Hey so I just got out of a meeting to catch up with my mentor from my previous internship who basically got me my current "unpaid" IBD internship in NYC. He has a strong background and was very insightful with his advice. I thought this can pertain to a number of users on WSO just like myself who is gunning for IBD FT.
To give a little background on my contact he currently works for a large insurance company doing corporate development. His "story" as he calls it is unlike what you or I would expect from a typical HBS alumni.
He explained to me that he did not try in high school and dug himself into a deep hole in college. Going into his junior year he had a sub 3.0 GPA and was a typical frat bro that cared little about school. He aspired to be a banker on wall street and landed a broker gig with MS for his junior year summer internship. Landed 0 offers for banking and decided to move to Washington DC to look for a job. After realizing he wanted to go into healthcare and having no science background he networked his way into Georgetown's masters program in something like molecular biology to give himself some credibility within the industry. He basically made a deal with the Dean and said if he didn't get above a 3.5 GPA in the first semester they can kick him out and take his tuition money. He proceed to study all day long and graduated with a 4.0. He began to develop a story about where he was and where he was going.
Going forward in short, he did 2 years at a small boutique IBD and was accepted into HBS, graduated and went into venture capital for a few years before going to his current job in corporate development.
The advice that I would like to pay forward is that you need to be developing your own special story. He asked me to think about what my vision was and then work backwards to figure out how to get there. If your vision is going to business school then what are the steps necessary to make that happen. While he said that taking the path of HPY to BB to MF is just one path there are many others that will result in the same end goal.
Always be thinking about your end goal and work towards it. This means thinking further ahead then IBD to PE. That is only going to run you 4-5 years and you still need to think about the remaining 35 years in the work force.
Sorry if the writing is chopy, but I hope this might help some of you think about your future.
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