When did you first learn about investment banking as a career choice? Though I'd been exposed to the media stereotype of the wealthy/greedy investment banker since I was a kid, I didn't really learn about ibanking in great detail until I was much older.
After 3 years of studying electrical engineering at a top 20 public-school (non-target), I abruptly decided one day to pursue a career in business/finance. I happened to come across a community of people at my school who scoffed at the IT Consulting, Risk Management, and Investment Research positions that I thought were prestigious at the time. They were the wannabe investment bankers... a relatively sharp group of kids who would give their right arms to work in banking (and many eventually would... without sacrificing an appendage, that is). It was from these kids that I first learned about M&A, PE, target schools, and the top MBA programs.
So when did you really first consider banking as a career? After you started working full-time? Freshman year of college? High school? Earlier??
Would maybe make an interesting poll....
Sophomore year of college
in the womb...err...freshman year
The 8th grade...sister went to Penn and all her friends were Whartonites so I got the bug early. Then I stumbled upon WSO back when it was i-banking Oasis and declared to my family that I was going to be a banking VP to be a baller and make big dough...oh the delusions childhood holds.
Sister went to Penn, and you end up in.... Villanova...
Did she get all the smart genes?
Touche. But no, she got all the effort genes. And was a nursing major. Let's be real, wasn't tough to get in.
I would also claim better basketball, but anyone that follows Big East knows that really isn't true anymore...fahck.
When i was 3 maybe?
Early junior year after talking with an older student who did an internship in ibd in NYC. I'm from a total non-target and just started asking away and instead of just answering one by one he sent me here haha.
a wet dream
Summer after my freshman year when I interned for a MM in I.T, and saw how cool they were and was like fuk I.T lol, my life has been great ever since!
When I was 14, my friends father was a trader, that is when i first UNDERSTOOD the concept of his job and where he worked.
16, at a Credit Suisse info session for GCSE students.
Wanted to work in trading ever since.
summer of junior when ...came back and hustled my ass off in the fall to get an offer at a BB
Sophomore year.
beginning of junior year. i was happily on my way to being a consultant when i realized being a consultant would suck balls since i hated airports.
smart move, but when you are doing roadshows IBD makes you take the redeyes to and back. i don't miss that shit one bit.
i grew up in lower manhattan and was surrounded by bankers all the time. gold plaques with the names Goldman Sachs and Merrill lynch were everywhere. the offices were in gorgeous skyscrapers, people there always dressed well, and my family that worked there always seemed happy. i didn't understand investment banking until i was 11 or so but i've always wanted to work at one of those banks... it's almost like i was born into finance.
Junior year summer 2008 I found out I wanted to be a bond trader- great timing right. I had just finished my PWM internship in the city and I had a family friend who invited me to see the trading floor. It was like crack and I was hooked haha.
Late freshman year.
Going into freshman year (Non Target) I had literally no idea what business was but I chose it as a pre-major sort of by process of elimination (Nothing else really interested me). By like March I stumbled across this site and decided I wanted to do IB so I started scrambling to get a summer internship. Ended up having one interview early April with a BB PWM branch, never heard back, was 24 hours away from starting a summer job at Subway in late June when I got the call with an offer...The rest is history.
Senior year of high school. Guy who gave out a scholarship at my school said he started in ib. i looked it up since he was a billionaire...and bam. thats how i found out
Senior year of high school. Worked at Barnes & Noble with a burned out banker from Columbia University.
Junior year fall (just before summer internship recruiting!). A guy in my science lab said, "there's this career called investment banking where you can make $120K a year and 2 years later you switch over to private equity and you can make $200K" and I said, "I'm sold."
I got 2 BB offers for that summer and one hedge fund ops. I was THIS close to taking the ops position until a friend said "your position sounds like back office." I'm like "what's back office?"
Then I discovered Wallstreetoasis.
I didn't discover banking until I was in the middle of my junior year internship doing IT support for Fidelity Investments. I didn't discover WSO until around the time that I secured my first FT offer. I can only imagine how much more knowledgeable I'd have been had I known about WSO.
