Want to know more about IB.... Is getting a text book worth it?

I am a freshman at a target school who wants to learn more about investment banking. I am not in the business school at my university, although I am trying to transfer into it at the moment.

I have a very basic understanding of what Investment Banking is. To put it in perspective, I could tell you the difference between each sector of Investment Banking (M/A, Capital Markets, S&T, and Asset Management) but not much more. WSO recommends the book written by Josh Rosenbaum and Josh Pearl -* Investment Banking: Valuation, Leveraged Buyouts, and Mergers and Acquisitions.* Would you guys say getting this book is worth it or should I spend my time focusing on other things? If you guys think its worth it, would it be a struggle for me to get through the book? Meaning, would I have to look up every other word on the internet because I have such little prior knowledge?

If it helps answer my question, the main motivation to get this book is to become more prepared when applying for internships and on-campus finance clubs. When I applied for the clubs at the beginning of the semester, I quickly realized that I was completely unprepared, and I don't want that to happen again.

 
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Josh's book is more like a practical guide rather than text books. It give you on-the-job instructions, how to pull data from Bloomberg terminals, how to calculate certain metrics and whatnot.

If you haven't started with any finance class yet. I suggested doing crash courses with Financial Accounting, Corporate Finance, Valuation. A lot of available resource online. With accounting, way too many free courses on the internet. Regarding Corporate Finance, Valuation, I suggested you look into Damodaran courses on Youtube. In the mean time, surfing the internet, reading FAQs on WSO and articles on M&I to understand more about the industry.

If you already have basic understanding of finance. Then you can move on to BIWS/WSP courses.

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It gives you a practical guide, describes what the banker does step by step, describes the entire sell-side and buy-side process, and it has pretty much the majority of the technical knowledge you will need to succeed in IBD interviews (slightly lacking on the accounting side).

I would disagree slightly with your comment on doing courses. Most of them are far too theoretical (certainly those at university) with

 

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