Majors of IB

<p>What are the best college majors for IB, Business or Economics + MBA? or dual majors like econ+math? What math is most useful for IB? Thanks.</p>

<p>You won’t need any math that can’t be done in an Excel formula for IB. Depending on the school, econ (where the most you’d take is calc 3 + stats) and its joint majors, or business (accounting, finance) may give you an initial edge that will disappear once interviews begin.</p>

<p>Which are the top colleges that offer a dual economics and finance major?</p>

<p>There’s no need for a dual finance + econ major. Even an econ + general business minor can be redundant depending on the coursework. It’s important to seem well-rounded even if you don’t really have other academic interests. At my school (an ivy) some people can get internships with an unrelated major just by taking macro, micro, accounting, and corporate finance.</p>

<p>Investment Banking point of view, which major is preferable, Economics or Mathematical Economics?</p>

<p>It. Doesn’t. Matter.</p>

<p>Assuming you’re still in high school, you are getting way, way ahead of yourself. </p>

<p>The chances of you wanting to be in investment banking four years from now are pretty slim – 70% of kids change their majors in college, and a major doesn’t equal career plans, anyway. Do you really know what people in investment banking do? (Investment banking is a broad term – it includes venture capital, private equity, aiding in mergers & acquisitions, and trading financial products, among other things). A close friend and senior executive at the most prestigious investment bank on Wall Street told me that what he does is so complicated that it would take too long to explain to me what he does. </p>

<p>He has an engineering degree, by the way, as does his brother, who also wound up on Wall Street in a senior position at another prestige firm. Their jobs have nothing to do with engineering in the slightest. Another friend/Wall Street senior exec has a philosophy degree. He works for the same firm as the first guy I mentioned.</p>

<p>None of the people I know who went to work on Wall Street (and I know at least a couple hundred from college) went to college planning to go into investment banking. They went to college, learned things, and interviewed for jobs in a variety of fields come senior year. Or they bumped into people playing tennis and got connected, or made connections via other random ways (only a handful had family connections, including none of the three mentioned above), or they did something else after college, and later moved into Wall Street positions.</p>

<p>Choose a college that fits you, not because it has a strong economics, mathematical economics or business program. Those aren’t tickets to Wall Street. Wall Street people are hired more for their guts and street smarts than their particular training. My friends have told me that they don’t teach anything close to what you need to know to be successful in a job on the Street in college. They look for the right people, and train them on the job.</p>

<p>Investment banking is not quite that broad though. VC and PE are different things. Investment banking includes corporate finance, sales, trading, research, risk, and other middle and back office roles.</p>

<p>You’re right that the skills matter more than the school, but there’s a reason Wall Street rank and files are plurality Harvard and Wharton undergrads. Go to a school with good recruiting. It makes a difficult task a little easier. Major in what you like the most, and use electives and outside activities to show interest, leadership, teamwork, etc.</p>

<p>VC and PE people are referred to as investment bankers, by both the outside world and by themselves (and that is information I’ve gotten firsthand by sitting in meetings with VC and PE people, as well as from friends at places like Goldman and Morgan Stanley). Yes, they are much different from the functions handled by Goldman Sachs, but Investment Banking is a wastebasket term. No one at Goldman that I’ve known has referrerd to himself as an investment banker, but instead, by a more specific term.</p>

<p>The commonality is that all of these fields are dealing with big money, high pressure, fast paces and the ability to make a termendous amount of money if you don’t have a heart attack at 36 like my roommate’s counterpart did at Merrill Lynch, unfortunately. They also seem to attract the same types of people.</p>

<p>But that’s a semantic issue. If you want to narrow the term to what the Goldmans of the world do, you can.</p>

<p>By the way, you mentioned risk, research and middle and back office roles. These roles are not the ones that steer the horse. Those people are sneered upon by the traders, institutional sales people and those who lead the mergers and acquisitions, the real cowboys who are running these firms. The others are well-paid second class citizens, with some exceptions, and the ones I know who landed in the high-powered cowboy roles didn’t start out in those low-prestige roles (although some do).</p>

<p>But back to your point, a high portion of the prestige Wall Street jobs are filled by grads of Ivy League and schools of equal caliber, regardless of degree, particularly athletes. </p>

<p>And back to my point, it’s way too early to even dream about these kinds of jobs in high school (and be careful what you wish for – the job satisfaction rate on these jobs is low).</p>

<p>MyD was home for the holidays and mentioned that the resumes submitted for her companies diversity program at JPM from our local SUNY state school were actually competitive.
They did not get selected. She is involved in ranking the resumes.</p>

<p>They have a program to enourage diversity and are considering students from non target schools. My D said some of the resumes from these schools are very impressive. Unfortunately only a few are chosen for an interview.</p>

<p>Basically a very high gpa and involvement and leadership in extracircular activities is important. Having done something not usual is a very big plus.</p>

<p>Boondocks, you’re wrong. VC and PE are not considered investment banking. Some BB banks do have VC/PE arms but they aren’t part of the IBD. MD+ would not be telling you VC/PE managers are bankers of any kind.</p>

<p>Are you saying that choosing a major is not related to Econ may end up at IB? Or is this just apply to Ivy school students?</p>