HOW to get into the stock market/investments world?
What classes does he take to enhance his resume for an internship at Goldman Sachs?
Son wants to become a QUANT (yes, he probably will get a PhD in math).
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Background:
S22’s college advisor is not that helpful.
he loves math/numbers come easy to him
coding requires a bit more effort
He’s majoring in Math/Computer Science.
I think he should add some finance classes, so he’s not completely a fish out of water
our family are engineers, not investment bankers so that world is foreign to us.
since he’s already doubling up in math/CS, he doesn’t have a lot of empty spaces to take too many finance classes
edited to add:
Yes, we know that the banking/analyst internships application window has closed for this summer (he had stumbled upon the GS application in September, that’s how the idea crossed his mind). We know that the probability of a GS internship is closer to 1% chance (article shows how it’s a higher prob of getting into Harvard)
It may be the wrong career move, but he’s doing a study abroad internship this summer in Chile or Mexico with a goal to become fluent in Spanish. Don’t know what the internship/project will be yet.
The goal of Goldman Sachs/Morgan Stanley, etc internship is hoping for the summer after Junior year.
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Which of these would be recommended?
|[15.4331]|Financial Markets||
|[15.4371] |Options and Futures Markets||
|[15.4311]| Entrepreneurial Finance and Venture Capital||
|[15.4341] |Advanced Corporate Finance||
|[15.4451] |Mergers, Acquisitions, and Private Equity||
Is HE interested in your help, or are you offering him suggestions unprompted? If this is HIS path, he needs to make an appointment to meet with someone in career services. MIT Math kids are not an unknown in the Quant world- they know how to direct and advise him.
He’s asking us for help.
His advisor is not helpful.
He doesn’t know WHO to speak with at MIT.
Just today, he’s asking me if he should take 18.600 Probability/Stats. He has no guidance, and I’m trying to help.
So he’ll make an appointment with career services to ask what?
They’ve been helpful with resume editing/suggestions.
I think one of the problems is that many/?all of the Finance classes are under the SLOAN department, which seems really segmented from the regular undergrad offerings, so he doesn’t understand How that works either.
Career Services exists to help students transition out of being MIT undergrads to whatever their next step- jobs, fellowship, etc. All he needs to ask at an initial meeting is “can you help me figure out which classes to take if my ultimate career goal is to be a quant”.
Another source is upperclassmen who have gone down this road. There are also various relevant clubs at MIT. See https://quantfinanceclub.■■■■■■■■■■■/mitqfc. IMO, as long as his classes are quant heavy, it is less important that he take specific finance classes, although having general knowledge in that area will be helpful. As a sophomore he should be going to career services and seeing when employers will be on campus for general networking events. He should be hitting firm websites to see if they are hiring sophomore summer interns. Career services should have a list of employers that hire interns/full time employees from MIT. Realize that these are super competitive jobs with many, many super qualified applicants. Your son needs to be proactive. These jobs don’t just drop in your lap because of your academic resume.
If your son wants to be involved in the world of stock market & investments, then only “Options and Futures Markets” and “Financial Markets” are relevant.
However, if your son wants to be involved in Investment Banking, then he should consider taking the two finance courses and the course on M&A and PE.
IB firms prefer quant jocks. High level math & physics courses should be considered.
I know nothing about MIT’s career services. My D went to a top LAC with sub-par career services, they were of no help in her career search. If he isn’t bonding with the person he has worked with, try someone else. At the very least they should be able to tell him how to register for the business classes.
After that, like bksquared said, he needs to connect with alum working with the companies he is interested in. It’s time consuming. Get him a LinkedIn premium membership. If he doesn’t have a LinkedIn account he needs to make that ASAP.
My D (to take one example, many of her friends had similar experiences) had about 90 networking calls with alum (and people who those talks led to) leading into her spring of soph year (when much IB recruiting for post-junior yr summer happens for women and URMs). These alum should be able to give him info about what classes would be most on point for Quant jobs (which are not IB jobs), and he will build a strong network. Good luck to him.
MIT students have NO trouble launching into Wall Street careers. I’m going to guess that if a chem major is looking for a job at an auction house authenticating Old Master paintings, career services may be limited in what they can offer. But Wall Street? Quant? This is right up their alley.
But you have to actually USE their services. They don’t come to your dorm and shake you awake to get you to show up for a mock interview or to be introduced to a Goldman recruiter…
I agree that many MIT students work in finance/Wall Street/quant. So do students from my D’s college…and career svcs was abysmal and NOT helpful to her…so it’s plausible to me that other schools that feed Wall Street have career svcs depts that are lacking.
Since I can’t add anything about how competent MIT career svcs currently is, I am positive many alumni would be willing to speak with the student…not only for course selection but also helping the student differentiate between Quant, IB, other Wall Street type jobs. OP’s S might also speak with some professors of the listed classes, especially those who consult with Quant type companies.
Given your kid is a sophomore, I would focus on getting the interviews above anything else. Please note summer internship recruiting is now largely over and there are a very limited number of rising junior spots to begin with. Time is not his friend.
Your student should very quickly start reaching out to any and anyone that will respond to him. Use LinkedIn or any other alumni resource. Goldman Sachs, Investments, I banking should all be forgotten. Your kid has no idea what he actually wants to do nor does he have the luxury to have a preferred bank.
Class selection among those you mention is meaningless beyond what he finds interesting. I bankers need to know about capital markets because that’s often how deals are financed, and PE companies often own companies or serve as direct lenders to companies that access markets for capital. All of these college level courses are basic enough that they are informative across any analyst level Wall Street work. To be blunt, no interviewer will care less what your kid took amongst the classes mentioned.
Your kid got into MIT, no one will question their intelligence or drive. They now need to focus on getting someone’s attention amongst a very crowded field.
Once they have secured interviews they should consider their personal narrative and display consistency, intellectual curiosity and applicable skills or experience. Also a willingness to work hard and openly acknowledge that they aren’t sure what they want specifically as a career but be able to describe some attributes.
For now however be open to anything and find a foot in the door for this coming summer. Use that experience as relevant leverage to pursue future opportunities.
Sorry for stream of consciousness response but I am at work. Happy to help if anything specific.
The academic advisor’s role is to help the student get the most out of an MIT education-- not to mold the “best” apprentice for global financial institutions. Career Services exists for that.
Thank you very much.
I will make sure that he does this.
When I was in college thousands of years ago, our career services was to help get internships/jobs, bringing in companies, etc.
They did not help guide/mold your college path, so the thought didn’t occur to me.
@Catcherinthetoast is absolutely correct. His MIT degree will get his foot in the door, but networking with alumni is more important than anything else. DS has an IB analyst job with a BB bank in NYC after graduation in May.
He started cold calling alumni through LinkedIn in October of his sophomore year. Those alumni would help him get calls with other non-alumni bankers, and so forth and so on. He sent out hundreds of emails and probably got 100 calls with bankers from multiple banks.
I know that it sounds very old-fashioned and non-analytical, but IB recruitment is still very much a relationship-based business.
Per my edit to my original post, he will be looking for analyst internships for the summer after Jr year (as this year’s window has closed/he’s going to Chile to work on his Spanish).
So he will utilize all these helpful tips, EARLY in his Junior year.
How EARLY should he be reaching out to people/alums, in preparation for Jr internship?
Since he may continue straight to his PhD, he has 2 opportunities for internships:
after Junior year and
after Senior/graduation (would that still be considered internship?)
No he would be off cycle and it would be considerably harder.
He may want to consider BBVA or Santander as they may value his fluency and both are expanding their operations in the US. Specifically Santander has hired significant numbers of former Credit Suisse I bankers.