Figuring Out a Career at Caltech - Why IB?
Basically the title - right now I'm a HS senior (I'm assuming this is like most professional forums which get a lot of traffic from HSers asking annoying questions, so I'll try not to be this way) who's just committed to Caltech, and has no clue what I want to do as a career - I basically got into Caltech by doing a bunch of fun tech stuff which does not translate into a career I'd enjoy.
Now that all that background stuff is done, here's the question: Why'd you choose IB? Would you choose it over other careers like tech, consulting, etc? Is the money worth the WLB to you? And anything else you feel is something you'd want to tell any college freshman thinking of IB or any other finance career. Thanks for answering. Or reading. One of the two if your this far into the post.
There are several other engineering majors that frequent this forum, but for myself I had an engineering internship (non CS) my freshman summer and realized that I wasnt meant to be in a lab or production floor.
For me, I didnt really consider consulting early on, and locked in to finance due to the fast pace nature, exposure you get at the analyst level, and bull-pen experience. Imo, I'd rather spend my early 20s building a career foundation than partying, or traveling a ton (luckily am well traveled due to my family).
For yourself, talk to people, try and get internships early on (in finance or not, either way is a win since you learn what you like and dont like), and read/learn about the various types of industries that seem to align with your goals and personality
You’re at Caltech dude. IB is under you. Investment Banking is the sell side. You’re literally at the best STEM College in the world. Get a 4.0 and jump straight to buy side and work as a quant trader making $450k TC right out of undergrad working 60 hours a week instead of 90.
Second this. Also I'd assume it's easy to land top S&T roles from an elite STEM school. Probably cookie-cutter IB (M&A or Cap Markets) would bore you to death considering how you did "fun" tech-y things in HS. It's literally just a glorified marketing and secretary role, and would be a tragic waste of talent for someone at CalTech.
As a caltech student recruiting for IB, that decided against quant work, I strongly disagree.
quant is very much nontrivial to get, even for a top student at a top school. Going to a top school just guarantees an interview (which aren't THAT difficult to come by btw), but the interview process is brutal - anecdotally a friend got rejected from 2s after 11 interviews
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