Lost and not sure what to do... (Long post, seeking advice for my unique recruiting situation)

(TLDR at the bottom)

Hi Everyone, 

I am currently a junior at a top 30 college, and have been recruiting for various positions in finance since winter'23/spring'24. I have a pretty decent resume with a good GPA, past internships at search funds (bullshit work exp., I know), a long-only boutique AM last summer (which I got through a personal connection) , and a strong entrepreneurial background from my time in high school. I do not want to make this post sound like a cringe sob story, but I believe that I have faced a lot of adversity in my recruiting efforts and wanted to see what advice you all might be able to offer, as it feels to me like time is running out and at this point I don't have any idea of what to do next, as it feels as if I've exhausted all the typical advice that's shared to people in my position. 

I started out by recruiting for Summer '25 positions primarily in IB around this time last year. I went through all the motions of studying technicals, completing mock interviews, sending out networking emails, having calls, etc. This led to some initial success, as I received a decent amount of first round interviews at several BBs, EBs, and MMs, but was rejected from each of them, without ever having made it past the first round for each process. The same happened when I began recruiting again in the fall, interviewing for a wider range of roles that were supposed to be less competitive than those I interviewed for in the spring. The common pattern for each and every process I was invited into was that I would get rejected after the first round interview and never make it to the second round, which I am nearly 100% sure was due to my speech impediment (stuttering), as I received great feedback in my mock interviews on my technical knowledge and the actual content of my answers, but was often told that my stutter would be a large hindrance in my goal of finding a job in finance. I decided to not listen to this and keep persevering, as I do not see myself being happy in pursuing any field that isn't finance, or at least finance adjacent, and I don't like giving up on my goals. I tried various new forms of therapy, mock interviews, and more alternative treatment throughout this time to try and reduce my stutter in interviews, but nothing seemed to work. 

Finally, around late January to early February of this year, my stutter somehow became much less severe in interviews out of nowhere (I think due to the effects of desensitization and "rejection therapy" finally kicking in from all the failed interviews) and, out of the 6 interviews I've had since then, I made it to the final round in 4 of those processes, but still don't have anything formally lined up for this summer.  Although I'm happy that I've fared a bit better in recruiting processes since my speech improved, the severe lack of opportunities this soon before the summer prevents me from taking advantage of this as much as I would like to. 

Although I've failed A LOT over the past year, I am grateful for the experiences I've had in recruiting over this time period, as I strongly believe that my speech impediment wouldn't have improved so significantly without the amount of rejections and failure I've faced (antifragility at work to any Nassim Taleb fans out there lol). Further, it gave me the opportunity to take more time to reflect on what it is that I actually want to do, as getting left behind in the IB recruiting pipeline that most people I know follow has required me to think for myself a lot more and try to carve out a different path. The path(s) I've settled on is FICC trading, as I had an experience this past summer working at a long-only boutique asset manager that primarily invests in commodities equities, and I really enjoyed this experience. Further, as an economics major with significant additional coursework in business and finance, I find that I enjoy my classes in economics much more, which is a sign that FICC is a better fit for me, and I also find the field a lot more meritocratic than IB and PE.  The internship this past summer also introduced me, through my research on the commodities sector, to the world of physical commodities trading at firms like Glencore, Trafigura, Vitol, Gunvor, etc., which I now would consider as my dream career. However, the issue I'm running into is that this is a more niche field compared to IB, PE, and L/S trading (the ones that are most popular on this site), and therefore there's less of a predetermined path on how to recruit for roles in this field. I know that several of the oil majors and big trading houses open up applications for their grad programs later this year, but I don't expect to be a strong candidate for these with my lack of a relevant internship for this summer (unless a miracle happens). 

I don't really know what specific advice to ask for since, as the title of the post states, I'm feeling very lost right now in my career planning, so I want to ask that anyone share any advice, thoughts, or anecdotes of any kind that you think might be helpful for me. This site has been very helpful to me countless times in the past, and I appreciate and thank you all for your contributions and support in advance. I hope to get into a better position soon and, in the meantime, I'll continue to persevere even as the universe keeps sending me signals not to. 

(TLDR: Been recruiting since this time last year, got into many prestigious hiring processes but never made it past first round because of speech impediment, speech finally improved earlier this year but too late to take advantage of for recruiting, seeking advice on how to get a last minute internship for this summer that may be relevant to my career goal of commodities trading)