ESADE vs Durham vs Cass
Hi all,
I'm graduating high school this year and now I'm picking from BBA at ESADE, Accounting at Durham, Acc&Fin at Cass (same progamme at Manchester and Nottingham).
Which one do you think is best for landing a job in BB IB or VC?
When it comes to ESADE, my thinking is mainly that BB in Spain is very stagnant, and now I'm generally afraid that Spain will become a new Greece after the whole coronavirus fallout.
Cass > Durham > ESADE
Cass would put you in London with better networking. If you do well there, there's a direct path to IBD.
Durham is a great Uni for law/humanities, but weak in finance and fairly remote for LDN job networking. In the UK, specific majors really drive recruiting. Accounting is going to lead to an accounting job post-school, not IBD. You'll need to not only do well, but recruit against others w/ finance majors that are designed to get jobs in IBD. Who's going to train you for interviews? You'll have to do your own prep, networking as well as do well in your own major. The deck is stacked against you in several ways doing accounting at Durham.
ESADE, great Uni, but Spain in a recession (for who knows how long) seems to be a tough bet.
Durham is a semi-target in the UK, similar to Bristol, Bath, Warwick. Cass is a good university but I would not put it above Durham.
Why are you all assuming that if he goes to ESADE he has to work / intern in Spain? That's just nonsense. I know quite a few people who went to ESADE and are working in London in IBD. ESADE is a semi target in the City and is by far the best university out of the ones you list. Is Spain being hit by Cov-19 right now? Sure, but so will the UK in a couple weeks. Don't base your decision off of that.
IBD in Spain will most likely not be doable since there are incredibly few spots and most recruit from ICADE but it should be perfectly possible for you to intern at Big4 TAS / Duff&Phelps in Madrid for your first internship and then do IBD in London.
Not to mention that you will have the chance to master your Spanish and study abroad, which adds value to your profile regardless of what you do after your undergrad. ESADE for its BBA allows you to study a semester abroad in top business schools (HEC, LSE, schools in the US) and do a second semester of FT internships.
Life in Barcelona is absolutely amazing both as a local and as an international student. If you have any questions about that feel free to message me.