Looking for general advice

Context: Just finished high school this May, starting college in the fall. Studying CS with a minor in Econ. Been working as a software engineer at startups for a while now, started in basic roles, have gotten up to the point where I’ve had the chance to lead engineering teams. About to start a Summer Analyst position at a VC firm. Looking to do IB -> PE, ER, or Quant/Trading for a career. Have been prepping for all (more quant/trading tho if I’m being honest). Any and all advice appreciated! If the above backstory wasn’t enough, I’m glad to provide more info. (Also let me know if I put this in the wrong forum for future reference).

Edit: Some specifics cuz I’m an idiot. Any tips for networking/recruiting (online and offline), interviews, prep material/methods, and career trajectories would be much appreciated.

Edit 2: I’ve heard some negative things about CS for careers besides S&T/quant. Besides GPA/rigor, does the major itself help/hurt for IB & ER?

Edit 3: Had a bunch of convos with people that I've connected with in previous days and it looks like I'll be sticking with either quant or S&T since a lot of what I do independently is a combination of both and I like it most. Thanks for the help.

11 Comments
 

Look to be honest you seem like a definite hardo. Not saying that that's a bad thing though but I don't really get the sense that you know what you want to do. Given your background in software engineering, I would recommend quant work as that is the most analytical work. I would study up a little more on each field and try to see what you like more. Definitely go to networking events (virtual obviously) during you freshman year. Best of luck.

 

Yeah. My initial intro to finance was VC in my freshmen year of HS through startups, and that’s when I really started looking into finance and liking it a lot. I’ve tried to explore the field as much as possible, but I’ve always kind of leaned towards quant/trading cuz it naturally made sense to me as an area (it took my a while to get used to the differences between tech and finance).

 

Maybe you should ask a question?

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

Hehe, fair point. I will say tho, not looking for anything too specific, just advice on networking/recruiting (online and offline), interviews, career trajectories, etc.

 

Get involved with different groups on campus (one investing/ib focused and one quant focused) which will help give you a good idea of what you're interested in. Also all jobs you described are all very different so I'd recommend just reading as much as you can about each of them and talking to students/alumni/people in those fields you know about their roles/jobs to focus in on what you're interested in.

 

Cool, thank you! The clubs part is definitely something I’ve heard repeatedly on WSO, especially since I’ve heard that all the recruiting at my school happens through the clubs. I’ve been (only very recently) connecting with a lot of people who work at the firms I want to work at or hold the positions I’m looking into, which has proven immensely helpful.

 

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