Without a tribe
Hello,
I'm a junior in college . Just started my second semeste here yesterday, and I sort of feel like I don't have a "finance" tribe that I feel comfortable in.
I'm targeting physical commodity trading, but not Oil and Gas, more like grain trading or resin/plastic merchandising, since I happen to have experience shipping it and dealing with ports and sort of that part of the supply chain. I feel alone recruiting now, especially because the firms I'm networking with(DeLong, The Andersons, Scoular, Tricon) are basically unknown to my peers. I go to school in the Northeast, so Boston, NYC, maybe Philly and Houston for O&G are what people are targeting, while I'm over here calling places in Olathe Park, Kansas.
I don't belong to any finance clubs, and really none of them sort of have what I'm looking for in terms of networking oppurtunities or even career paths. Commodities is one desk to start with in S&T, and physical basis merchandising(which is primarily what The Andersons and DeLong do) is honestly not really adjacent to finance and is more logistics/supply chain.
Sort of looking for advice on how to feel more comfortable at school. My school is very finance-driven, and most of the careers that people pursue do center around Philly, Boston, NYC geographically.
Thanks.
It'll be said ad nauseum but I think your best bet is to just cold network. Look up people at firms you're interested in and just LinkedIn/email like a mother fucker. You're young and still in school. People (in my exp, granted none is in commodities) like to talk about themselves and what they do to young people. Reach out for 15-20 min chats, stay up to date on current events, keep in contact. Can't really advise on clubs, I went to a large semi-target in the NE and we didn't have any clubs for commodities so I can imagine it must be hard to build a community around this area at most schools. You know what you want and seem somewhat passionate about it which is really all you need to get started this early.
I do. I mean I actually call all the places and talk to HR, which is surprising, ngl. Usually I have to leave a message. People in the industry are actually very warm. Must be the Midwest warmth lol. I am hopefully able to get an internship at one of those places, since the people I interned for were one of their main counterparties, and I know how my business affects their bottom line directly. Also I do talk to traders most of the time as well, which when I tell them Im from the East Coast they ask how I found out about them lol, and what I work on.
I think the thing I struggle with the most is the real day-to-day stuff at school. My peers are t all incredibly motivated and will most likely end up in the industry they desire. There's just a professional mismatch in what we want to do, and where we would do it. I am realistically moving out to Iowa, Kansas City, maybe Minneapolis. Stamford, CT is the closest, but Gunvor and Freeport are quite selective in who they interview.
Also, my main "hobby" is doing research and writing on basically the economies of failed states, so not really the most riveting or uh, conducive to making connections.
Grew up in a flyover state, so that's def a factor! Midwestern friendliness is real.
I don't really understand what the worry here is. That you and your peers don't share the same goals? Ok, so you're not one of the many fish swimming for the same spawning pond... that's meaningless as soon as you graduate. I can honestly say I've only interacted with 1 person from my undergrad who shared my major in a professional context (a few older alumni sure, but that's different). If you feel like you're missing out on the "comradery" then sure, I can see why it'd feel a bit weird being the odd man out. But if anything that means you just have less competition as well which is undeniably a benefit, especially in the current job market.
If you've got weird hobbies that's fine. Just make an effort to go to parties or do some kind of club sport or w/e to socialize. There's a pretty low chance that anyone you're going to school with is ever going to have a hiring decision/reference-making position over you so it's not like you need to view socializing as a way of building a network in this context. Just have fun and make friends. Or if you prefer being alone and a shut in that's fine I guess, w/e floats your boat. Once you're working that's where you're going to build a network for commodities anyway so who cares.
Honestly, the fact(or perceived fact) that I'm the only one who is visibly recruiting for commodity trading/merchandising has never made me less worried. It's actually made me more nervous.
Like if the vast majority of students at my school don't want to work out in the Midwest, I still am applying to programs that certainly recruit from Nebraska, Purdue, Illinois State, Iowa, Kansas, and UT-Austin, Idaho, and Wisconsin. Like, just because I don't literally see them at school doesn't mean they don't exist. I know they exist, and I know they have structured programs and pipelines. I wouldn't say it's less competition, just not as visible from my point of view.
Many of the clubs at my school due to tend to hold most of the social infrastructure, and I also got rejected by said clubs (not great at interviews and it was deserved), and there's really no reason for them to let me in given the professional mismatch.
The reality is that I am here for another two years, and it's just tough if I'm being honest. Also parties don't really happen at my school, or at least I am not aware/invited to them.
Are you basically asking how to make friends? It sounds like you think your social life is lacking because you are not in any finance-oriented professional organizations, and people at your school mainly bond through those organizations.
If you have friends and a social life outside of the pre-professional finance sphere at your school, I agree with the other posters saying you have no issues. You don't need to align your career aspirations with your classmates to enjoy college.
I don't actually. I'm a transfer student, and it was my first semester at my new school in the spring, and really the biggest piece of advice people gave to me was "Join the clubs" once I got to my new school. I've been basically operating on my own for a while, even before I transferred.
I'll admit I don't have the gift of gab or anything close to it, but its just tough because there's nothing that me and my classmates really share professonally or really personally.
I mean recruiting for non IB/PE path isn’t really related to above. I was in a couple finance clubs, and our focus was on 1) drinking and 2) finding ANY job after graduation as the only OCR we had was for northwest mutual
You should feel lucky that you’re not around finance bots all day. Make real friends in college. This doesn’t seem like much of a problem tbh
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