First Job out of Undergrad (Quant vs Banking for Later in Career)

So I would say my two main reasons would be satisfaction and compensation. When I interned there I felt as though I worked hard to build strategies and factors that were rolled up into a "signal" we used to decide what to trade. While this is certainly a cool and intelligent way to invest I found you were very disconnected from the markets. I spent my days looking at large data sets but didn't really get to connect with what was happening in the markets. Secondly, the compensation tends to be lower because the firms are larger (at least they were) in order to support the massive server and comp. stations needed to maintain the investment team and as an individual it is harder to distinguish yourself because you can't tie your performance to gains for the firm as easily. That was my small take on it after a few months there. But, I'm sure the grass is always greener on the other side.