Should I Pursue a Summer internship in Quant Trading or Investment Banking?

I am a Math major and had data science internship experience. I feel my academic strengths, interests and personality point toward quantitative analysis and quant trading as a career. I have taken Finance courses, so I can prepare and apply for IB internship too. Would a quant internship or IB internship prepare me better for either a quant job or IB job? I know IB has the benefits of structured training and networking, will working for IB for 2 years necessary to prepare me better for a quant career? I heard there are lack of exit opportunities in Quant. Should I be concerned, If I don't end up loving Quant right away, and have no IB experience to exit to other finance areas, would I get pigeon-holed? 

Should I pursue a summer internship in Quant Trading or Investment Banking? Thank you for your advice!

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This is sort of a no brainer for anyone who knows the kind of things that they are interested in and also knows what both careers entail. Given you are asking the question I’ll assume you are missing one or both of these. If you enjoy the problem solving/creative/technical side of mathematics and data science then DO NOT do IB. It will be incredibly boring for you and assuming you are competent quant will give you higher pay, better WLB, and more interesting work. Simply put, if you actually enjoy your math major then do quant, otherwise there’s a wealth of info on this forum about what a career in IB actually entails and I suggest you start there to know whether or not you’d be interested in pursuing it.

 

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