Question from a confused kid

BB wealth management is OK experience, but nothing compared to actual trading experience. Trading in southeast Asia would be an awesome experience imo, and I would not pass that up for the PWM. If you want to trade in the future, I would definitely go with the asia gig.

I would go Asia, looks good to get a different country on your resume (assuming your are studying in the U.S.)

Will it hurt you? I guess it depends what you are applying for next year...

if you want to be a trader, then definitely do the trading internship.

Take that spot!!!! Trust me you will be thankful you did.

Trading in southeast asia. Not only is S&T always more imrpessive than PWM, but having international experience is also more valuable than having worked in Houston.

Thanks for the inputs. That's what I thought. I guess I should reasked the question. Logistically right now, it's hard to do it in Asia so my question is as a sophomore if I were to do the BB PVM, will I be screwed for next year? I really have no gauge on what typical expriences that juniors who receive S&T internships had. Is PVM too common? or will this put me somewhat at a competitive advantage?

ALso, I might be able to ask to get on the trading floor at the proposed Houston BB (don't ask me how lol)

Thanks so much again!

i'd take the opportunity in SE asia first and foremost to have the experience of spending an entire summer as a college student in asia...nevermind the fact that the trading opportunity is far more impressive than a wealth management internship...costs should not even be a question, it's the experience that really matters at this point as practically everyone else here has already mentioned

Unless you mean by "logistically difficult" that your mom is going to die this summer and you have to be close by, or that you're stuck in Houston on a dialysis machine, you should hands down take the trading internship.

PWM is by far too common to actually stand out at all, and even if you go onto the trading floor occassionally, the majority of your duties will be PWM, and what you learn and can talk about in your interviews will be PWM-based. To be honest, I don't even understand why people do PWM. People I know who screen resumes actually like Non-profit work/volunteering or in the case of some quirky S&T MD's I met restaurant experience better.

Furthermore, in this market, you should not feel safe at all without direct Work experience unless you have a 3.8+ GPA at a solid target like Wharton/Cornell/Ross/Harvard, etc.

If you take the trading internship, you can be comfortable knowing that you're doing your best to set yourself up for recruiting.

Plus, I'll tell you exactly how Wharton's OCR went this semester:

People with Work Experience:

Bar is around 3.5+ to get interviews still, as long as the Work Experience was relevant. People with 3.4 GPA's who interned at BB's in Asia were able to get interviews in whatever field they interned with.

I had 16 interviews(I'd say 10 of them were top-notch divisions like prop trading, i-banking at a bulge or top boutique, S&T, etc.) with a 3.5 and PE work experience.

People without work experience:

I have not met a single person with a 3.7 or lower without work experience better than PWM who was able to get more than 3 or 4 "good" interviews at best. On average they had nothing in fact; except for (as snobby as it sounds) the "2nd-tier" jobs that people in a normal boom economy with their stats wouldn't even think about taking.

Obviously some exceptions apply, a guy who started his own competitor to Blackboard educational software got a decent chunk of interviews despite his GPA. Another guy with a 3.7 got Bain and BCG interviews.

The important thing though is that to a large extent, recruiting is a numbers game, and you want as many interviews as possible to have as many good choices as possible. An incredible amount of people will slip through the cracks of recruiting just because of the simple probabilities. I know two people who have 3.9+ GPA's, great extracurriculars, and sociable as well, who just slipped through the cracks. Work Experience would have given them both a tremendous edge in recruiting that could have them partying and drinking now, instead of frantically cold-calling boutiques right now.

Listen, what I want you take from this post is that sophomore internships are fundamentally about positioning yourself for next year's recruiting. It may be more difficult to do the BB trading internship, but you'll be so much more secure with recruiting than you would be otherwise(even if you have a 3.9+ GPA) if you actually do do the trading internship. And in this market, things could be even worse by the time its your turn next year, and you want to position yourself so that you'll have the highest probability(no matter where it is right now) of being one of the people partying and drinking after February, not someone who's cold-calling bc that blows and causes you a ton of stress(according to my friends). The temporary inconvenience(whatever it is) of doing a trading internship is much less than the expected value of even a 10% chance of being frantically looking for a job in March next year.

