Penn State Feshman looking to work on Wall Street in the future

Hey everyone this site seems awesome and I'm really looking forward to learning and contributing to the community. My first semester is nearly over and it looks like I'll end up with around a 3.9 GPA. As the title says I'm looking to work on Wall Street in the future. If anyone has a bit of advice to give me it would be greatly appreciated. I'm glad to have stumbled upon this site.

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Best Response

I grew up in PA so half the people I grew up with went to PSU. I only know a few in Wall St finance jobs but they tend to be ultra loyal to each other. I don't think many firms recruit on campus so you'll have to do the networking thing. Search this site about non-targets breaking in-there are tons of good threads on it. Get internships, get to know people through LinkedIn searches who went to Penn State, etc. You're not too far from NYC so you'll be able to travel there and there's a 50/50 chance you're from the Philly area which will make it easy over summers to network with people. There are also a limited amount of IB's in the Philly area-much smaller, definitely not BB's-so you can look there as well. Good luck.

 

Here are some that I think all would agree would be good steps:

1) Maintain your GPA 2) Take some basic finance courses or teach yourself some basic modeling - especially finance theory and valuations (There are plenty of resources available online to get by) 3) Keep up with the news, markets, deals, etc. 4) Join the Finance Club or Investment Club at Penn State 5) Network with alumni, family, friends, etc. and try to get any position - perhaps one at a boutique IB or investment firm 6) Read the forum and other sites for some interview tips when you get to that point.

 

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