Seeking advice regarding potential illness and career setbacks

Focus on your health and not your career. Get as healthy as you can, given the situation you are in.
While often not openly discussed, bankers are also human beings and I have seen a fair share of colleagues who went through a health scare. It often depends on the gravity of the condition. While an autoimmune disease might be managed over time, cancer might be a different story.

IB (and any management job) comes with a steep price tag - time, effort, nerves, youth, and health. You are giving up a lot to gain something else. Make sure that this "something else" is worth something to you.

Genuienly sorry for your cancer. DM me and lets connect on linkedin to see whether there is something I can do to help within my current job (albeit being in a diff country). For now, please focus on your health and not banking.

Very sorry to hear above this, feel free to DM me and I can provide some contacts, guides, and personal advice (I was in a similar position with a life threating health issue) if any of that would be helpful.

I'm a multiple cancer survivor. I landed several interviews for "elite" IB and PE from a non-target when I was your age so here is my advice;

• Immediate - Prioritize your health above everything else. Switch to a part-time schedule and get as many exams as possible delayed. You should be trying to get your GPA for this semester cancelled and instead get credit for it on a pass/fail basis.
• Short term - You don't even know what your treatment will look like yet. It is okay to have a year without an internship. Target obtaining a teaching assistant or research assistant opportunity on campus by reaching out to faculty and explaining your goals.
• When you can - Negotiate to delay your internship or get an alternative off cycle opportunity.
• Long term - There are only a few places in the market where recruiting for investment banking is not a mess. Though you cannot rely on your institution to help you be competitive for investment banking they can help in other ways; consider delaying graduation, try to get a few low value electives or requirements waived, get your credit hours reduced etc... Speak with the senior leadership of your university and its various departments and let them know you are going to need some help.
• Sentiment - You still need to think about getting your resume ready for senior year recruiting. You still need to figure out building a competitive profile. Consider the soft parts of your resume like modelling experience or industry knowledge and assess your present preparedness for a summer analyst internship in investment banking. You likely know the things you want to improve already. Your background was a standard non-target background before things got bad, that doesn't diminish your challenges but it is something to remain realistic about.
• Future - Keep building your resume to suit whatever it is you decide to do. Remember that you don't have a problematic gap in experience because you don't have any full-time experience. It is not ideal but it is something that can be managed. Consider what you want to accomplish and make list of clubs you can join, classes you want to take, and self study you want to complete. As your treatment becomes more clear you can begin to prioritize which ones make sense to reconsider later on.

Best of luck.

As many others have posted - prioritize your health.  

I was stricken with illness in my 20s and early 30s, in//out of hospitals constantly to the point I knew most staff on a first-name basis.  Get the treatment and get your health taken care of before pursuing this endeavor.  Make sure to get a dietician if you can through your care plan or even consult one for specialty diets (many people do not know that it can be covered in insurance).  It took me a long time before I am where I am now.  You got this.

Best of luck.

Hey Mate

Sorry to hear about your current situation - having been through it myself I really empathise with where you're coming from because it's just generally shitty. In my case, it was an autoimmune condition, which kind of "emerged" around Sep 2021 and resulted in me being hospitalised for 2 weeks in December 2021, because I was stupid and didn't get a second opinion or take the warning signs seriously, and prioritised performance at Uni and the minimisation of disruptions to my career plan over my own health. Please don't do this - one key requirement of having a career in finance or otherwise is being alive and physically capable. 

Now, I wasn't in exactly the same situation as you because I was in my 3rd year of a 5 year degree, and in Australia recruiting for summers in IB/Finance in general doesn't really occur until mid-way through the penultimate year (I believe this is Junior year for the Americans), however I will say that I was genuinely petrified of the potential career ramifications of the condition. I thought that my working life was over before I'd had a chance for it to begin and was just overwhelmingly distraught. Ultimately, that fear didn't eventuate - I was able to get on the proper medical regime with the right doctors and make certain lifestyle changes that allow me to live relatively "normally". I was able to get a Summer Analyst role and secure a return offer, just as I planned initially. My quality of life is relatively good - there are good days and bad days, but ultimately it averages as alright - I deal with a bit of excessive fatigue, but the group were aware of this and more than happy to accommodate for it, which I guess is a big part of having a lasting and successful career if this is an ongoing condition. I don't think I would have been able to accomplish any of that without taking a step back from my big ambitions to focus on my health though. If you don't step back you end up focusing on both part-time and you both prolong your own suffering as well as doing a sub-par job at career-building.

In summary, my advice to you would be to sort your health out and then focus on your career. As many others in this thread have said before me, Bankers are people too and will understand if there's a gap in your career due to a health condition. Best of luck with everything. 

Great thoughts in the thread already. One thing I will say is that when you get through this, you will have a better perspective and story than almost everyone your age.

I grew up with an illness I thought was terminal, so a good schoolweek for me was 3 days and I basically constantly felt hungover. Been kept in a hospital overnight hundreds of times in my life. This was only fixed after the age of 20. It's made me more resilient, and has made me stand out massively in interviews as well. Currently at a VC with good comp, a successful side business and a very happy life overall.

Prioritize your health - you will easily catch up later on in life.

OP, your health and recovery come first and foremost. When you're back on the grind and if any firm dings you for this, they weren't worth it in the first place. There will always be opportunity. 

Am in Toronto. When you're ready to get back in the mix, ping me. Will help you any way I can.

Here's idea, maybe a longshot. Let's say you decide you can't manage the SA. You could call them up, and tell them you've had to put your life on hold to treat a serious, perhaps life threatening medical condition, would they consider putting you in next years program instead? If it's a yes, you could take a leave of absence from your undergrad, and pick everything back up next year. If the health condition is real, and justifies it, they might be sympathetic, or worried about discrimination. I'm sorry it happened, but life is full of setbacks I'm sorry to say. You have to do the best you can with the cards you are dealt.