Recommended resources for engineer moving to IB with no finance background?

I'm an engineering student with no background in finance, and just got accepted into IB. What resources/knowledge/skills/websites etc would you recommend to make up for this lack of finance background, to help me succeed on the job?

I suppose this applies to other non-finance majors too.

So far I've just started doing some general reading and youtubing on finance and investing (more specifically - Bruce Greenwald's lectures on value investing).

Investopedia offers a (paid) course called The Fundamentals of Investing, which sounds interesting. Is this relevant/helpful enough in IB to make it worth buying?

I've always wanted to learn a bit more about statistics as well, but don't know how helpful that would really be.

Another option is to work through some of the modelling courses etc on WSO, but I suspect that most of that stuff will get covered during training or on the job. Thoughts?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

10 Comments
 

No, I didn't have any internships. I had pretty good academic achievements, as well as soft skills that help with interviewing. Using the guides to craft my story also really helped.

I should mention that I live in an emerging market country, so don't know if it's easier to break in here than in the US etc.

Thanks, anything specific in corporate finance that you would recommend to start with?

 
Best Response

This is a list of books mentioned on WSO

Fundamentals of corporate finance by Richard A. Brealey, Stewart C. Myers, Alan J. Marcus

Brealey & Myers on corporate finance: Financing and Risk Management

Brealey & Myers on corporate finance: Capital Investment and Valuation

Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies by Tim Koller, Thomas E. Copeland, Marc Goedhart, David Wessels

Accounting for M&A, Equity, and Credit Analysts by James E. Morris

Investment Valuation: Tools and Techniques for Determining the Value of Any Asset by Aswath Damodaran

Investment Banking: Valuation, Leveraged Buyouts, and Mergers and Acquisitions by Joshua Rosenbaum, Joshua Pearl

The Interpretation of Financial Statements by Benjamin Graham, Spencer Meredith, Spencer B. Meredith

Quality of Earnings by Thornton L. O'glove

It's not all corporate finance,but I think it doesn't hurt :) And congrats on your job!

 

My base knowledge is very little to be honest. Thus, I think it would be best to start with a good foundation, whatever that entails.

I had a little bit of basic accounting in high school, and I had one university course that covered DCF and the time value of money.

To get a better view of how the economy as a whole works, I've watched a couple youtube videos, and I'm currently reading "Economics in one lesson" by Henry Hazlitt.

I'm very eager to learn, and just wanna know what would give me the best returns for time invested. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

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