<p>I've seen a lot of threads about this on CC and other sites, but I have never really gotten a definite answer. Can you major in whatever you want during your undergraduate years and still go into investment banking? </p>
<p>Investment banking is not the only thing I want to do out of college, so it won't influence my major choice either way, but I would like to hear success stories from people who did not major in finance, accounting, business, math, or even economics, but still got into investment banking. </p>
<p>I ask because investment banking seems like a good way to learn about finance and the corporate world while making good money and connections. I am going to major in English at Stanford, even if it completely kills my chances at investment banking, so I do not really care that much. I just want to hear some of your personal experiences of you or people you've met or heard of getting into investment banking or business in general without one of the aforementioned degrees.</p>
<p>I’m just saying it’s an option I’m considering… and the thing is at Stanford the finance classes have a lot of requirements. I don’t want to have to take 3 math classes and 4 introductory economics classes, then 2 econometrics classes just so that I can learn something that I could learn on the job. I don’t want college should be like that: spending 4 years of my life just to get one job out of undergrad. And yeah, I’m going to study what I want I just wanted to hear some success/failure stories of people who tried to break into IB from a liberal arts degree.</p>
<p>A lot of people from Yale doing liberal arts end up in finance, consulting, etc. Not sure about IB specifically, but I imagine the same is possible for Stanford considering it’s a top target.</p>
<p>It’s going to be fairly hard if you’re not able to land a summer internship somehow (whether through connections or otherwise). Pre-crisis it was pretty feasible to major in something like English if you were coming from a school like Stanford, but times have changed. Work/internship experience trumps all, however. Joining finance/investing type clubs will be beneficial. Earning a high GPA should go without question.</p>
<p>If you come from a school with a business program, major in accounting and finance. If you come from a school without, major in econ. If you come from HPYS, you can major in anything.</p>
<p>And Paulson was succeeded by Geithner, who majored in government and Asian studies. That’s pretty cool. And the CEO of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, majored in history. Just shows ya.</p>
<p>IMHO, as long as you know the basic content and have at least one finance internship, it doesn’t matter what you major in at Stanford. I completely agree with Yankees’ reasoning of studying what you want to study.</p>
<p>My sister got an investment banking job after graduating with an excellent GPA in political science degree at BC. It’s possible. She regretted not taking some business electives, however, because she was much less familiar with “bank speak” than everyone else that was recruited with business-oriented backgrounds.</p>