What would you do in my position? PMW plan B?

Hi Everyone,

I am graduating in June from a non target state school in the Northeast (Big alumni network) and my goal is to become an Equity Research Associate. I have been networking with 35 invidividuals and tracking my efforts through excel, while at the same time working on a sample report that I will send out during my next round of follow ups.

One of the alumni I was networking with works at Merrill Lynch and offered to refer me to their FA training program, which I went through the interview process for, and ultimately received an offer.

My question is should I take this FA position out of undergrad(which is basically sales) while continuing to network to break into ER, or would taking this position put me in a bad position to enter the ER industry?

Any advice or recommendations as to what you would do in my position would be greatly appreciated!