conflicted aeronautical engineering student at imperial, need opinions pls
hello lovely people!
To summarise my journey up to today: In Year 13, I applied for Aeronautical Engineering at several universities, and I am now in my first year at Imperial. At the time, I loved it, and to be honest, I still do enjoy the theoretical aspects of my modules. However, I've come to realise that being an aerospace engineer isn't what I had imagined, and the salary doesn't support that either.
Now, I'm about to finish my first year at uni, and over the Easter break, I've been doing research into finance and investment banking. Unfortunately, I did not apply for spring weeks this year, as I was too late. However, my degree is four years, and I think I might be able to apply for some next year. I have zero finance or investment banking experience (apart from gcse business lol), and I am currently planning to spend some money on a long structured course that will cover all the basics of financial modelling, accounting terminology, and all that other stuff. am a bit worried, though, that just taking online courses won't get me very far when applying
I would opinions on what to do next
tanx!
(was recommended to come here from reddit)
Can you dm me?
unfortunately a new user so can't for another day or so
Hey - just responding to the above, I currently work in private equity but am interested in A&D industry. Why don’t we chat about this offline. Just text me at 215-290-0133
Judging by your course and university, you'll be fine. Just spend free time nailing cv and cover letters for 2024 SA and Springs
Thanks for the reply!
I currently do plan to beef up my CV with some of the Bloomberg, GS or JPM free courses they've got on, I was going to look for some small boutiques to cold email for an unpaid volunteering little smthn over the summer so I'd at least have a little experience before going into my 2nd year applying for SWs and SAs. But I quickly realised I'd probably be more of a liability to them lol. Anything else you might recommend apart from filling up my CV with basically cotton
I might add, I've genuinely got a story behind me on why i'm considering the switch and it's not all bc of the salary as I could very well go down the swe or tech route and probably work less hours and earn equal/more out of uni then 1st yr ib analysts do
It's better to fill your CV up with things like Imperial Student Managed Fund, Other finance related societies (try to secure leadership positions), sports teams are also very good if you are sporty. Both my M&A SA's offers came from final round interviews where my interviewer and I could talk about rugby until the cows come home.
Something niche that is somewhat unique on your CV is also good, my friend for example put on Cigar merchant and it is a constant talking point in interviews.
Those Bloomberg market concepts and others are fucking useless and demonstrate nothing. If anything they turn me off when skimming a CV
the modelling and JPM courses aren't going to help. Just get some good extracurriculars. Don't even need to be finance related for spring weeks. I did a science subject and wasn;t really expected to have much relevant work ex for springs
DO NOT SPEND MONEY ON THOSE COURSES. Your current situation those are completely unnecessary. You will learn this stuff during spring week/internship conversion.
Apply for Spring Weeks next year, and cold email smaller firms (which already shows you can put the effort in). Might be a stretch, but try and meet some professors around the university and see if they have things to keep you occupied during summer (potentially the business school if you are lucky). Any experience will help with Spring Weeks.
Spring week admission comes down to grades and extracurriculars really. They just pluck from the top uni's so you are fine there. As other users mentioned, join student clubs (I know Imperial has a quasi-investment fund where you do Equity Research type work), try and work over the summer, then finally try and develop a unique experience to discuss in interviews.
Heya Thanks so much for the response!
Student clubs seem to be an idea I really wish i leveraged at the beginning of the year, unfortunately won't be able to actively partake in an investment society until around the start of the second academic year. So ultimately I really am just wanting to do something productive this summer and not just waste it.
Any recommendations?
Cheers
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