I'm a rising senior in college and would appreciate any advice on my current situation. This is my first post, but have been a long-time lurker and learned a lot through this forum.
Situation background: - Interned at a well-known bank and was fortunate enough to receive a return offer. It expires quite soon. - Didn't love the work (powerpoint etc.), but could see myself doing it for a few years.
I'm wondering if it's a good idea to let the offer expire and shoot my shot at FT recruiting for hedge funds (my understanding of PE is that it involves quite a bit of PPT as well), since what I really love (I think) is the intellectual rigor/deep-dive investment analysis. My school has a relatively strong OCR to go straight to the buyside, and I was also thinking of putting together a few 1-pagers/models and cold-emailing. In my opinion, I have a strong resume (multiple brand-name experiences, solid #s, etc.) and as good a chance as any.
That being said, I recognize that there's a lot of market uncertainty and the obvious move here is to take the FT offer since nothing in the future is guaranteed. If anyone could give me a sense of whether it's realistic to assume HFs would be as open to UGs this year as any other year or even just a sanity check to tell me I'm being stupid and to take the offer, it'd be really helpful.
This is probably stupid, but I'll just add that I get this sense that to have outsized success in investing/finance, you need to be a risk-taker (albeit smartly) and I've always been more of a risk-averse person. Feel like if I can't even take the FT risk to pursue what I'd really love/enjoy more while I'm an unattached, 21-yr college student, I have no idea how I'd build the risk tolerance I might need later on. Again, would love to hear a different opinion on this as well..
Thanks in advance!
