<p>I'm curious as to what the environment is like at many Ibanks. I want to hear from some people that worked as Investment bankers as to what type of people you deal with. Is everyone in this business a Gordon Gekko type? What character traits(drive,ambition,leadership,teamwork) is most important to succeed in this field.thanks</p>
<p>i'm planning on getting my m.b.a. and a masters in finance so i'd like to know too.</p>
<p>read the vault guides related to this, specifically the top 50 banks guide because every bank is different and every bank has a different culture which creates different atmospheres.</p>
<p>also, if you want to do straight up corporate finance a masters in finance will be a waste of time.</p>
<p>yea I read the vault guides but they charge money for all the good articles.</p>
<p>What do you mean a masters in finance is a waste of time? I know the best route is probably a top 10 MBA but couldn't you also get into Ibanking with a masters in economics/finance/financial engineering. Also does M&A Ibanking not derivative Trading require a lot of math expertise, I keep hearing that if you want to get into this field you need to major in calc & stats for undergrad.</p>
<p>No you're wrong.</p>
<p>Masters in Finance/Masters in Financial Engineering is only helpful if you want to get into trading/the quant end of finance. You don't need to know how to trade if you're doing M&A work, you're just going to be making models, it's not something overly complex -- why else would Dartmouth History majors being going into banking?</p>
<p>Getting a masters degree is just generally a waste of time because you can use the time you spend getting your masters on actually WORKING and advancing within a bank. The only difference comes when you've went to a bad undergrad that isn't recruited/you performed poorly in school and couldn't get into banking.</p>
<p>If that's the case its usually a better idea to actually work in a field, preferably a related one for a few years and then go get your MBA from a top institution and make the switch. The Masters in Finance Programs/FE programs aren't going to be recruited for corp finance positions, those guys are going to go work for hedge funds and like I said, trading positions.</p>
<p>You do not 'major in calc or stats' either. Its extremely helpful to take classes in calc and stat because for the most part you're going to be dealing with numbers all day so it's good to be comfortable with them, but you're never going to be needing to use actual calculus on the job in CorpFinance mostly it's just simple math.</p>