General college questions from a brand new freshman!

[AlexLefty]

Hello, my name is Lefty and I just started college a few days ago. I am taking very general courses (only 4) and basically have no direction in college. Yet, I've been thinking about getting into banking recently. I am motivated by the money and the fact that I can achieve in this field.

I go to a community college, work a part time job, and am in DECA, and am planning to get an internship at a bank.

So my questions are: What are the steps I need to take to get into a good banking school down the road. Aside from GPA (i will get a 4.0) what things do I need to do? Very specific here.

And what is the best banking job overall? I know this is a broad question probably with no answer, but what are your oppinions?

I'm very new to this whole idea and need a little bit of guidance.

Please discuss away.......

 

[Bible_Belt]

Investment banking is where the money is. Taking private companies public is so profitable for underwriters that it ought to be criminal.

Monitor your credit report and keep it 100% clean. The financial industry considers your credit report to be a report of your morality as a person. If you have any bad debt at all showing on your credit, they will consider you to be an immoral person and potential thief.

No one cares about a bachelor's degree if it's not Ivy League. Try to get your 4-year degree without accumulating too much debt. You need to start setting yourself up now for graduate school. A bank job, even as a teller, will help with things like letters of recommendation and industry references when you apply. Start studying for the GMAT like an obsessed person. Standardized tests can distinguish you very quickly from all the other 4.0 GPAs that apply to the best MBA programs. If you can get into a top 10 MBA program, maybe even a top 20, it's worth accumulating debt.

 

[AlexLefty]

Investment banking is where the money is. Taking private companies public is so profitable for underwriters that it ought to be criminal.

Monitor your credit report and keep it 100% clean. The financial industry considers your credit report to be a report of your morality as a person. If you have any bad debt at all showing on your credit, they will consider you to be an immoral person and potential thief.

No one cares about a bachelor's degree if it's not Ivy League. Try to get your 4-year degree without accumulating too much debt. You need to start setting yourself up now for graduate school. A bank job, even as a teller, will help with things like letters of recommendation and industry references when you apply. Start studying for the GMAT like an obsessed person. Standardized tests can distinguish you very quickly from all the other 4.0 GPAs that apply to the best MBA programs. If you can get into a top 10 MBA program, maybe even a top 20, it's worth accumulating debt.

Thanks man, very helpful!

So you think bachelors degree and then graduate school? Or do i have that mixed up? Bachelors is 4 years right? So after that is graduate school? From what i've read most of these banking degrees only require bachelors.

From what I've read a finance major is a better choice than investment banking. My understanding states that investment banking is the most profitable, but also requires 100 hour + weeks, while consulting and corporate marketing can make 60-80k with around 60 hours +. I hear that investment banking only leads to investment banking (which most people end up hating after a couple of years, and usually quit), while a finance major leads to much more broad opportunities. Thoughts?

Also would a part time job at a bank or an internship look better on a resume? Keep in mind that I would do the internship while having a different part time job at a grocery store (assuming time allows for it).

 

[Bible_Belt]

Yeah, IB guys do nothing but work.

A bachelor's is four years. Sixty years ago, when my grandpa got a bachelor's degree, he had employers lining up to offer him lucrative jobs...and his degree was in agriculture. But the percentage of people who had a degree was so small that it really meant something. Today, by contrast, the bachelor's degree has become about as lucrative as a high school diploma was in the 1970's. Everybody has one. Yet for some reason, they keep raising the cost to get a degree, at the same time as the degree becomes more and more worthless.

When you see people with a 4-year degree and a good job, typically they had connections to get the job. That's why an Ivy League bachelor's is valuable - the value is in the very connected and wealthy people you meet. There are very few four-year degrees that will get you a job, much less a good job. You need a grad degree from a top school.

Whether a job or an internship is better for you is going to depend on the institution offering it and how they treat you as a low-level employee. Some banks treat the tellers pretty poorly; it depends on the place.

So make good grades, ace the GMAT, minimize your debt, build connections, and get into a top grad program. That's my advice for success. Good luck with everything.

 

[AlexLefty]

Yeah, IB guys do nothing but work.

A bachelor's is four years. Sixty years ago, when my grandpa got a bachelor's degree, he had employers lining up to offer him lucrative jobs...and his degree was in agriculture. But the percentage of people who had a degree was so small that it really meant something. Today, by contrast, the bachelor's degree has become about as lucrative as a high school diploma was in the 1970's. Everybody has one. Yet for some reason, they keep raising the cost to get a degree, at the same time as the degree becomes more and more worthless.

