Student Feeling Lost Seeking for Advice

I feel empty, hopeless, and helpless. I don't know what happened to me.


I am an international student from a national top 30 school in the west coast. Since I came to the US back in 2018, I have been grinding real hard. I did all my best to get all the internships and all the good grades possible in a community college, and eventually transfer to the school where I am studying now. I have always had one dream in mind -- I want to break into finance.


Last semester I had a major setback in my life. With the hope of breaking into finance, I deferred my graduation date from May 2022 to December 2023 just to try to get more internships to boost my chance of landing a Full-time job in high finance. But I failed. I failed my 2023 SA interview with some of the top banks and top buy-side, and I failed my grades too. I do not have a summer internship lined up for 2023 at this point and my GPA dropped from 3.8 to 3.6. I even tried to leave finance to study computer science instead, but after taking some CS classes, I feel like I am just not a fit in that field of study.


What should I do now? I think I have three options at this point:

  1. Graduate in Spring 2023 and find a Full-time position in M&A corp. dev.

  2. Try to find whatever finance related position for Summer 2023 and hope for the best in getting a full-time offer later in IB or buy-side

  3. Study a master degree in finance in the US or Hong Kong and grind for summer associate positions


Which path should I take and how likely it will succeed? I have 3 finance-related internship so far on my resume -- one from an IB boutique shop in LA, one from a family office in NYC, and one from an insurance company. 


Would greatly appreciate any advices provided. Thank you for taking time to read this thread in your busy schedule.

 

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