Balancing Pre-med and Finance
I'm currently at a freshman at a top 15 (think WUSTL, NU, JHU) split between medicine and finance/consulting (grouping finance and consulting together only because they're closer than medicine ever will be). As with any freshman, I really don't know for sure what I want to do. But, finding balance within extracurriculars would be important to keeping my options open. Medical school requires stuff like clinical experience, volunteering, and sometimes research, so to keep that option open, I really do need to keep those things going.
I'm currently a research assistant at a psychology lab and an active player in two student startups. I'm about to initiate at my fraternity and about to start a remote internship doing internet marketing (this was purely out of interest, not for resume). This summer, I'll be interning at a hotel in China (again, out of interest and learning language, not even sure if this helps for either medicine or finance/consulting). I'll be spending next summer at Harvard summer school for biology.
Sorry for all the details, but I suppose my question is this: will a junior SA position be enough to help me break in? What else can/should I do assuming I'm shooting hard for both med school and breaking in? I really can't see myself deciding anytime soon; I love both.
Glad i found this, I'm in the exact same situation, except i'm a sophomore :(
it sucks.
Actually its a great situation. I was on the same boat. The best way to do it is to just focus on the science, don't get cute and double major with econ/finance. People will already be impressed that you are doing a hard science (assuming you have a high GPA). Since you are premed you should be shooting for a 3.7 - 3.9 GPA anyways. If you accomplish that you will be fine for med school and getting first rounds at most bulge bracket and mid market investment banks.
The best part of the situation is when you are in banking/S&T, if you get fired (which happens a lot more now) or things become unbearable you have a quick back up option.
Just make sure you get as high GPA as you can.
The above advice is solid, but to take the other side, I feel that in college you really do get rewarded for deciding what you want to do as early as you can. If you have a track record of focusing on pre-med, with no finance-related internships, even if you have a phenomenal GPA, I don't think it's a slam-dunk that you'll get lots of interviews/offers for SA spots in your junior year (there will be lots of people with the same GPA who have always focused on finance).
At the same time, I know that med school is also extremely competitive and you need a great track record to get accepted. I wouldn't sacrifice med school aspirations for finance stuff. You would be better off spinning your med stuff into a "I want to do healthcare banking!" story than spinning your finance stuff into anything that will help you get into med school.
To answer this question, yes: if you get a junior SA position that'll probably be enough to break into finance, assuming you get a returning offer. And if you do your internship in the U.S., the odds are pretty high that you'll get one (probably 70-90% do at most banks, in IBD, but less than that in S&T).
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