Hey Guys,
I'm a student in Germany who is thinking about his future life right now.
My CV and college stats should work out to start a career in finance but right now I am questioning my study/career choice. At least from an asset management perspective it seems like one of the most important factors to success is luck, which I really dislike. I'm really interested in derivatives but I simply cannot find insights about what people who work with derivatives do all day. It's highly intransparent to me and focusing my career on something I don't know much about is killing me right now.
My background is a B.Sc. in math and I'm right now in a Master/PhD course for quantitative Finance. I did alot of work/internships in asset management companies, from large to small. I live in Germany so the possibilities to find an internship in IB are really limited.
I know that when I start my career I will commit 110% to it. But without knowing what to fight for my motivation is at an all time low.
Was anyone else in a similar position as I am right now? What did you end up doing?
Is there anything I should check out? Would you explain your daily work life to me so that I can maybe find my career goal?
I am looking forward to your answers! I apologize for any grammar mistakes.
With best regards from a depressed student.
If you are a native German speaker and if you look/act like a German who was born/raised there, I would say you have a decent shot to land a BB gig in Frankfurt or Zürich. Make sure you go to the local target schools (Mannheim, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Otto Beisheim/WHU, etc) and you'll be fine (even if you don't attend the "Elite Unis" in Germany, you'd still be fine. rankings are relevant, but less important than in the US).
Switzerland is also beautiful and a bit smaller, but with decent exits to AM.
What exactly is the challenge here, you would like to know how a day in the life in Frankfurt would look like?
job is similar to London or NYC, just in a smaller environment. fewer people around, less traffic, still decent amount of work. some say that the German speaking areas are "boring" compared to NYC, which might be true. But not everyone wants to live in NYC or London.
Best of luck / Viel Erfolg.
First of all I want to thank you for your reply! I didn't expect any replies this early so this really helps me.
I did my bachelors in math at goethe and I'm pursuing my phd at goethe university right now. My family is not the richest which is why I never did any studies abroad and stuff like that. But I love Frankfurt and see myself staying here (if I find a suitable job that is).
My challenge is not knowing what to aim for. WSO gives me the impression that IB is making PowerPoint Slides 100 hours a week. Asset Management seems like a crazy luck-dependent career. As I mentioned above, I'm really interested in structured finance, but I have no idea what a "derivative-banker" does all day and I can't seem to find much detailed information about it online. And since I don't even know what they do, I can't really commit and motivate myself to work for it, because I'm afraid it will turn out as a boring job. I know this all sounds whiny but I just want to avoid working in a position that I will hate after a few years.
I'd love to have someone experienced to talk to - that's why I made this post. It's not about how to get into it - it's about what I am getting into in the first place.
Again, thank you for your reply!
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