How screwed am I (Trauma dump long story warning)Seeking advice
I’m a Junior studying Finance at a super non target public school in a Major city with no work/internship experience. Graduating in 2025
For context: I moved to the US 2 1/2 years ago from a developing country (not as bad as third world but developing) after high school thanks to my dad that was offered to relocate by his company so I decided to move with him.
I started out in community college as it was essentially my only option in terms of what we could afford.
Little did I know my immigration status would make my life hell. My dad was on a TN visa and I was a TD visa. Which basically didn’t allow me to be able to work legally under any circumstance. So for the first two years of my college career, I have not done any internships at all
Community college didn’t help either, even if I had the authorization to work, getting an internship was hard as for most internships I wanted to apply to I didn’t even meet the basic requirement of being enrolled in a four year degree.
Three semesters go by and its time to apply to where im going. Unfortunately, moving out was not an option due to financial reasons, and my immigrant family also doesn’t grasp the idea of moving out for college, so I was restricted to looking locally. My only feasible commutable choices would have been:
2 elite top private unis, but with tuition of 60k plus.
Two non target private unis but a tad bit more prestigious than mine but with 42k+ tuition. Still out of my range financially.
Got my green card about a month ago to my surprise, which im really grateful for, so now I’m in the process of looking for internships.
But the truth is I’m feeling very hopeless. My only professional experience includes community college school orgs/ extracurriculars and thats it.
Main one for community college includes being part of a team robotics competition that competed in NASA, (I thought I would go for CS) and the second year I became the “business division” head that managed the assets of the organization and raised a little bit of funding from sponsorships
For my first semester (this past semester) I competed as a team finalist in collegiate excel competition representing my school if that helps.
I’m probably too far deep into my degree im not even sure transferring out would be an option, and Id be wasting 1 year of university . My only hope is this Investment competition I signed up for coming up, supposedly the top performing teams get a guaranteed interview.
But even then Im not sure I’d get an offer given my background and no previous internship. I have a 3.7 GPA.
Feels like im so behind and can’t help but to compare myself with my peers who don’t have to deal with the problems of being an immigrant.
Any advice?
Post belongs in the job search forum
If all you do is wallow in self-pity and rationalize excuses then yes you are screwed.
Otherwise, you got a fucking green card, decent enough GPA to get scholarships in a state school, and if you are actually willing to work your ass off, a lot is possible.
Do you know how many hungry international students would love to be in your place right now?
Would you rather be a Brown kid that had to leave work and go back home because he didn’t get selected for the sponsorship lottery (actually know a person) or a US resident who gets a chance at even a state school?
Granted, you will be “behind” people from Harvard who got a Evercore SA -> FT -> MF PE or whatever.
But what even is behind or on time? We all have our own timeline. You’re less likely to get into IB right away. And it seems you have a couple options:
1. Take out a loan (now GC makes you eligible for wide range of options) to go to the private schools - if they take you based on your hardship story. But I see this less likely given community college, relatively low GPA, and coming from Mexico (TN and developing = Mexico) on dad's TN job is not that strong of a hardship story. Moreoever, given the rates right now, I personally wouldn’t advise a kid to take a 200k loan for a minimal shot at an internship given your profile.
2. Get into a state school. Can get into a decent one - and might actually get a scholarship if you get your story right. In the mean time, keep competing and networking. Be respectful, hungry, and inquisitive. And put your name and face with a good first impression in front of as many people as possible.
If you want to get shit done and be something in life, you gotta be comfortable getting in a couple of fights with your family.
In your place, given my life experience, I would try to get into a decent state school (private works too if they have need-based scholarship). Get my GPA to 4 my last two years while still competing, maintaining EC, and trying internships. If you get one, it is great.
If you don't get an internship, you can do a specialized masters (even in Canada as it is a lot cheaper and a few unis are well recognized among top EBs)
I went to a no-name state school as an international and just did a MFin in Canada, and I have managed to get interviews at EBs through networking - but because of sponsorship required in this market, I haven’t been able to move forward with no exp. And I only decided I wanted to do banking a year ago (came from engineering).
I have actually seen the top hungry people go from MFin programs (either on TN or those with green card) to EBs and HFs in NYC and TX. [If you look at "stats", some won't look like a target but that is because a lot of people in MFin come without a proper goal and pre-finance exp. Those who are prepped and hungry and have been prepping a year or two before the program will have no issues securing IB.]
So, yes. You might be “behind” a prep school kid who went to Harvard. But this is life. When you look back at your life at 60, having a wobbly 3-4 years is no big deal.
You gotta do your best with the hands you are dealt. But you gotta fight for it with every single ounce of your energy.
What's the end goal?
There are plenty of non-traditional routes into asset management (Hell, I'm not even certain there's a "traditional" route. Maybe it's IB, but even that's pretty rare)
On my team (think Steve Carell's team in 'The Big Short') our trader went to Rutgers. I went to a non-target, had a crappy GPA, did manual labor for a couple years, and got stuck in a dead-end FA without a book job. I got my CFA Charter, had a break, and rode it to be a part of the team running the hottest product at a top 10 AM firm. (Well, maybe second hottest, but we don't get the kind of free media the other one does)
Life is what you make of it. If the traditional route isn't open to you, figure out how to make the non-traditional one work. I'm a big fan of trying to get your CFA charter. Somehow an early 20s engineer with no experience managed to sneak into Bloomberg's ETF conference this week. I spoke to him, because he was one of the few people I didn't know. He opened by mentioning that he was going for level 2. It doesn't get you in, but it shows that you're serious about trying.
lmao the analogy
Gotta be simple for the non-finance folks. After trying to distill a dynamic currency hedging overlay to three slides for the past week this was an easy one.
IDK, who was the biggest loser in that group? That's probably me. My boss is cooler than Carell's character though.
I stopped reading after it went from "hardships" to ”my dad got relocated by its company”
Chatted with a kid who grew up in a war, had moved to the US on his own, had a 4.0 GPA, had no connections whatsoever, and still was optimistic, humble, and grateful for everything in his life.
And kids here saying they got trauma when their dad’s company moved them from Mexico to the US.
What the heck is wrong with these kids?
wtf theres no trauma, grow up
Why couldn't you do any internships? Just do unpaid internships for experience. You shouldn't need a work visa for those.
When you have a victim mentality, you strip yourself of any opportunity.
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