What was your major in undergrad?
Do you need to be a Finance major to score interviews? Could you share what you majored in please. I'm currently a Finance major at a big state school and considering a combined degree with MSF. Would a masters in finance or international business be better?
I'm willing to bet my bonus, my apartment and my soul that you go to the University of Florida
😂😂😂
well? do you?
Female anatomy studies
Pussy studies
BA in Economics
Computer Engineering
Operations research and Industrial Engineering
UMich CoE?
The answer really varies based on school you're going to. For an Ivy League type school you can major in literally anything and you can break in. For a larger state school you'll typically want to pick a major within the business school (Econ, Finance, Accounting, Business) as they will have the best connections/recruiting relative to the rest of the school but it's not a firm rule. If you got to a real non-target it's mandatory to major in a business major because smaller firms have less ability and little interest in training unrelated majors and these smaller firms is where you'll get your first internships and probably job out of college.
To answer your question specifically my UG is finance but if I were to go back I would have done accounting because the job of analysts in many roles is to create models and analysis based off statements that accountants made. Additionally and more importantly finance major is designed to prepare people to enter an entry level financial analyst role, not FO. Thus, in my experience there was not much depth in topics regarding IB, AM, PE, HF, S&T, etc. As a result it wasn't really worth it from an instructional pov. (WSO courses are way more in depth for a fraction of the price).
Really you would do accounting? I’m currently accounting and plan on switching to finance. I feel like I am wasting my time especially if I don’t want to get a CPA. Would love to hear more about your thought process behind that.
The material you learn in Accounting has applications beyond just getting the CPA. Accounting is a technical major designed to prepare one for a career.
Generally speaking Accounting coursework at the undergrad level can be siloed into two buckets. Public Accounting (more straightforward financial statements) and Private/Managerial Accounting. 1 or more of these groups will be useful depending on your job. If you are at a BB working solely on household names and work for a vanilla mutual fund on the buyside then you won't need a lot of knowledge beyond Public Accounting. If you ever find yourself working with smaller or mid-sized companies either from an investment perspective or advisory perspective, then your financials aren't always clean and nicely formatted. Concepts such as knowing how to audit the statements you are given, and being able to understand managerial statements is incredibly useful. You will also probably have to dabble in tax implications at smaller firms, as they don't have the horsepower in specialized teams like a BB does (all of this additional complexity but low overhead is why you see typically boutique firms being specialized in one sector).
Unfortunately, I can't speak so positively about finance because academic finance diverges from career finance for the following reasons:
1) Academic finance assumes a perfectly priced market
2) Academic finance professors come from heavily quantitative background (think math, econ, etc.)
I'll explain both points in more detail
1) The efficient market hypothesis is pretty much the gold standard in academic finance and as a result capital markets classes are taught with this framework in mind. You will be given some basic definitions regarding various instruments, financial institutions, etc. but you will never truly be taught how to create your own portfolio or analyze business/stocks for potential investment all things that are essential for any buy-side seat.
2) This may seem surprising that I'm bringing this up as STEM is always seen as a difficult major and hence those in academic finance should be very intelligent, however I see it personally as a disadvantage. The reason I see it so is because these professors teach with the mindset that there is a stated correct answer when it comes to valuation rather than discussing the field as an art. Let me give you an example of a problem you may get in a course:
A project has an initial cash outlay of $200,000 at Year 0. Given that the cash inflows at Years 1 - 5 are $50,000 calculate the NPV assuming a discount rate of 5% and calculate the IRR.
You see this is essentially a math problem. However real-world finance is more of an art. Nobody will give you the cash inflows at years 1-5 and you will have to employ various techniques to estimate these cash flows. No one will give you the discount rate either. And there is no real "right answer" like one from a math background would expect.
Another example:
A common theory that you will learn in a capital planning course is Modigliani-Miller. You can read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modigliani%E2%80%93Miller_theorem
Examine the without taxes and with taxes propositions. Seems like something you would learn in a math class correct?
However notice the assumptions:
In the real world many of these assumptions don't exist and hence your job will be to figure out how to estimate capital structure with several of these assumptions violated, not regurgitating formulas that exist in a perfect, theoretical environment
And finally, most finance majors are designed to "prepare" students for an entry level financial analyst role which has very little to do with corporation/business services which is completely contrary to most FO roles. So, front office topics that aren't dependent on EMH like M&A, advisory, RX, etc. will be very briefly mentioned, if mentioned at all.
This is the way
For a more serious response: I ended up double majoring in Finance and Accounting. Added accounting as major exactly for the reasons noted above in terms of understanding the interplay of the financial statements. The funny thing about it, in hindsight, I probably would have needed to only do 3-4 accounting classes that truly applied for my career.
Math and Chemistry
Architecture with a business minor. I regret my major.
Did you enter the MBA route or go to an Ivy?
I've heard Architecture can be incredibly difficult, time-consuming, and competitive. I have two friends who started as Architectural Engineering/Architecture majors and both switched after two years.
Contemporary Film Studies
Mechanical Engineering, but I am in real estate, not as relevant to straight finance.
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Starting full-time at GS this year (London office) in S&T.
Studied chemistry.
Starting full-time at a top LO AM firm in NYC
Studied math and CS.
Most people you meet in IB will be finance or economics. Schools like HYPSM, Northwestern, and others without an undergrad bschool will have most people doing econ for IB.
Graduate with economics.
Bachelor in International Relations and Masters in Political Science, both at top UK targets. Starting full-time this year at a BB in IBD, no prior finance experience (previously worked in tech startups and government).
Gender Studies at MIT.
Haha Poli Sci myself. Had to teach myself finance via the free Sloane courses and Damodaran videos etc. Would highly recommend for those going into finance to obviously major in finance or econ. Despite my finance self-education and that being enough to land me my banking job, I definitely felt like I didn't have as good a grasp on the conceptual understanding of what would happen every now and then in certain scenarios. It was definitely never a huge hinderance but definitely sometimes felt like I had to stretch more on the spot to figure out some things early on. I'd say that went away after six months and I was performing at the highest level relative to my class but I think not having the formal education pushed me extremely hard to make sure I properly learned every concept
Chemical Engineering
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