Career choices: finance IT VS. consulting...

Career Opportunities & Internships
1

<p>Hey,</p>

<p>I am a senior Computer Science major at Carnegie Mellon University. I'm graduating in May and would like some input on job choices. I've been thinking and discussing my career choices a lot with many people, but I wanted to see what others thought...</p>

<p>A little bit about the internships i HAVE done: Merrill Lynch GWM technology analyst in NJ and JP Morgan Chase Private Bank technology analyst in DE</p>

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<p>UBS
Title: Wealth Management graduate trainee
Location: Weehawken, NJ
Responsibilities: I'd be doing four 6-month rotations in wealth management that involve all phases of the software life cycle (design, development, test/QA, business analysis, etc.)
Lingering thoughts: I know that UBS got hit pretty hard by the financial crisis, so that's bothering me... also, I've been doing finance tech internships already, so this is just furthering my descent into finance IT (especially wealth management, it seems??)... which may or may not be a good thing :P</p>

<p>JP Morgan Chase
Title: Technology Analyst
Location: Newark, DE
Responsibilities: straight up application developer for at least two years. Probably in the IB side
Lingering thoughts: I interned here over the summer, and Delaware isn't the most exciting place in the world. Plus, the company culture in DE is very unmotivated and lazy at times. However, JP Morgan is doing really well in the IB side (if only I were in NY??), however the pay here isn't that fantastic</p>

<p>Booz Allen Hamilton
Title: Consultant
Location: McClean, VA
Responsibilities: consultant for government firms (DoD, DoE, etc.) means that I will be handling a variety of projects. Probably be doing all phases of the software dev lifecycle on projects that last anywhere from a few months to over a year
Lingering thoughts: Booz Allen Hamilton made a lot of "Best Places to Work" lists, like Fortune, Glassdoor, etc. It seems like the work/life balance here is really, really good. However, I've never ventured into this field before so I'm a bit hesitant. Also, they only have like a few days of training set aside for you, not a structured TRAINING program like, say, UBS</p>

<p>Any comments/thoughts? Thanks :) I have to decide soon where I'm going to work!</p>

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<p>Hi there, Stanford CS here :)</p>

<p>I’d go with Booz for sure. My sophomore summer I did a Technology Analyst internship with a bank, so I do have some perspective on that. Finance IT is not going to give you a whole lot of options afterwards, other than other (back office) IT jobs. If you want to get into software, go to a software company. Or, if you are really interested in technology in finance, go to a firm where your software engineering skills will really be valued (i.e. a prop trading firm (esp. high frequency ones), quantitative hedge funds, etc). </p>

<p>At least in consulting you set yourself up really well for business school (if you are interested in that) and get to take advantage of their ridiculous networks (to get placed in a job you’re excited about post consulting).</p>

<p>Really, if you are considering finance IT and consulting it shows that you are at least relatively uncertain about what you want to do. There’s nothing wrong with that (most people that are being honest with themselves fit into this category). But consulting jobs for new grads is exactly for students that don’t know exactly what they want to do. You get new (hopefully very different) projects every few months, each of which is sort of like starting a new job. Booz is also a good name, which is important in consulting.</p>