Electrical Engineering or IB?
I’m currently a rising sophomore majoring in EE and I am at a crossroads between choosing EE or IB for my career. I’ve seen a lot of people work as engineers first then make their way into IB. Would it be logical for me to do the same? I really enjoy math and physics which IB obviously doesn’t have. However, I’m worried about the opportunities in the EE field any insight would be greatly appreciated. For more context my current GPA 3.7 and technical GPA is 3.5.
Based on the highest ranked content on WSO, here are some insights to help you decide between Electrical Engineering (EE) and Investment Banking (IB):
Interest and Enjoyment:
Career Transition:
Opportunities in EE:
GPA Considerations:
Personal Experiences:
Long-term Goals:
Ultimately, the decision should be based on your interests, strengths, and long-term career aspirations. Both fields offer unique opportunities and challenges, so consider what aligns best with your personal and professional goals.
Sources: Banking doesn’t sound as bad when you consider other paths., Does everyone wants to leave Investment Banking after 2 years?, Are you guys happy with life? Help me please., 3rd year Harvard Medical School student thinking about high finance transition- am I being realisitc?, https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/investment-banking/former-bb-sa-to-big-tech-engineer?customgpt=1
The world doesn’t need more engineers, it needs more investment bankers
I dropped my Computer Engineering double major to go all-in on IB recruiting and would advise anyone else to do the same unless you hate your life.
If you're comfortable managing your time between the (generally harder) upper-level engineering classes, maintaining a high GPA, and budgeting 20+ hours to learn the finance stuff during your sophomore fall/ spring, then go for it. If not, don't do it – if you don't get anything for IB recruiting, you still have a shot at management consulting, and both IB and Consulting give you similar/ higher compensation and career optionality. Interning in an engineering role freshman summer also made me realize I didn't find it particularly interesting vs. IB; I just wanted to chase the bread and a somewhat interesting job that would pay me for working in interesting stuff.
To your last point, most BME/ EE people I know who were top students ended up going to finance or tech-related fields that valued their math/reasoning skills over the specific stuff they learned in their major.
Going to disagree with above. Studied Comp Sci / Engineering undergrad at a top STEM program before doing EB -> PE and deciding to return to the engineering world.
Sure, engineers make less money on paper but once you work on Wall St you realize "wealth" isn't synonymous with a bank account. Being an experienced electric engineer means you will never worry about being employable and you will have built leverage to protect the type of lifestyle you choose. You can always get an MBA and leverage your experience in IBD or VC-type investing, but it's much harder to work backwards and make up for the technical experience you missed out on while your peers were working much healthier hours (and being paid plenty to live a more comfortable lifestyle than 95% of mid 20yr olds). One of the core topics on the buyside is the idea of a durable competitive advantage ("moat") - anyone who's spent time in PE can tell you that despite appearances the only real moat that exists climbing the junior rungs of finance is how poor of a lifestyle you will tolerate while still generating sufficiently reliable work (unless you have family connections).
At a minimum, make sure to network with career engineers too so you aren't biasing your results with strictly finance people.
Do you enjoy working 50 hours a week for 100k per year debugging timers? Are you obsessed with small minutae and details? Do you like flying to shenzen once a quarter to report to your Chinese overlords? Then you will love EE!!
With questions like these, you really gotta do what you'd rather do. Like would you rather do engineering or finance? financially you'll be fine regardless.
From the perspective of someone who covers semis/hardware as an investor, I think there is a big shift happening rn in labor dynamics for engineering roles.
For a long time, there has been significant demand for software engineers driven by Dennard planar scaling and associated decrease in computing costs every few years. Essentially, as Marc Andreessen put it, when the cost of compute asymptotically approaches zero, substantial value can be created by creating new software and the bottleneck is how fast you can ship code. However, it is becoming more and more expensive to get a Moore's Law doubling every two years, and the bottleneck is now swinging towards hardware. Some evidence for this is the meteoric rise in market capitalization for semiconductor equipment companies (ASML, LRCX, AMAT, KLAC, etc.). Also, since improvements in software performance are no longer free, other unrelated technical verticals like defense, aerospace and advanced manufacturing are showing a relatively higher return on R&D and attracting a lot of VC money which used to be earmarked exclusively for software.
At the same time, university CompSci programs have pulled a lot of undergrad talent away from hardware, causing a shortage of engineers. I think we are entering a period where hardware engineers will be able to demand substantially higher salaries than in the past. I also think that the top decile outcome for an electrical engineer is no longer to be a senior person at a F500 company, but rather to be a founder or engineering leader at a hardtech startup. For a lot of these startups, the main obstacle for success is not commercial but technological, so if you're a cracked engineer you can print cash. As these startups proliferate and succeed, this should put upward pressure on wages of engineers even at big companies as they compete for talent.
tldr it's a good time to study engineering
Any smaller semi equipment companies that you recommend investing in to capitalize on rapid growth?
I would take a look at subsystems (MKSI, ICHR, UCTT) but I would also be careful; semi equipment is generally expensive and there's been a lot of CapEx outlays for anticipated AI demand on 2nm. If there's an air pocket it would be bad for valuations
Sit tempore possimus ducimus saepe dolorem et a veritatis. Voluptatem excepturi saepe laborum nihil autem. Unde consequatur laboriosam quibusdam repellat occaecati excepturi. Qui voluptate nihil maiores dicta et voluptatibus. Laborum quia placeat dolores eum et voluptate aperiam.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...