Internship Offer Assessment : ER vs. Cap.Marks. vs. PF

What's up everyone, long time lurker looking for some solid advice. Background; non-target, BS Econ & Statistics, high GPA, solid internships. Originally planned on pursuing my MS/PhD in economics, but then learned about investment banking earlier this year and thought I was fully capable of handling the work load. I was still able to land a few offers, thankfully.

I currently have three summer offers - low tier IB Public Fin (think Barclays, DB, RBC) or regional (MM?) DCM (think SunTrust, BBVA, KeyBanc), MM equity research (think Raymond James, Baird, Stifel)

Pros: The PubFin opportunity pays better with great perks and is located in NYC, while the regional DCM /ER opportunity will provide more interesting work with debt and, arguably, help me build a better skill set.

Cons: PubFin might pigeon-hold me. ER/ Regional DCM will be hard to network out of due to location and small size of regional makes me feel like its glorified commercial banking.

My take: Leaning towards the PF opportunity due to location and I'm also a junior. Being in NYC might position me better for FT recruiting, plus help my candidacy for a stronger MBA applications if need be. Also, the ER people told me it's cool for me to do an off cycle while in school. I could care less about "exiting" into traditional PE since I'll most likely pursue higher education anyway. That said, I will continue chasing the next big thing. Personally, I think it's BS when people say it's hard to lateral out of places, but then again, I didn't know what investment banking was until this February. I cannot truly know what I'll like, who knows I might enjoy any of those roles once I'm actually there.

Concerns and outlook: I'm concerned of being "pigeon-held" as my long term outlook is to go into portfolio management or international dev. w/ infrastructure. Yes, I know debt isn't deemed as sexy as its equity counterpart, but it's what I enjoy. What do you all think? Which one would you take and why? If I could get some responses from people who've worked or are working at any of the places above that'd be great!

 

I'd go with the public finance offer. Still has a very decent role/skill set, pay, and networking opportunities. It could also be helpful when crafting a narrative should you decide to go back to the Econ route or international development. Any opportunities with sovereign restructuring, world bank, imf, etc might still value the public finance experience.

 

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