What are ways to prepare in advance for a career in finance? Currently I am an undergraduate of sixteen years enrolled in AP classes high four (U.S. History, Calculus AB, Biology and English). My GPA is about 4.2, so I know I fixed a little outside.
My interest in finance came from a friend who suggested a career as an actuary since I'm very good job with the figures. Hopefully, by the end of my last year, I will enroll at UCLA and his program of applied mathematics.
I think another reason why I'm interested in a career in finance is because I do not quite understand the field so far, and there are still tons of concepts to learn and understand. There is a whole field of unknowns, and I want to work as hard as I can understand.
Anyway, I did some research on companies such as Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and BlackRock. I realize that competition for a position in one of these companies and their competitors is very high, and I need to be as prepared as possible, as soon as possible.
My questions are:
1. Is UCLA a good enough school to graduate to begin a career in these three places, and businesses to finance other?
2. What is the difference between an analyst and partner in terms of professional responsibilities?
3. How can I still prepare myself during my high school and college years?
Thank you in advance.
1. Yes, it's a very good choice.
2. Not really sure of the difference in terms of job responsibilities, but the titles are generally used to differentiate between the number of years you have worked in the field. One is used for more posts like entry-level (do not remember which).
3. You really need to compete to get the chance to work with these companies. You made the right choice in terms of a university to attend, because more than likely they send recruiters to their society there. Other things you should do: Keep your GPA college - they may require a threshold of 3.3 or 3.5 GPA. In addition, join clubs and organizations that will benefit you in your career (if the school has a club finances, then join it). Also jumping every opportunity to be on committees that deal with finance (such as in government studies) or execute post of treasurer of a club or two. Just make sure not to late, you'll want to leave enough time to study and do other things.
The best overall piece of advice I can give you is to try and make 2 or 3 courses during your stay in college. Apply for internships at companies you want to work for after you graduate a lot b / c companies hire people who intern with them.
FYI: This advice applies only to your college years b / c companies do not look at the secondary information in determining whether or not to hire you.
* If you go to http://www.businessweek.com you can find detailed information for businesses high level as those you have listed on their program of internships and entry-level jobs. Some of this information includes such things as the number of requests they receive each year, how they hire, average salary, vacation days, what majors they hire, etc. It's all very useful information. Look under the General section, then click on the career of this information .*
Take a trip to New York and Wall Street does interviews and visit the places you mentioned and make calls to do interviews watch heroes Financial why did they go to school and try to track them down I am sure that People will help you
Posted on January 22, 2010.
