Confused - Freshman/non-target liberal arts, most importantly international
Hi there veteran monkeys
I am a freshman international student from China. I assume most firms do not deem asian guys as diversities =__=, and getting a work permit as an alien undergrad is fairly hard.
What I want to know is how to break this difficult situation for myself.
I am in a liberal arts college in ny state, but somewhat far from nyc. It might be really dim, but we do usually get helpful alums coming back to campus. Every year we have several guys sent to JPM by internal refer, etc. I have been networking my ass off. I met a COO of a data firm and a partner of a hedge fund. Gladly I held a low expectation and they were not really interested in a freshman without GPA. But after all I feel really sad I failed to impress any of them. I feel I have the ability and qualification but could not show them:
I am fairly quantitative, capable of doing several different kinds of researches, including equities, option valuation, and a little bit about asset-backed securities. Bloomberg certified (not really useful i assume). Probably I will get about 4.0 this semester and hopefully keep it by the end of freshman year. Given that I lack leadership and communication skills, I am working on starting a finance club on this campus by the end of this semester. And I will try to get a PWM internship in ML or UBS during the first summer.
What other things I can do? Can you guys post some advice for me? Suggestions from H1B holders are especially helpful..
keep networking and keep in touch with all the people you meet. They become valuable later on!
To boost your resume...pursue a minor in finance or econ or quant, join student gov. or some club and get some leadership role by the time you are junior, starting something of your own on campus is great.
Hope this helps.
"I assume most firms do not deem asian guys as diversities."
LOL, you are learning quickly how politics work in America!
You're not in as bad a spot as you think. You can EASILY recruit for HK, China or Singapore office positions because of your language ability. Network like hell, starting right NOW. Ask your alumni office to track who is in the BBs and MMs and get in touch. If it's a small LA college, they will probably be glad to talk to you out of alumni solidarity.
Keep those grades up too.
"Alien Undergrads" definitely sounds like a shitty sitcom.
Sounds like you're on top of it. I'm lib arts too and, regardless of your major, you sort of have to prove that you can do practical tasks/technical stuff more than kids from other schools---i.e., not just analyze shakespeare really thoughtfully. you do that by getting internships early on. of course you also need to keep you're gpa way up as well. these are the prerequisites...then you have to keep networking hard to get in the door. you're lucky that you're so close to nyc.
way to get on it early and good luck.
Thank you guys, I really need a platform to demonstrate myself. But those people I met won't seriously listen to or look at a guy like me right now. I should try to find the internship i need and get the club done asap. Then I could reach an many alums as I can, at least I get something to show i am not a dumbass.
any other suggestions? I really would like to see if there are other H1B holders on this forum lol
First of all, you will not be able to do PWM at Merrill lynch or UBS in the United States because those jobs (unpaid) will require a work permit, which you do not have as a freshmen (unless you are going to activate your OPT now which is a retarded move).
Second, look more into S&T than onto IBD, S&T seems to be more international friendly because HORDES of US citizen students want to do IBD but not as much choose S&T.
Third, fuck liberal arts, major in something hard like math. You need to separate yourself from the US candidates. Simply put, if you major in finance and accounting like the 200000 other American candidates you will have a much harder time differentiating yourself, unlike majoring in Finance and Math, which shows rigor and uniqueness.
+1 to above. Slaving through real analysis problem sets = 16 weeks. Benefits = lifelong.
Get laid, come back in a year and start worrying about your future.
i will not use my OPT right now but i can use my CPT and get credits for college instead. i think that is not bad....
and u r right i am going to major in math, instead of econ which i thought would be my major..
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