Jr. year information session. Couldn't believe how many ppl. showed up... I was just there for the free pizza.
About 3 months before graduating. I had planned to just "some degree, any degree" so that I could do OCS / trooper / some random grad school if I wanted to, and was planning on owning my own bar. The day Lehman crashed, a bunch of regulars that worked there came into my place sobbing and drunk: long story short they all landed on their feet, loved the fact that I threw free drinks at them in their time of duress, and talked me into finance.
My dream would be to work in a hotel / restaurant / hospitality type industry group.
i was born into it. jk i went to a sweaty pittsburgh public school. talking sweatyyy. the answer is late junior year. i had a prof who was a partner at GS until just before its ipo (hope i didn't just out myself or school). he had pictures of himself with ron and nancy reagan and george and barbara bush all over his office and drove to campus everday in an s-class with his dogs running around in it. maybe to this day coolest dude i've ever met.
My dad is in the industry but I never took it seriously in terms of learning, listening or caring. So I didn't really care about it till I interned at a law firm and saw that it sucked. And decided Sophomore year of college to find anything else - and I ended up with an offer for IBD that worked well.
When I was a freshman in college...
Sophomore year
When I was four years old and asked my dad what he did. Until I was 9 I thought all dads worked in investment banking.
After I took my first job in corporate finance and got involved in an acquisition. I liked it so much I thought about how I'd like to be on the other side doing it full-time. Now I am a couple years and a couple steps behind. WSO has been a great resource.
My sophomore year I read about it on Vault and didn't really get it. That summer I interned in the public sector in D.C. and stumbled on IBankingOasis. I skipped my junior year and went to a non-target so I definitely wish I had heard about it earlier.
I developed a strong interest in the stock market during my junior year of high school. Since then, I've read books such as Den of Thieves, Liar's Poker, Barbarians at the Gate, House of Cards, The Sellout, and The Greatest Trade Ever, contributing to my aspiring career in IB.
Senior year
Top 20 public school that's non-target.. Cornell?
LOL Cornell is any ivy league school....what would make you think its public?
^The USNews top 20 is comprised of 20 private schools. Maybe he meant top 20 public school among the top 20 public schools?
Wow. I am officially the latest bloomer here/ in history. IB didnt even enter my radar until last year, age 29. I started following the financial crisis/ Wall Street when Goldman hit the congressional hearings. I watched every second, read every book related to WS - was literally obsessed - 6 months later I work for a MM firm and trying to make up lost time fast.
Where I am from banking = bank teller = financial advisors, that was all I knew.
Wow, late bloomer indeed, but more power to you. Are you some sort of PhD or something??
Not at all. Just not in a financial hub, I never had any exposure to finance other than consumer facing roles. I did RE finance for 6 years out of college.
^ yes... my school fluctuates in/out of top 10 publics and is top 50 in US News. definitely non-target, sorry if i wasn't clear in my post.
loved reading everyone's responses. as i suspected, most of us found out early in college, but we have kids who grew up wanting to be bankers and even a guy who made up his mind at a bar (thanks UFO, though i didn't understand.. do you own that bar?).
A couple of months ago... lol
As a started my big 4 internship last summer.... Have been trying to scratch and claw myself in ever since. Doesnt help I am from a non-target on the west coast
When I was 12 and the financial crisis had just started. Now I am 16 and totally want to work in trading
BLOOMBERG made me open my eyes to investment banking and trading.
wow i hope this is not a serious post : 0
16 fucking years old and you are on WSO? i was jerking off to vectoria secret magazines in my closet at 16...not thinking about banking/trading
ahahaha I was wondering if there were any underage folks on WSO. Impressive enough to be doing this at 16, but getting interested at 12? at 12 i still though i had a shot at being a rapper or some stupid shit.
which brings up another question... did any of your parents encourage/pressure you to go into banking? my folks wanted me to be an engineer. when i told them i wanted to go into finance, they thought i wanted to be a bank teller.
12?? Troll.
Im 15 and want to go into banking... Don't worry, i still wank off to !isa Ann every night :D I do have a social life and a GF and im working at McDonalds too,.
