Frankly, I grew up poor and had no idea I was interested in the industry until my senior year of college and by then it was too late. As I'm thinking about the systemic issues and various minority programs, I'm thinking about mentorship and whether you knew about IB and modelling and such because someone sat down and taught you early on, or you just stumbled upon it?
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Summer before college, started researching various financial careers online. Stumbled across super informative websites like this one.
The internet is the great equalizer when it comes to things like this.
I went to a shitty public high school, knew absolutely nothing about investment banking until my sophomore fall of college. It didn’t help that I was originally studying engineering at a school with a small finance community. Luckily I had enough time to network and get an offer.
I can only imagine how much farther I could’ve gone had I known about investment banking earlier, chose my college based on IB placement, etc. but it all worked out in the end.
I’m a huge believer that banks should add “diversity” recruiting for first generation and/or low income students. It’s nearly impossible to keep up with the elite prep school -> target kids
I'm glad that you point out those characteristics as the qualities that would define diversity, as that group is truly the least represented in finance.
Yeah. A first generation white make certainly isn’t subject to the implicit biases that other URM fight but there’s a strong argument that they’re systematically excluded from IB recruiting just the same
I've usually found that these analysts are the ones that are willing to grind the hardest. Take that for what you will.
I was reading a novel in class 11 and the protagonist was an investment banker who worked in M&A I knew that I wanted to be an investment banker right away xD
By M&A you mean murders and executions?
lmao.
Grinded and killed it in HS, applied RD to HYPSMW Columbia Duke, mostly just for prestige. I got rejected by all except W and Duke, then researched which one had better econ/public policy program. Then learned that W econ was different than CAS econ, and saw that a third of their grads went into finance, then pretty much just started learning more about finance from there.
genetics.
mildly unrelated but when i was in high school reading mergers and inquisitions and WSO whenever they mentioned modelling i always visualised something like a really cool screen out of the matrix hell they made it sound so advanced now i've finally gotten here and it's just spreadsheets damn those bastards lied to me
Same bro, I was studying mech eng in college, and I had taken a lot of classes on modeling, like simulations or 3D modeling that was pretty complex. Eventually changed tracks, and would write in my cover letters that I had modeling experience and loved the complexity and some other bull shit. Thank god firms dont really read cover letters because now that I read it, it sounds like I had 0 clue what modeling was in banking
can't read my old cover letters man those are straight cringe
Was interning between senior and freshman year at a commercial bank that had just gone public. Assumed that an investment bank was like a hedge fund, just invested people’s money. Did some digging online and learned what IB was. Had a chance to chat with an analyst from the IB that took us public. From then on I decided I wanted to pursue banking.
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grew up low income and went to a private high school where most people in the area worked in IB/PE... figured I should do the same
Googled what jobs I could get with a finance degree. The Internet is the great equalizer.
Knew I wanted to work in 'business' but also wanted a career with a lot of exit optionality so it came down to ib and consulting. I fucking hate flying so consulting was thrown out right away lol
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