Hi all, I will be a junior next fall at an Ivy League school. I have a 3.9, in biophysics and mathematics (hoping to keep it that way with finals). I have a lot of scientific research experience + other stuff related to it, as I am currently premed, but I am becoming increasingly disillusioned with it (hah).
I’m trying to explore my options in finance and consulting, since a good 20% of my school ends up in these fields, and was wondering what would be the best way to try and break in. This summer, I’ve already received a fellowship for my research, and I feel like it’s too late to try for internships. I’m not sure how to proceed further, beyond going to info sessions/trying to network and was wondering if you had any thoughts or advice?
I am considering changing my major to applied math, and I probably still have time to transition to econ-math or something else, but I just feel really lost.
A possibility to look into is life sciences related consulting and/or technology. Epic is a popular target for new grads who are thinking of but not convinced about going into medicine (a friend of mine actually worked there for four years and then enrolled in med school!).
With a 3.9 GPA and the type of research you seem to have, you are in good shape going into next fall. You would be competitive for FT roles with the major management consulting houses (McKinsey, Bain, BCG) as well as the large strategy firms (the Big 4 of Deloitte, PWC, EY, and KPMG) and the other strong consultancies (IBM, Accenture, SAP).
What may be worthwhile is trying to talk to somebody who is in these fields - someone who has already done an internship - to see what it’s like.
What kind of work are you interested in doing? Finance and consulting are enormous industries (think of it like saying you want to play “sports” as a career), so it’d be helpful to know what you like.
As someone who recruited in consulting, I’ll tell you that your background doesn’t really make that big of a difference. I majored in finance & management, but top firms search for candidates with unique but structured and rational trains of thought which can often come from people with liberal arts majors. I remember attending a BCG event and while there were representatives who were business majors, I also met an airforce pilot, biology major, and nuclear physics major.
Many people enter consulting after working in their major specific industry for a small period of time as a lot of consulting firms are organized by industry specific experience. Some people request to remain as generalist consultants that give them exposure to a range of industries, but there will always be a need for subject and industry matter experts.
The larger conglomerate consultancies like the Big 4, Accenture, IBM etc. seemed to focus more of their recruitment on business students while MBB, Booz, ZS etc were more selective regardless of major.
That said, a lot of the people that I knew got offers coming from non-business majors did a lot of prep on their own to understand basic financial and management concepts that helped them through their case interviews so you would likely have to do some extra studying on your own.