Little bit of a crossroad here.. Disadvantaged College Senior weighing options

Hello,

I am a Senior at a state school, with some real decisions to make.

I had a completely disinterested first 3 years of school, with really no direction and no big (any) career goals. Well, I am now forced to do something about it.

I had a 3.15 GPA until Junior year Fall. Mother passed, Failed 3/4 classes as I didn't decide to withdraw until it was too late. 2.75 GPA. Next semester I go through the motions, maintaining my work ethic from the first 2.5 years. I was pretty ahead with credits, and came to the realization that I couldn't afford a ~3.0 GPA semester, so I withdrew from all courses.

This past semester, (Senior Fall) I got a 3.6 GPA while taking CFA Level 1 because I thought Equity Research would be an interesting and somewhat attainable big goal.

I have still so much work to do. I read a guide on DCF modeling, but I have to flesh that out and build my skills with that. I have been investing and reading about investing, keeping up with the markets, but I could put more time into that. Yet to write a full fledged report, and wouldn't say I have my own "investing mindset" just yet.

Anyway, so I think it's pretty clear that it will be verrrrry tough to land an ER job upon graduation. The report/model that I'm gonna send out is gonna take some time, and God knows how long the networking will take afterward.

So to prepare for this, I have 2 main options. 1 is PWM @ a BB as I've been interning there since the past Summer.
And 2 is an underwriting position for some mortgage lender in Maryland (about 3 hrs away from me - I'm based in the NY/NJ metropolitan area.

Is there any doubt that I should take PWM first? I plan on just riding this job out until I land an ER gig... which hopefully would take PWM who knows if you'll make it far past that.

Both pay the same. Maryland the only reason I can think of to take that would be to get experience doing real work rather than selling, and getting away would be great, but clearly not a priority right now..

I know I've made some bad decisions, and I accept my position, but if anyone has any advice, I'm all ears at this point. Thanks