<p>I’m so incredibly turned off by the investment banking discussion that seems to pop up every day now… on the engineering forums.</p>
<p>The proportion of people on this forum who would ever be competitive for an investment banking job is miniscule. If you’re talking about the big-league investment banks and not the boutique firms, you are very likely not going to get a job unless you went to Harvard, Yale, MIT, Princeton, or Stanford - specifically. Other Ivy League undergrads, even above average ones, don’t have nearly as much of a shot. To think that these firms would, for some reason, prefer engineers is insane. Do you honestly believe that kids who were competitive enough to get into these schools don’t have the quantitative and analytical capacity to perform the addition and subtraction, and occasionally multiplication required as an investment banker? When they hire someone who didn’t go to one of these schools, there was probably some world-class networking going on.</p>
<p>Investment banks don’t disproportionally hire engineers as investment banking analysts. They hire MIT engineers just like they hire Harvard history majors.</p>
<p>Quants, software engineers, and IT people among others are all employed by such firms, sure. The difference between their prestige is like the difference between a civil engineer working at a football stadium and the football players themselves.</p>
<p>To understand this, you have to understand their business model. Investment banks rely on trust - and they get that trust by convincing their investors that they are deserving of that trust because they employ the best and the brightest. Unfortunately, regardless of what kind of mental horsepower you have, a firm can’t use the name of your public school to immediately gain that trust.</p>
<p>Engineers have an immense amount of opportunity to achieve great success, unless your idea of great success is in finance. The importance of the school you go to is probably a function of your ambition. An average engineering student with average ambition will probably achieve their goals at a typical engineering school. For the very top students, school prestige opens doors.</p>
<p>Investment bankers don’t make that much money when you consider their credentials. Burning out with tens millions in the bank? What movie did you see that on?</p>