JM Introduction post

Hello fellow monkeys, my name is Jose. After a lot of googling as part of my internal struggles, I have found this website which seems to have a very solid community. I hope I don't bore you too much with my introduction.

I'm 25 years old. I'm from the Dominican Republic. I graduated from a bilingual school which catered mostly to expats and people looking to study in the US. I, unfortunately, didn't take advantage of that the first time around and decided to study Law back in my country. Graduated in 2014 and worked for a while in corporate and real estate law.

Fast forward a few years and here I am studying finance at Florida International University. I always had an interest in the financial markets, how they worked, how people made and lost money, the forces behind stock prices, what made a business successful and so on, but this career was nonexistent back in the Dominican Republic.

Because this is my second undergraduate, I was accepted as a 2 year transfer. I'm already 1 year in and I have realized how important it is to put the extra effort before I graduate in order to secure a job before or soon after I finish my degree.

Here is where I come to you guys for help.

Currently my GPA is 3.00, really dropped the ball when I got married, but I'm well on my way to fixing it. I have joined ALPFA-FIU, which is basically a finance student group, and I'm attending every event my schedule allows. I'm planning on taking the CFA level 1 exam next year. My graduation date is Dec 2018 if I take the summer, or Spring 2019 if I don't.

I understand I'm in a severe disadvantage, which is why I want to know how I could further differentiate myself from other candidates in my field. I want to do the traditional IB->PE transition, as I feel PE might be more in line with what I would like to spend the rest of my life doing (And I have read you can't get into PE unless you are some sort of whiz kid out of college). The other hurdle I have to sort out is finding a job in the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale area, as my wife was lucky enough to find her dream job here and I honestly don't want to make her choose. Hopefully you guys can help me steer in the right direction.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this.

P.S. Please feel free to correct any grammatical/spelling mistakes, or any other mistakes regarding the substance of the post. A man can only grow by acknowledging his faults.