Pre-Med Regrets: [24M] To PE Is It Too Late?

Hey all, 

Please excuse the somewhat incoherent idea flow. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

As a youth and high school student from a low-income area, I never heard of banking, hedge funds, or private equity. I ignorantly believed that Wall Street is where people go to trade stocks--that's it. So, in an effort to be a respectful son to my Asian parents, I completed my BS in Biology at Emory(2020) on the premed track. Currently, I am less than a week away from starting an MPH program at an Ivy. While this sounds completely absurd, I absolutely despised biology, chem, etc, but I kept going because I thought I had come too far. Now, my CV is filled with hospital volunteering, research, etc. 

During undergrad, I took one semester to study only economics and math. And, I loved it. However, since I didn't have the first clue about a career in finance, I decided to go back to bio, big mistake. 

Is there anyway a person of my background can break into PE? I was thinking maybe a consulting internship next summer followed by an advanced diploma in econ at Cambridge(1yr program) + internship + MFin at Cambridge --> analyst? I don't know. 

Thank you to anyone who can offer any advice. 

Cheers

10 Comments
 
Most Helpful

If you have any sort of actual technical scientific knowledge, combining that with some finance experience would make you an interesting candidate for a health care PE shop because it means you can do diligence at a deeper level on products, technology, etc. I don't think you necessarily need another advanced degree after the MPH. It will be difficult, but with a lot of networking you can probably go from your MPH to consulting (provided you work somewhere that lets you work on a lot of PE DD projects) to health care PE.

 

Thank you for the valuable insight. Do you have any tips on how to break into consulting and subsequently make the transition? 

 

I have a similar background. Went pre-med, hated it (didn't do too well anyways) and got a masters in a related public health field.

Make sure you have your basic financial concepts down and you should be able to get in the door of some boutique IBs.

I ended up getting a few boutique IB interviews but ultimately ended up in the analyst program at a sizeable PE firm (without having ever taken a formal business or finance course!)

Feel free to PM.

 

Cambridge "MFin" isn't absolutely solid for finance placement. Also bear in mind if you are going to a UK school, you will be recruiting for the UK unless you have contacts in the US to help you out.  LBS/Ox/LSE would be better bets for their MFins

 

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