It's hard to say what's more disturbing: a) A 15 year old wanking off exclusively to MILFs b) A 15 year old spending his time on WSO
Sayandarula, why were you wondering, whether there was underage folks here, are you some kind of a rapist?^^
Thanks for that Cavaliere. I meant I was interested to know how many on this site were high schoolers or younger wanting to break into GS TMT or BX. By the way, I'm not the one analyzing the wank-off habbits of 15-year-olds on a public forum. Just sayin'.
My father has some friends who work in finance in Brazil, and he thinks it is a good career path if I can stand the hours.
I have good grades and plan on going to college here in Brazil. A RESPECTFUL COLLGE. I still have a social life. friends, GFs, and videogames.
DONT WORRY. i READ PLAYBOY MAGAZINE and watch porn too
Late high school. I knew of high finance in general, and my graduation bio had me down as "plans to pursue a career in the field of securities, wealth, and investment management." Clearly I knew so much.
I got into the top undergrad finance programs and chose one over another, probably no one else would have made, but even despite an awful freshman year where I squandered every opportunity possible, I pulled two BB offers as a first-semester sophomore. That single semester was a complete turnaround in terms of industry knowledge, I soaked up absolutely everything possible. WSO and Vault guides, along with networking and participating in a professional development panel GS sponsors at my school all proved to be invaluable resources.
Senior year in high school... Needed to pick a major so I googled highest paying careers in business.
this year. im a sophomore at a target. career services.
Late high school, though I have to admit i wasnt interested in it for a career move until sophomore in college. T
sophomore year... i just hooked up with this girl (perfect ten) at my school and i asked why she agreed to hook up with me, she said that something was bankeriffic about me. at that point, i googled investment banking and knew that i was destined for greatness.
^^ That, coupled with your signature, is hilarious.
I think I found out about it just before senior year of high school.
When I was a baby, I am the kid who's on the E-trade commercial.
I found out about IB, S&T, and consulting during the second half of my third year because I randomly applied to just about every internship on our school's career services website. Needless to say, the "what is investment banking" question was pretty tough for me back then..... things didn't go too well.
Discovered WSO after interview season, and it helped me land a prop trading gig and a position trading on a top desk at a top BB.
It's absolutely ridiculous how helpful this site can be if you know how to sift through everything.
I didn't even know banking existed until late in my Junior year. Before then, I wanted to work at IBM.
Where is Midas's troll account?
Dad is in industry but I never thought about it as a career. Decided to try for it come FT recruiting this coming fall.
Parents both traded, but that never registered until later..
Decided on ibanking second year, struggled between S&T and IBD for a while, and found my way..
Since I was younger I always knew that jobs on Wall Street were very prestigious but I never really knew anything about the financial sector or "investment banking" per se. Last Spring (my Freshman year) I first heard about investment banking through the website BroBible.com as members glorified the bonus culture and salaries. Since I was interested in pursuing a major at my university's business school I began to research more about i-banking and became really interested in finance.
A month or two later, a member on BroBible that worked at BB posted a link to the blog Mergers & Inquisitions which I can say without a doubt say is responsible for my current path and interest in investment banking. I became hooked. I read every article and learned alot not only about the industry but networking as well. I then declared Finance as my major, became elected Treasurer of my fraternity, and began talking extensively with my family and all their friends about the industry.
Earlier this Fall (currently a Sophomore) I first stumbled upon WSO (through a link on an M&I post) and began to religiously visit the forums and learn more about i-banking. During my Fall and Winter Break I fine-tuned my resume and crafted multiple cover letters to different financially related internships and a few banks (landing three interviews).
I recently just accepted an offer to intern at a BB this summer and can't wait to begin. I owe a lot to Mergers and Inquisitions, Wall Street Oasis, and yes even BroBible haha for my helping me stumble upon these links.
Sounds like a boss.
Ever since the time I took a shit in one of the ex GS senior partners gold plated toilet, I just knew I wanted to be baller enough to have a gold plated shitter.
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