I know students from different majors like arts, science get hired by investment firms, but if you have a econ, finance undergad does it help?. I am asking this cos my cousin is starting his undergard at Columbia , NY and is pursuing Econ-Math program and is interested in joing investment management industry. He asked me for opinion but i was not sure since i have engineering background. Any suggestions.
GPA and internship experience is more important than major if you’re at a target school like Columbia.
faraz70s Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I know students from different majors like arts, > science get hired by investment firms, but if you > have a econ, finance undergad does it help?. I am students from IVY LEAGUE schools with different majors like arts and science get hired by investment firms.
Well, if your cousin want to get into finance, he will probably need some finance-related coursework. Econ/Math sounds like a good way to start. However, like the other guy said, he will still have to distinguish himself somehow. Having a high GPA and being aggressive in pursuing internships are pretty important too.
Internship experience will be especially important at a place like Columbia where 90% of his econ classmates will be clamoring for the same jobs and it will really help set him apart, in fact he should try to get some sort of internship (unpaid if need be) after his first year, so he can build on that and get a better internship second year, and so on and so forth. Remember, these firms want to hire raw talent regardless of major.
Regarding arts and science majors… as long as you have demonstrated interest in finance, the difficulty of the coursework and your grades might be more important than the specific major that you pursue. For instance, I doubt that an electrical engineering major with IB internship experience is going to be treated unfavorably relative to say, an economics and finance major with similar internship experience. In some cases, having a non-finance major might also help you get a job. For example, I know people whose computer science degrees helped them get jobs at technology IB groups.