Plus, you should see the kind of things people say behind your back if you're a person wearing a suit in March walking towards the career center. Some of that shit is harsh, dude.

I think some of the comments about what constitutes as "logistically difficult" is uncalled for (Warhawk_1). Ppl have different reasons why and I may not be comfortable enough to say it.

I do have a very good GPA from "Wharton/Cornell/Ross/Harvard/"

I have had S&T experience.

I really just wanted to know whether a BB PWM is THAT easy to get that everyone practically has one.

Thanks for all the answers anyway.

I dont expect you to say it. But reasons like the ones I mentioned in terms of severity and importance are honestly the only ones you should have for taking a PWM internship over a trading one. PWM is that common, and that meaningless.

To answer the question you seem to be driving at, I had a BB PWM internship and I had a lot of success getting top tier interviews for my jr. year (about 12, and i go to a target). It by no means pigeon holes you into pwm. The key is to be able to do work at the pwm intership that will show your interviewers that you can do trading/banking. This isn't difficult to do.

I was actually in a very similar situation to you, and I turned down BB IB in Hong Kong due to logistical issues my sophomore year. It did not end up costing me at all. That being said, like the others I'd bet you'd have an edge in recruiting with the trading internship, but dont feel like you have to make burdensome sacrifices if you have extenuating circumstances. Remember, it's just a summer internship.

Also Warhawk, you sound like a tool making fun of kids w/o internships yet, and apparently Wharton recruiting is a lot harder than my ivy league's recruiting, as my gpa and WE ostensibly would have only got me 3-4 interviews there.

You can call me a tool, but I'm being quite honest in my opinion bc I think this kid deserves honest advice. I'll acknowledge that I'm harsh but I'm trying to give this kid the best assessment of his situation.

And I'm not making fun of them, I'm telling you exactly what I saw happened this year in terms of statistics and how people did on average in getting interviews. I'm not going to fucking gloss over the very noticeable fact that people with direct W/E did MUCH better, no matter where their GPA or extracurriculars were than kids without W/E.

And Jay, are you a senior or a junior? Cause if you're a senior or a year before that asides from the last bad recruiting years, you can throw your assessment about interviews out the window, bc it applied in a different economy. At least at Wharton(and from what I've heard everywhere else), the recruiting credential cutoffs have drastically changed for internships between this year and last year. Those people I said had 3-4 interviews would've walked around with 10+ the year before, when I compare my senior friends and my junior friends right now.

Also, this is directed at m8875, as I've said before, if you have a serious logistical hurdle then by all means just do the PWM internship. It's your own decision, just make it as well-informed as possible. I and Jay obviously disagree about how much the PWM vs. trading experience will be in terms of opportunity cost.

I'm explaining to you exactly what I saw happen to me and to other people this year for OCR, and Jay has told you what his experience was with what happened for him(although that's why I asked him what year he did it in).

Make your own decision based off what you think of our advice. My fundamental reason for telling you to do the trading internship if you can is that probability-wise, it raises your chances much more than PWM(even if you manage to do significant work), and in this hiring mood currently, you want to play it safe.

Quite potentially. I would be surprised if that didn't play a role. My guess as to the primary difference though would be the emphasis on work experience at Penn recruiting. Bc more people gun for IB, the ones who did sophomore internships have an edge in how they look during recruiting.

To me what I saw, was that people who'd worked very hard in school but neglected the whole part about W/E and extracurriculars didn't do too hot during OCR. On the other hand, me and some other people who I know I'd lump into the lazy-ass fuck category(I've honestly never gone to class since Freshman year except for quizzes) got interviews because we were able to find good internships sophomore year despite our GPA's and extracurriculars. That's part of why I have such a huge bias for the OP taking the trading internship.

That said, you're right in that the less competition at HYP probably makes things a bit easier. Some of these kids here are crazy, like one girl I know is dead-serious when she says she was "born to be a banker".

I really do not see anything wrong with what Warhawk_1 said. The OP needs the honesty.

Anyway, you would be a fool to turn down BB trading internship in Asia for BB PWM in Houston unless there is an EXTREMELY EXTREMELY good reason.

This seems like such a no-brainer.