Experience and things to do as a IB hopeful in the future.

I am a senior in high school and it is currently my second semester. I have very easy classes and decided that I want to get a head start in my road to high finance. I want to eventually work in private equity, hopefully right out of college though this may be unrealistic. But I wanted to know what experience I could secure this summer before I enter college? If you have an answer to that could you also explain how I would go about reaching out and what to do? One last thing is what resources should I use to learn financial modeling as well as the important concepts in finance that are prominent in IB and PE? School wise I am from Texas and believe that I have a good shot at mccombs. I am also waiting on the ivies, Stanford, Umich, NYU, Berkeley, and Duke.

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But I wanted to know what experience I could secure this summer before I enter college?

Apart from practicing your core technicals, you should probably reach out to as many local firms as possible: wealth managers, financial planners, asset managers (best option). Failing that, a sales role where you deal with clients - could be HVAC. I'd start building your CV right now and I think you're making some great decisions if you're thinking about this stuff already :)

 

This is great advice, thank you! One thing I was wondering though is what should I be learning/studying to get stronger knowledge in finance. Are there any resources you could recommend?

 

Read the market news daily (WSJ, NYTimes, etc.). You might not understand what’s going on at first but constant 5-15mins reading a day will eventually accumulate over time and make sure you try to understand the “why” and “how” of every market news/deals.

You can take free courses from WSO or if you’d like to go above and beyond you can do financial modeling courses by paying. Idk what others might say but I bought Adventis FMC and WSP Premium and they were not bad at all. Definitely a hassle completing them but at the same time it’s a great learning curve if you take it serious.

You can also read the Mergers and Inquisitions 2025 400 Question guide which is free and use AI to help explain the concepts easier. So many options, I think anyone can go all day about this. GOODLUCK!!

 
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