Best Route to HF?

I'm a freshman in college who got bit by the HF bug after stumbling across and watching too many Ackman interviews. I know unequivocally that I want to work at a HF. Reading about the markets all day and actually investing is a dream job.

I'm just as certain that I don't really want to work in ib at all, but is the 2 years seen as a necessary prerequisite for a career in finance? Not necessarily in terms of learning technicals and training, but more as being able to say, "I did my two years in the trenches." I get the feeling that these two years out of college are a kind of rite of passage into finance, but if I can manage to get a job in the buy-side right out of college somehow, should I pass up on the ib experience?

Thanks for any responses

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