Best self-education curriculum

I'm graduating from a non-target at the end of this semester. I know the difficult road that is ahead of me if I want to get into IB and I'm okay with it. From this point forward I want to start focusing my education strictly on the skills that I will need to really excel in the industry. From what I can tell two very import skills one can have are valuation and financial modeling experience/expertise. I figured I would spend the next x months studying these two subject until I have a solid understanding of both. Do you guys believe that I should be putting my focus on these two areas or should go elsewhere? Possibly more advanced calculus or statistics? Idk. I have been studying straight math (mainly algebra and calculus) for the past month or so but feel that focusing on valuation and modeling would be better. Curious what you guys think..

Thanks in advance, ZC

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Yes lol unless you are going to hedge fund or want to do quant research or something you only need basic math. You still need to have a good understanding of how the math works but the math involved in valuation is NOT difficult at all. The hardest part is that there are a ton of different variables that can fit into a few basic formulas in different ways but that’s really understanding accounting. You absolutely don’t need a higher degree in math not sure where you heard that. Half the people in banking went to Ivy League schools and majored in philosophy. I suck at math and ended up with a BB offer so lol.

My recommendation would be to:

  1. Get a very solid accounting foundation
  2. Learn basic corporate finance principles, I.e. NPV method, payback period, IRR etc
  3. Learn basic valuations, DCF (which is basically NPV method), comparable companies, and precedent transactions.
  4. Learn financial statement modeling and LBO modeling which can get tricky

Finance is really not rocket science, but it can get tricky and getting that strong foundation In accounting is super helpful and will make your life a lot easier when learning finance concepts.

 

Ive basically been going through Khan academy courses just to sharpen up my math skills. Start will linear algebra, trig and geometry. Then proceeded to calc and stats.

 

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