) Relatively low stress job/life
2) 9 to 5

Im an undergrad at a top 3 industrial engineering program. Just wondering what kind of experience would best position me for employment in consulting/strategy/supply chain management after graduation. My first college summer I interned at a hospital and worked with the ER supervisor to increase efficiency in physician and nurse workflow.

I'm an undergraduate with degrees in economics and geology. I've been spending a while thinking of ideas for profoundly unsexy businesses that have the potential for great cash flow, yet are divorced from the normal consumer market - because to hell with starting a retail-oriented business.

I've always LOVED visiting rock quarries, for fun and treasure and adventure. Judging from the scale of these businesses, I suspect that they must have great cash flow. So....does anyone here know a quarry owner? Just how good are these businesses for ownership?

Anybody hear about this position? They are hiring about 400 people mostly from target schools. Really curious about pay and what it entails.

Hey WSO,

Does anyone know what exit opps are like for a client services / relationship management role at a company like Roubini / Business Monitor / Eurasia Group?

Also, how are these companies regarded when looking at MBA applications? Ideally, I'd like to jump into an MBA program in 4-6 years (I'm graduating UG this year) and go into an associate role in banking. I realize that it's not the typical IBD > PE > MBA > Associate path, but would a career in client services or sales (they say I can likely transition into that) position well for that?

Thanks for all the help.

Hey guys,

Hey guys I have been getting rather mixed responses for this question. How much negativity would working as a financial analyst at a big tobacco firm be for my resume? I can reasonably see it affecting b-school apps but outside of that would industries say banking or consulting care too much about it?

I've landed an internship at a 3D-printing lab through family relations for this summer in London.

Basically, since it's unpaid and they normally don't do internships, I will be doing whatever I want, so... where can I try to add value and make the most of this?

Am thinking of something along the lines of doing a business analysis.
The company already has annual revenues of around $10M. Maybe I can try to come up with some recommendations on where to improve?

I have seen many people nowadays are joining all kinds of entrepreneurship forums(e.g. young entrepreneurship forum, world entrepreneurship forum, etc.). There are even entrepreneurship-related competitions for people to join.I have been thinking whether this kind of thing is really useful for people who want to start their own business. Do they really need to attend these forums to learn the necessary entrepreneurship skills? If not, would it be just a waste of time? Surely people like Eric Ries and Steve Jobs did not need to hop around these events to start their own business. Would love to know what you guys think. Fire away your thoughts!

With the rise of analytics in professional sports decision making over the last 15 years, many ex-finance and mba types have moved over to work in front offices of various sports teams.

Examples include Tampa Bay Rays (but pretty much all of baseball now), the Rockets, Trail-Blazers, etc.

I know an ex goldman trader that quit their career and left hundred's of thousands of dollars to get a sort-of entry level position at a sports team.

Just curious on how many of you monkeys have been interested in working in front offices of various pro sports teams, have you interviewed for any positions, and would you turn down 6 figures and the finance/consulting career path for a 20k/year internship and a shot to become a GM one day?

Hey everyone, I have a idea and I was wondering if anyone had done this successfully before.

I was buying a ticket to a concert/festival and bought the pre-sale ticket for $100. 2 days later I went back and checked out prices and pre-sale was over and tickets were now $150. Now I know $50 isnt much of a gain (I'm hoping it will sell out and go up more) but if I had bought 10 extra tickets and resold them I would have pocketed $500 for doing virtually nothing

Have any of you ever done this before as a way to make some extra cash while in school or anything? It seems way too easy and thats why I'm asking. Any flaws you see?

How does a company get picked up for coverage by a ratings agency? Are there any incentives to pick up as many companies as possible?

Thanks.