When you see people with a 4-year degree and a good job, typically they had connections to get the job. That's why an Ivy League bachelor's is valuable - the value is in the very connected and wealthy people you meet. There are very few four-year degrees that will get you a job, much less a good job. You need a grad degree from a top school.

Whether a job or an internship is better for you is going to depend on the institution offering it and how they treat you as a low-level employee. Some banks treat the tellers pretty poorly; it depends on the place.

So make good grades, ace the GMAT, minimize your debt, build connections, and get into a top grad program. That's my advice for success. Good luck with everything.

Yeah I did IB in hs but slacked off at the very end so i didn't get a diploma. Not regretful though, because the greatest thing you can learn from that program is the work ethic.

So just to clarify: Get a bachelors degree, and then transfer to an ivy league grad school and go there for as long as it takes to get a substantial degree? Or should I try to transfer like my sophmore year of college? I doubt they'd take me though due to a lack of credentials available at that time.

Also, only if you have the time, take a look at this: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110214180824AAWpU6I and give me a rundown of how truthful it is. But my main question is above.

 

[Bible_Belt]

Ivy League is great, but most of the top mba programs are not Ivy League. Here are the US News school rankings for the top 11:
http://grad-schools.usnews.rankings...schools/top-business-schools/finance-rankings

Here is an article containing a more detailed ranking of all schools worldwide:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/5682de62-4900-11e1-954a-00144feabdc0.pdf

Don't worry so much about where your bachelor's comes from. Focus on grad school. When you have a grad degree, no one cares where you did your undergrad.

 

[synergy1]

another route would be to do reasonably well in an undergraduate program in engineering, than get into a graduate financial engineering program in dartmouth or columbia - this is where the big names like GS recruit from. You have some acumen in engineering to pull this one off and probably need above a 3.7 from a fairly compitent ABET accredited program to have a chance to get in. As far as jobs, both the private sector and even the SEC is hiring a derth of quants, HFT programmers and the like.

 

[AlexLefty]

Ivy League is great, but most of the top mba programs are not Ivy League. Here are the US News school rankings for the top 11:
http://grad-schools.usnews.rankings...schools/top-business-schools/finance-rankings

Here is an article containing a more detailed ranking of all schools worldwide:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/5682de62-4900-11e1-954a-00144feabdc0.pdf

Don't worry so much about where your bachelor's comes from. Focus on grad school. When you have a grad degree, no one cares where you did your undergrad.

This is great stuff because from what I've read, people would go from bachelors degree to job. But this seems to not be true. Unless they had like 10 years of work experience or something.

The way I see it, you can either go MBA, or work experience after bachelors. But maybe I'll try to do a little bit of both. MBA in 2 years, while accumulating some work experience. Even after i get my MBA though, it seems like I'll need a few years of experience before i can get into a good job. Man how long will it take before i make big bucks!?!?!! lol.

But you think that an MBA is basically a necessity now a days to make big bucks in the Banking industry?

 

[AlexLefty]

This is great stuff because from what I've read, people would go from bachelors degree to job. But this seems to not be true. Unless they had like 10 years of work experience or something.

The way I see it, you can either go MBA, or work experience after bachelors. But maybe I'll try to do a little bit of both. MBA in 2 years, while accumulating some work experience. Even after i get my MBA though, it seems like I'll need a few years of experience before i can get into a good job. Man how long will it take before i make big bucks!?!?!! lol.

But you think that an MBA is basically a necessity now a days to make big bucks in the Banking industry?

^
Bump

 

[JohnChops]

Ivy League is great, but most of the top mba programs are not Ivy League. Here are the US News school rankings for the top 11:
http://grad-schools.usnews.rankings...schools/top-business-schools/finance-rankings

Here is an article containing a more detailed ranking of all schools worldwide:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/5682de62-4900-11e1-954a-00144feabdc0.pdf

Don't worry so much about where your bachelor's comes from. Focus on grad school. When you have a grad degree, no one cares where you did your undergrad.

this is gold and what most people are starting to figure out. No need to spend 60K on a private college when saving money for a good graduate school is really the key.

 

[AlexLefty]

this is gold and what most people are starting to figure out. No need to spend 60K on a private college when saving money for a good graduate school is really the key.

This makes me feel so much better about my decisions