Confused on career direction - graduating senior seeking advice

Hello WSO, lurker for a while first time poster. So, I fucked up. I'm a smart kid (3.8+ GPA) but I went to state non-target school to have fun and didn't really know what my plan was. I'm a finance major graduating in May and am just getting around to looking for jobs. I have minimal work experience (wealth management internship last summer, boutique firm but same old insurance garbage as NWM) but decent finance competition experience (CFA Research Challange and a venture capital competition as well as USC Stock pitch competition last year). I basically don't know where I want to go. I wouldn't mind IB hours/grind even though I know I'm way too late for that but to be quite honest I'd rather work less and have better work /life balance even if pay is less. I have an interview at a boutique consulting firm soon working in their M&A department. It's mostly sales, trying to find private businesses that would be open to an acquisition and trying to connect these businesses to PE firms. Base is low but I'm low on options. I also have a close friend at a commercial real estate firm in Southern California (where I'm located) that could potentially give me an in. That would be higher base and I would be working to produce decks and help find financing for big CRE deals.

I feel lost. If I got this M&A job I think I would need to take it but my questions are: What would the exit opportunities look like? What would I have to do to get those opportunities? Where else should I be looking for jobs this late in the cycle? I'm starting to network now but I know I'm really very late on that. As a sidenote, I really enjoyed the VC competition and would love to work in there someday if you have advice for me on that.

Further into the future, I'm considering an MBA. I have a great GPA and am very good on tests, I should be able to get a great GMAT score with study. I'm also studying for CFA Level 1 right now. I think I want to be a PM in the future, so I know a CFA would be really helpful in that regard. The clearest path I see right now is to take this M&A job, try to pivot to better IB jobs or just stick with this one for a couple of years, get an MBA, then try to do IB --> HF. Should I try to do MBA --> PE --> HF? Any and all advice is appreciated, I know this post is kind of all over the place but so am I. Bottom line: I'm a smart kid who's driven, if not a little lazy, and need to make a specific plan for the future. Will answer any questions if you guys want to know more. Thanks.