Transitioning from M&A Internships to ER: Seeking Advice on Next Steps

Hello everyone, and thank you for taking the time to read my post. I find myself in a bit of a delicate situation, and I would appreciate your advice.

I am currently completing a dual degree in Pharmacy (PharmD) and Business School (MSc.). I am interested in pursuing a career in ER because I believe it is where I can best leverage my background as a pharmacist. However, I have a couple of issues:

I only have 9 months of internship experience, all in M&A (sell-side and buy-side). My sell-side internship was at a small boutique firm specializing in small-cap Biotech/Medtech & Digital Health companies, potentially for fundraising from VC/PE funds. My buy-side internship was at a chemical company with a CDMO activity, producing APIs, intermediates, and specialty ingredients for pharmaceutical and chemical companies. This was a hybrid M&A and strategy internship.

During my first internship (2 months), my role was heavily front-office oriented. I sourced deals/clients and did very little modeling. The most advanced modeling I did was valuation by market comps using Capital IQ. I had the opportunity to attend meetings with partners of funds/CEOs of small companies. My partners assured me that the valuation of the companies we were selling would come last because it is more about luck with biotechs than anything else. They briefly explained NPV valuation, but since the deal flow was just starting to be decent, I didn't even get to do one (nor a DCF valuation, for that matter). My second internship was 95% strategy-focused, involving a lot of data sourcing and cross-referencing. The company was under LBO by a PE fund, so I assisted in the closure of some production sites and conducted "deep dives" for shareholders.

I'll be honest with you guys, I have basic finance knowledge (reading the three financial statements, doing a DCF, etc.), but nothing more advanced. I was very lucky to secure these two internships and to be able to list them as "M&A internships" on my resume. But let's be real, I have the skill level of a TikToker.

Starting in October, I will have officially completed my dual degree. Normally, I wouldn't be able to do more internships, but I found a way to do 1 or 2 more (!). I have enough savings to last until April 2025 without working. I can easily find a job in the pharmaceutical industry, but what I really want is to work in ER (because it highlights my pharmacist background from the junior level and involves investment in public markets). Initially, I took M&A internships because I was told it opens the most doors (you can call me an idiot), but now I think it would be more coherent to start directly in ER. I have no preference for sell-side or buy-side (from what I understand, in buy-side you cover more stocks and are more exposed to risk, and in sell-side you have more access to top management of companies, in both cases my learning curve will be exponential). From October to April, I can work all day on my technical skills, behavioral questions, brainteasers, and networking.

That's being said I have several questions :

1. Where should I start? From what I know after doing my research, the CFA is not worth it (better to network or work 300+ hours on technical skills).
2. I am located in Europe. What is the current state of the ER job market here? I know there is less turnover than in IB and that most jobs are in London. Can you confirm this?
3. What about credit research? Although I haven't looked into it much, would I be able to leverage my background as effectively as in ER?

Thank you.