Goldman quantitative investment strategies vs prop trading

Hah the previous poster seems pretty pessimistic. Since I'm neither pessimistic nor optimistic (I don't really care that much about the future - live in the present), I'll try to provide food for thought in near-term.

Ideally, the internship will give you some perspective on whether finance (specifically trading/AM) is an area you'd like. Most likely, coworkers will either teach you the finance, or you'll learn it yourself (or be asked to do so). I think it's healthy to stay open-minded - not knowing jack shit about finance going in is probably okay, but if there isn't sufficient motivation to learn it's probably not going to work out. Even if you find the internship dull, it doesn't mean you should reject finance completely. Maybe half your summer is spent on a a particular task within a proprietary asset allocation method or optimization technique - the only failure here perhaps would be not viewing your work under the appropriate scope.

Myriad of differences between 2 positions. At GS you'll be working in a much larger organization, and there will be opportunities to learn about various divisions within the firm, of which QIS is a small part. On the contrary, prop firms are relatively small and tight-knit, my guess is groups are likely either broken up by strategy or product. The organizational structure of the prop firm would appear much different. Just comparing QIS with a prop firm, you also have different business models. QIS last I checked is still very client focused, whereas at a prop firm you're trading with the firm's capital. Implicit in this is regardless of your role within QIS, thinking in terms of what the client wants is probably important, whereas in prop that's not a concern.

FT recruiting - so yes GS is obviously well-known, but so are some of the more established prop firms. GS name will probably help, but really at the margin I suspect. Like if you submit a resume for banking, automated systems aren't likely to rule you out because of NOT GS and any person looking at your resume will probably come to conclusion "man this dude seems kinda technical", regardless of internship. In the trading/AM arena, I don't necessarily see one giving an edge over the other either.

Mobility/payment over time of career. Again, I don't think one choice vs. other will really give you an edge here. I mean it's possible you go to the prop firm and absolutely hate it. Does that mean in hindsight GS would've been the right choice? Possible but it probably wouldn't matter much. Remember you haven't even started working nor have you finished school yet. Reason you may have trouble contextualizing positions is because for many the first internship doesn't really decide or define rest of one's career.