Currently studying biochem at Vanderbilt but I'm curious to see how much major matters for recruitment. It seems as though most who go to Wall Street from vandy majored in econ, although I figure this is a given at any school. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
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Major doesn't matter too much when your school doesn't have a finance program, but you do need to show some sort of finance interest or involvement on your resume and econ is a pretty mindless way to do it.
The question coming from another major will be "why finance/IB" and Vandy surprisingly has pretty limited clubs/involvement opportunities to get finance on your resume (I think they have 1 small fund and maybe 1 or 2 clubs). If I see biochem major with no finance involvement on your resume, I'll assume you were premed but dropped that and decided finance is another prestigious career. Econ at least says "I intend to do finance/business out of school".
The other consideration is GPA - very very important, much more so than major - ideally you want a 3.7+. In IB land, someone with an easy English or History major with a 3.8 will get 10x as many interviews as a chemical engineering or science major with a 3.3. Biochem is a pretty hard major while econ is pretty easy.
and id say the opposite, most people on here love GPA and then wonder why the 4.0 art major sucks at the job. I had a low GPA when I graduated but majored in Finance and was passionate about it. I would be very suspicious if someone didn't have a major similar to Finance if they are truly interested and would they work hard and make a career in that field when hired.
But hey I mean the field pays 6 figures straight out of college and struggles with retention so I am sure they need no help in that area.
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