<p>I'm currently an undergrad at University of Southern California. I'm a business major but I know my true passion is in Finance. I would like to work in the future as an investment banker. Unfortunately, USC does not offer a Finance degree. So, my question is: is USC a school that will open doors for me in the field of investment banking (although I'm a business major) or will I be forced to look into other similarly ranked universities (such as NYU or even UT Austin) if I want to pursue IB? Thanks in advance for your answers</p>
<p>Short answer is yes, you will have opportunities in IB coming out of USC. The caveat is that most of the opportunities will be in the LA metro area, which is not necessarily a bad thing if that is where you want to be. UT Austin and Stern are both good places to be for IB but are not equal in terms of recruiting.</p>
<ul>
<li>USC: good IB opportunities in LA, hard to find any outside of LA</li>
<li>UTA: good IB opportunities in TX, decent placement in NY</li>
<li>Stern: best placement in NY out of the three</li>
</ul>
<p>In the end, it comes down to your location and cost preferences.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for your response enlightenyou. Let me ask you, if you were in my position, would you transfer or stay in LA. Don’t get me wrong LA is a fantastic place to be, but if you were looking for the best opportunities, what would your choice be? </p>
<p>P.S. sorry for the really late reply</p>
<p>USC is solid, but you’re going to have a lot of competition from within California (Stanford, Cal and CalTech are all bigger targets and UCLA is equal + a few other lesser UC kids + HYPM people from California that want to come back). I think UT is the hidden gem. Houston + Dallas are both big on banking/consulting and it’s unquestionably the top school in it’s region. NYU is the most famous finance school and the best target, but competition over there is intense, it’s expensive and you may not like having no culture on campus aside from NYC.</p>
<p>However, if you like USC, it won’t hold you back, you’ll just have to work ridiculously hard to be the best there as there are better schools out there. If you can, I’d do NYU stern though. It’s basically an i-banking factory, although it’s not as good for consulting.</p>
<p>I’m from Cali, and am planning and always have planned to move back after graduation. I’m interested in investment management (hedge fund/private equity). I came to NYU, to leverage the education and internship opportunities here to be ahead when moving back.</p>
<p>My experience, in terms of NYU, is not only is the education great, but you have better internship opportunities in Manhattan than anywhere in the world (unless you want to work in Hollywood). If you can come here and take advantage of the experience/connections available to you in NYC, the opportunities in LA (in my opinion) are limitless.</p>
<p>HYPS students must come to NYC over summer, find a place, and hope for an internship. As an NYU student, you literally can have an internship as an elective.</p>
<p>@creamgethamoney: I really appreciate your advice, I’m honestly thinking I’m gonna go to UT. I really did consider NYU, but I feel it would be a more difficult transition from SC to NYU, than from SC to UT.</p>
<p>@nyctola: Do you think there any possibilities of a McCombs student getting any internships in New York? Also, do people generally recognize McCombs as a good school on the east coast?</p>
<p>Supegui: Absolutely. Investment banks/PE Firms/hedge funds are simply looking for extremely hard working, bright, and dedicated students. I will however point out that a lot of these great opportunities come either via networking, or a killer resume.</p>
<p>by killer resume, I mean high GPA, extra circulars, and some sort of experience. your best bet is to network and kick butt in school at the same time. I’ve read there are a lot of great hedge funds in texas that recruit at UT.</p>
<p>Just in case you didn’t know, transferring into Stern is nearly impossible. It is very very hard to transfer into Stern and only a very select number of students are admitted via transfer. In any case, all 3 schools you listed are good for IB, what you should consider is the location where you want to work, as the previous posters have mentioned.</p>
<p>USC places well in Los Angeles and San Francisco</p>
<p>Maybe track down these people on this list for advice: <a href=“http://www.usctis.com/node/69[/url]”>http://www.usctis.com/node/69</a></p>
<p>I’d not go to UTexas.</p>
<p>Can’t go wrong with USC.</p>
<p>@blbk: why wouldn’t you go to UT? Anything that can give me more perspective would be extremely helpful, seeing a I’m pretty close to deciding to apply to UT</p>
<p>I found this interesting because i’m a JR in high school and I want to go to USC/NYU potentially for business, but i’m thinking about getting an undergraduate in engineering and then going into business for that MBA because i also like finance.</p>