In need for Guidance

The nice thing about going into trading is it matters less that you come from a target school. More often than not, the recruiting process involves a battery of tests, so as long as you can do well on the tests and prove you're as smart as you tell them you are, you should be fine.

In terms of starting to learn trading, I'd say keep away for now. There are plenty of bad ways out there, and you don't want to learn all the wrong ways to do it (and pick up the bad habits). If you really want to go into trading, focus on school, and spend summers on learning more math/statistics. If you want to be successful at trading in the long run, don't try for the quick win this summer.

can you give an example of a "bad habit" while trading?

To answer the original question I'd say that in my experience 65 hours a week sounds about right, maybe even on the high side. I don't know any analysts who work more than 65-70 hours a week, max, in sales - there's really not that much that can be done outside of market hours aside from client interaction. The only analysts on the S&T side I know that work longer hours are those in structuring, and even they top out at around 70 hours a week.

Nebanker, was that in response to my question about equity derivatives sales? Your comment seems a bit lost in this thread. Cheers.

"It is a fine thing to be out on the hills alone. A man can hardly be a beast or a fool alone on a great mountain." - Francis Kilvert (1840-1879)

"Ce serait bien plus beau si je pouvais le dire à quelqu'un." - Samivel

transfer to a target if you can such as michigan (closest school to wisconsin where you have a shot)

Yeah I've seriously considered transferring and I actually applied to Cornell. I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that one. However I'm not a big fan of public schools, class sizes are too big and I prefer a more intimate setting where I can get the maximum attention from lecturers. Though you could get the same amount of attention if your pro-active in your approach, I still think a private school would be a better fit.

Marquette however has an AIM program (applied investment management). I think its relatively sound in its approach in giving students practical financial experience. Students in the program (size 26-30) actively manage 1 million dollars in equity and they sell their pitch to potential investors, along with taking finance classes. So far the alumni are doing well on Wall Street but the exposure we get are still minimal at best.

cornell AEM is a solid program from what friends have told me and gets heavily recruiter by all major banks across all front office divisions. i understand your feeling about class sizes but if you get into cornell you would be dumb not to make the move imo

that marquette program sounds interesting but as you already seem to be aware, wall street is not paying any attention

oh ya and other good transfer friendly schools

unc michigan uva nyu stern (if your not in stern its not worth going there imo)

all the ivies (except cornell) and stanford have super low transfer rates i think