Should I try to work my way into the FO from ops or keep some dignity and go right to a masters?

Rising senior here from a non-target trailer trash school in Ontario. I expect to graduate with a 3.6 cGPA and have been involved with a couple ECs (student investment club, student association, lots of conferences/case comps). I've completed internships in PWM on the investment research side, AM on the sales/wholesaling side (both at a Canadian big 5 bank), and at a F500 automaker in corpfin. My current and final internship is in internal audit, also at a bank.

Given that I couldn't get into a SA program for IBD or markets/S&T and given the remarkable lack of alumni network and on-campus recruiting at my school, it looks like I'll probably get stuck in an entry-level job in ops/treasury/audit or some other dead-end back office job if I end up at a bank or buyside firm. I'm wondering if I should bother going into the workplace in one of these roles and trying to aggressively network internally to FO, or would it be better to go for a Masters right away in order to get a better brand name on my resume and a better alumni network to leverage? From what I've seen, certain MFE programs send a lot of students to large pension funds and other buyside firms, and some Canadian schools (McMaster, Dalhousie) offer MBA co-op programs that you can do right out of UG, and those programs also regularly send a few kids to S&T, ER and buyside as interns. Would these be better options?

 

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