Big 4 Risk Advisory Intern or FLDP Intern at a F25 ?

For context, I'm a junior at a state business school studying analytics. I've already done a rotation at the F25 company so I'd be returning for another rotation (and 2 more years of rotations post-grad iirc). If it matters, the Big 4 internship pays about 2.5 times more but of course still looking for the best future exit ops/career outlook. Also a little unsure of what the FLDP career path looks like so I'd appreciate any insight into that as well. Thanks in advance.

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To me an internship is really only worth one thing: to signal that you are of good enough quality to get an internship at a decent company and to keep it. You might learn something, and that will be beneficial, but a prospective employer is not going to grill you on what you learned in an internship and pass over you because your internship was not technically focused or something like that.

On their own, Big 4 and an F25 company are basically equal. It matters more which path you want to go after graduating. If you were an accounting major interested in corporate long term, I'd say to go the CPA path- the big 4 years suck, but having that CPA gives more optionality in the future (and I say this as a non-CPA). I look across the finance department and see my options are limited because I don't have my CPA. I'll be fine and am not considering getting it later, but if I were to do it again without knowing where I'd end up, I think I'd suck it up and go the CPA path.

If a CPA is off the table since you are studying analytics (and you still want to go the corporate path long term) I'd just jump into corporate now.

As far as the FLDP career path- I've seen multiple FLDPs from my F200 defense company go get their MBA at HSW or T15 schools. Seen multiple exit to tech companies. All in my class have hit manager at 4-6 years. Some exit to sales, most stay in finance. You can pick your rotations to try to tailor your career and story, so it gives you an amount of control. Nowhere near IB/HF/PE money, but you can likely get to mid-100s by the end of your 20s (maybe low 200s if you're a rock star) and climb from there, which is a decent lifestyle in a LCOL city.

 

Appreciate the detailed response. Curious to know if you have any more specifics about those who took exit ops or went back to school (time frame, pay, etc.). Also, which options are being closed off due to you not having a CPA? Thanks again. 

 

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