Willing to work in Wall Street, but HOW?
Hello I'm a high school student in South Korea. My school is Korea Minjok Leadership Academy (KMLA).
It might seems to be absurd, but my dream is to work in Wall Street. I cannot specifically state the reason for my dream; however, numerous businessmen in Wall Street and their seemingly complicated tasks have somehow fascinated me. Unfortunately, I don't have enough source and information about this field. I don't have someone who have worked in Wall Street nor clear plan for my future. So, I've wondered what step should I take in order to work in Wall Street.
The first step would be college, indeed. I'm curious which university or college would I go, and also I don't know what should I major. So, I'D LIKE TO ASK TO YOU GUYS. By the way, I'm eager to study economics, of course, but I'm also good at mathematics and physics.
Next, although I've maintained my passion about getting a job in Wall Street, I have no idea about certain job that I'm able to get. I don't know which job is in Wall Street. My knowledge is very limited; I know few information regarding Investment Banking, Private Equity,Hedge Fund, and their positions such as analyst, associate, MD, etc. So, I'D ALSO LIKE TO ASK ABOUT THIS INFORMATION TOO.
It will be a great honor and help for me to get just a trivial advice. Thank you.
Thank you so much for your sincere comment!!
Good luck. Probably would have to transfer to a top US university.
It's a pretty challenging visa environment in the USA, to be honest. For general advice on how to break in as an international student, another website called Mergers and Inquisitions is a bit more beginner friendly with detailed articles, and advice about breaking in as an international student:
https://www.mergersandinquisitions.com/
International student specific articles include:
https://www.mergersandinquisitions.com/international-student-investment…
https://www.mergersandinquisitions.com/international-student-non-target…
This website has some golden nuggets I would this site as much as possible.
A couple things I would recommend:
Read: I would start with the basics Investment Banking, Pearl and Rosenbaum, The buy side, liars poker, security analysis, intelligent investor, more money then god. These books have both stuff you would learn in the classroom and stories about the street. I would not only read books I would read the news everyday: FT, WSJ, and the Times should be enough to start. I also like Market Watch. It is important to know what is going on in the world.
Getting on the street: Breaking on to the street is not easy. I would try and go to school in the US if you want to go specifically to Wall Street. Try to get into a target or semi target. Ivy leagues, Stanford, top US schools. While at school study hard and get good grades. Network with your fellow wall street students and alumni. Maybe join an investment club if you can.
Hustle: There is no formula to get on wall street... All the advice above is the way you will prob get an interview but at the end of the day your will power to keep trying and do all you can is whats gonna get you on the street. Its gonna be a journey with ups and downs do not let one rejection or bad grade let you shy away from your dreams.
Best of luck
You have plenty of sunbaes from KMLA who work in banking around the world - I suggest you connect with them early on for advice, but maybe not come across as being too eager as that could negatively impact their perception of you. Maybe frame yourself as being interested in finance, want to know what are some of the career paths, what you can do now, etc. instead of coming across as "I WANT TO WORK ON WALLSTREET" as that can really turn some people on
Don't worry too much about the major. Just focus on getting to a good school in the US, do your thing, and you'd be fine. It's good to think ahead and prepare early, but frankly it's too early for you to worry too much about something like this now
My advice is 1. Get into a good school; majoring in economics is fine 2. Try to do an internship after your freshman year to get a sense of the industry; a local securities firm in Korea is fine. If you can't find an internship, it's not the end of the world but if you have #1 in place this shouldn't be too hard especially if you leverage your KMLA network 3. Do your army service at some point, my suggestion is to do it earlier than later. Try to do a bit of self-study on accounting, corporate finance, etc. during your army years if you want little bit of a headstart 4. Try to get an internship at a global IB in Seoul office after your sophomore year. If you have #1 and #2 above, this should be quite do-able but note that there are no official summer analyst positions for Seoul offices so this requires little bit of luck and patience. Try reaching out to KMLA sunbaes 5. Get a summer analyst gig at NY/London/HK/Singapore wherever you want to work... at this point good to really think about where you want to work as things like this change over time 6. Do you best in the summer analyst internship and get the FT offer
You have a lot of concerns - at this point, first and foremost, focus on getting into a good college. That is the most important right now - you should be spending all your time on this. Choosing your major and learning about Wall St comes later (colleges don't care about how much you love Wall St)
For choosing colleges, generally the higher ranking the better (for Wall St jobs). You need to know your own level though - no point applying to only Ivy Leagues and getting fully rejected. Get education consultants to help if needed. I'd say most top 30 US News colleges should be considerable - any lower then you're paying a lot of money for a very low chance of getting into Wall St.
Might be surprising to you, but Wall St generally doesn't care about what you major - they just care about your grades. So choose whatever major you are good at (although choosing a STEM "Science Tech Engineering Math" major gives you longer work authorization in the US, which is very useful as an international)
As for learning more about different parts about Wall St, just continue reading WSO and the websites people mentioned above. You can talk to industry professionals once you start college. But again, this should just be for your leisure - this knowledge will not help your college application, which is what you should be focusing on.
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