In 1 sentence or less, what Finance subfield do I have a shot in?
I’ll keep it short.
Graduating from University of Maryland in next month (Summer) w/ Computer Science major & Stat minor.
2.9 cumulative GPA.
Only 1 past internship for a no-name tech company in D.C.
I took no finance/business courses in college & no clubs either.
I hate software engineering. But I love finance.
Which field do I have the best chances to break into? From my research it seems IB is the way to go? What about asset management? Thoughts? Btw, plz take longer than a sentence to explain if you need to—I put that title to grab your attention.
Operations. Then lateral. Sorry, but GPA is too low for anything that's remotely front office.
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My GPA is hit from a ton of math courses & theory based computer science courses I’ve taken. Do you think think lower tier banks would understand this & give me a shot? Even if I understand all the IB technicals & I get an SIE certification?
No. "lower tier banks" lol makes no difference recruiting is going to be extremely competitive across the spectrum. If by lower tier banks you are referring to no-name boutiques then perhaps yes they may be more gracious.
I feel like they would totally understand. sometimes engineers dont even put a GPA lol. if they ask maybe just say 3.0. to the person that said operations lol u can do whatever you want man. gonna be hard to pull an EB but you can network into a lower tier IB.
GPA is far too low for IB and you're way too late to the game. Non-target like Maryland you need to be in their IB workshop and be recruiting for IB internship 2nd semester sophomore year for junior summer which leads to full-time offer. I think it would be borderline impossible for you to get an IB offer at a reputable firm this late in the game, regardless of GPA. I'd recommend putting your CS major to use and testing smaller shops' appetites for S&T roles that require a lot of coding or operations roles at banks and then lateral later. I'd say if IB is your goal you'll likely need an MBA after 2 (minimum) to 4 years of work experience. SIE will do little to nothing in strengthening your profile. GPA will be a major, major hurdle as well but not impossible to overcome especially considering difficulty of major.
Second this advice. GPA is KING for IB, you will honestly be auto-rejected from everything. SIE is meaningless, it's a 1-2 week thing to study for at most, and your competition will be finance majors with a 3.9 and multiple internships. Not trying to be harsh here, but IB is just not a good use of time/focus for someone graduating next month. You can absolutely always go back for an MBA if you really want IB.
S&T at a small shop might look past your GPA if you have coding experience. You're going to need to network though. If you go too long without a job, you could always do SWE for 2-4 years and then aim for an MBA to get into finance or IB - very doable path.
And not to pile on, but also keep in mind that your GPA is going to be an uphill battle at any top MBA program. There are ways to mitigate, but GPA is important for business school too
+1 Leverage the skillset you actually have to get a 40-50 hour/week role that uses computer science/coding/statistics in some way. From there you have a variety of options, including grad school and lateral opportunities, IF you use time outside of work wisely to learn technicals/network aggressively/get a killer GRE or GMAT. After a year or two of full-time work on your resume, you'll have money, resources, and experience to deploy towards your goals from a position of strength. Currently, fresh out of school graduating off-cycle with no job offer, you don't have enough leverage. Also, asset management seems much easier to swing from your background.
SWE -> MBA -> IB
This path wouldn’t be a waste of time at all
commercial real estate...everyone can have a shot at finance in CRE.
Surprised no ones mentioned software sales... you can easily make IB money if you learn sales, and the technical background in CS would be very helpful. That being said I’m sure most CS majors aren’t a good fit for sales. Software is eating the world, find something adjacent to software that’s business related
PWM
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