Hey everyone, I'm a rising senior with a ft offer at BB after my graduation. I have a pretty chill schedule for my senior year, and while Ik I'll have fun for my last year in college, I was trying to figure out if it would be worth to take some modeling courses or certifications like CFA, SIE, etc. I'd love to hear from other seniors in college on how they are prepping or nothing at all! Congrats to everyone w ft offer secured and have a great last year of freedom :)
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In same position (except for IB), and maybe I'll go over some modeling and ppt in the spring. For the next few months, I'll party and enjoy the fact that I'll be able to take care of my ridiculous student loans lol. Chill out this year, or else you'll be working full time and wish you did
You should be taking bong rips every day while you still can. You will get more out of that than the CFA.
Read good books, play a ton of video games, try something new/old and get good just for fun, take a road trip or two, skip class to go to an away game for your school, book a ski trip w your friends. Once FT, it gets much harder to do these things.
I thought I would do the same thing, take classes, study for gmat,sie, etc., but am very glad i have so many great memories to look back on. Rather than an extra line on my resume.
Congrats though, enjoy senior year!
take sticks
Just enjoy it, you won't look back and wish you did more finance in college. You'll look back and wish you had more fuck around time with no responsibility. Cherish it, just don't do something stupid to fuck up your offer.
Whatever you do, don’t take the sie unless your firm tells you ahead of time u need to. I took it Friday before I started. Don’t over study. Studying for the sie for a long time is useless and won’t help you one the job.
If you have the offer in hand and a smooth year of senior year sailing ahead of you, don't bother with any of that. No bankers have or care about the CFA and you'll get the proper training you need for your industry exams during your 1st yr training program administered by your bank. Just chill and have fun how you imagine it best. If you really feel modeling will be a tough topic for you, sure practice on excel using free online resources but don't bother paying for anything as you'll get enough training when you hit the desk. It reflects well on you that you're thinking about this and clearly you're not a dummy so I'd say on that basis you'll be fine when you join.
Really appreciate the response! I def agree and ill chill for my last year lol. But i wanted to do some minimal practice for dcf/lbo modeling and i was wondering if there are any good free online resource you recommend. Thanks!
Practice modeling? Dude don’t do that. Your training program will cover all of your bases. If you really want to anyway, wait until much closer to your start date. But seriously there’s no need
Actually might not be a terrible idea to try to cram for the SIE in half a day and take it just because. If you pass, you only had to put in a few hours to get the credit. If you fail then whatever - the month you have to wait doesn't matter since you're in school, and you can put real study time into passing it once you hit the desk at training.
Strongly disagree, just wait until your firm sponsors you. They’ll pay for your test, travel, textbook, and training modules. Plus there’s zero benefit to taking it ahead of time
Best advice is cherish the time of freedom and time with friends. Enjoy every last second of college, travel as much as possible. Once your on the desk you won’t be able to travel whenever you want uninterrupted and go off the grid like you can now
And DON’T worry about money.
the nickles and dimes you stress about during college will be nothing once you hit the desk. Don’t worry about blowing through your internship money or singing bonus, you’ll make it back quickly.
The only work-related thing I would recommend is taking the GMAT, your future self will thank you for that.
other than that, advice from a 1st year, chill out and have a sick year. and don’t beat yourself up for being an unproductive degenerate for 9 months, it’s the last time you’ll be able to. Bask in that shit
Discover psychedelics. Only half kidding
What’s the view on studying for the GMAT? I feel like once I hit the desk I won’t have any meaningful time to study for it. Definitely plan on getting my MBA sometime down the line.
All the advice about “spend every dime” and “don’t worry you’ll learn it on the job” is the worst advice. Its possible to enjoy your last year and also work on yourself. You’ll find that the kids who spent just a few hours a week doing this chill thru the first few months get the best staffing right out the gate. This can be helpful esp. when recruiting sneaks up during first month of training / first month on the desk.
Take everyone’s advice with a grain of salt, we are not all built the same.
All the advice about "spend every dime" and "don't worry you'll learn it on the job" is the worst advice. Its possible to enjoy your last year and also work on yourself. You'll find that the kids who spent just a few hours a week doing this chill thru the first few months get the best staffing right out the gate. This can be helpful esp. when recruiting sneaks up during first month of training / first month on the desk.
Take everyone's advice with a grain of salt, we are not all cut from the same cloth.
All the advice about “spend every dime” and “don’t worry you’ll learn it on the job” is the worst advice. Its possible to enjoy your last year and also work on yourself. You’ll find that the kids who spent just a few hours a week doing this chill thru the first few months get the best staffing right out the gate. This can be helpful esp. when recruiting sneaks up during first month of training / first month on the desk.
Take everyone’s advice with a grain of salt, we are not all built the same.
My goal is to find a nice girl since I know I will have no time for dating and stuff once I hit the desk.
I'm in the same boat after accepting an offer to start FT at a boutique. Honestly just planning to enjoy myself. I live in a beautiful part of the country so every day since my internship ended I've made a point to catch up with friends, try local restaurants and travel the region. We aren't gonna get another year like this. Just caught up with a buddy who's a few years out of school in a great group at a BB this morning and he called this period "retirement preview." We won't have this level of unstructured time + money for a decade if not longer. I've plans to learn to golf, make cocktails, get through my game backlog and see the major cities in my state again.
Agree with all of the above. CFA is useless for IB.
Definitely wait on the SIE. BBs will pay for expensive prep programs (Knopman) that make the exam a total joke. It's not worth self-studying or paying out of pocket when they will literally spoon feed you the content.
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