Best course of action for an internship
Hello, I just created an account here but I was a lurked for a few months.
I am an upcoming Jr. at a respected liberal arts school in Illinois and I recently just switched my major from pre-medicine to Finance and Economics with a minor in accounting. I been interested in Finance my whole life as I have family at the CBOT and always loved the environment their.
I currently have a 3.78 GPA and a 4.0 in all my business classes. I am working at trying to get a 3.85 ending GPA. I did pretty good in my science classes with my worst grade being an A- in Organic Chemistry and some bio classes. All my business professors love me and I even got some scholarships since switching from professor recommendation for being a highly motivated student. I am in SGA, leadership roles in fraternity, and a leadership job on campus.
My school is on a trimester system and the classes I am taking next term are Intermediate Economics, Intermediate Accounting 1, Computer Science 1, and Business Stats 1
I really want to get into investment banking M&A or S&T. My academic advisers are working with me to find opportunities for the following summer (this summer I have summer school as I need it to graduate on time). I just want to know what I can do to prepare. I am currently trying to learn Excel, going to be purchasing Investment Banking: Valuation, Leveraged Buyouts, and M&A. I want to know if I have any realistic chance of breaking it into Wall Street for not being at a direct target school, though I know a current board of trustee did work at Goldman Sachs.
What should I be doing in the mean time before I apply for interns, I know I have to network, but what else can I be doing. I feel like I have very slim chances at getting a BB internship, as everyone else is at an Ivy...
Network - try to find people with a similar background to you, that includes individuals that can fall into the following categories: family friends, alumni, non-target/liberal arts professionals in IB/S&T, people who switched from pre-med to finance/economics, ethnic background, etc. - keep an Excel sheet or some kind of file making notes on all your meetings and conversations, LinkedIn has added a new feature now where you can add notes to each individual profile and you can setup reminders of when to contact them again
Improve technical skills including Excel, PowerPoint, Valuation, Financial Modeling, etc. -
Improve speaking skills, check out Toastmasters. Also, "small talk" is more important than a lot of people think.
Books & Movies: get familiar with all the pop culture/popular books/movies associated with IB/Trading - Wall Street Movies, Boiler Room, read Monkey Business, Liar's Poker, Barbarians at the Gate,
Follow news: WSJ, FT, DealBook, MiddleMarket, PeHub, etc. -
Marketing/Branding/Positioning - Know your story, go over this often, have your pitch ready. Have a 1-2 min pitch ready and also a long version, maybe 3-4/5 min. Be able to articulate why you switched from pre-med to finance, why you chose your school, why IB/S&T, etc.
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