Looking for mentor/guidance

Hi all.

I’m a first generation student at a target liberal arts college graduating in the fall of ‘25. I don’t have any family in the business which presumably makes breaking into the industry difficult.

However, I have been building up traits that I believe make me well suited for the industry. I’ve been working and supporting myself since I was 14, climbing the social mobility latter from a small underprivileged farm town to a top 5 liberal arts college, working jobs at grocery stores and gritty manual labor for the last 6 years. I’m graduating in the fall of ‘25 because I took off the spring semester to go all in on a tech startup I was working on. Me and a few classmates raised 500k to pursue our thesis. Things didn’t pan out and I made the difficult decision to step away and finish my education, ultimately to pursue a strong interest in finance. I’m interested in breaking into the industry in any ways possible, with particular interests on the buy side (PE/HF) and fixed income.

I’m looking for some advice and guidance on how to leverage my experiences and best prepare for a career in finance.