Liberal Arts Classes to Take to Work in Investment Banking

Many high-school and university students with an involvement in finance naturally want to know, "What's the best higher major for investment banking?"

The answer to this question has inverse over the years. And these changes have made your university major both less of import and more important.

Let me explain…

Investment Banking Majors: Assumptions and Constraints

In this article, I am making a few important assumptions:

1. You have to pay for your degree, either upfront or by borrowing money.
2. You are attending a relatively expensive school that will cost at least tens of thousands of dollars in full.
3. University degrees will go on to exist required for jobs in finance, especially in the well-nigh competitive fields, such every bit investment cyberbanking and private disinterestedness.
4. You are interested in a finance career, merely you also desire a practiced "Plan B" in case y'all graduate during a market crash or recession, or you decide against finance.
5. You are a practical, logical person who wants to achieve a decent ROI on the time and coin you lot spend on the degree.

Some of these assumptions may not be true for yous.

For case, perchance yous have wealthy parents who are paying for your caste, or you're in a country where college education is free or very cheap.

Or, you have a philosophical objection to this concept because you lot believe that a university education should offer "learning for the sake of learning."

Or, you believe that the entire university system will plummet, then official degrees will no longer be required, and trade schools volition have over, similar to what's already happening in software.

If that's y'all, please terminate reading right hither. You might exist right, but this article is not for yous.

Instead, we're going to focus on the average person'southward reality:

Why Does Your University Major Affair At All?

Back in 2005 or 2010, your academy major mattered considering:

1. undergraduate-level recruiting took identify later, so more of your grades came from your major, and
2. there were fewer ways to acquire accounting and financial modeling independently.

But as of today, both of those – and more! – have inverse.

The IB recruiting timeline is now hyper-accelerated, there are far more self-written report options, and careers in "high finance" have become less unique compared with ones in engineering, sales, or even existent estate.

And even if you start early and do everything right, the randomness and timing of the recruiting procedure mean that you might end up without an IB offer.

So, your major matters for three reasons in the short term:

1. You need to earn a good GPA – at least a 3.5, and ideally over 3.7 if you're at a lesser-known school – to have the best shot at winning interviews. A low GPA is the nigh difficult weakness to overcome in interviews, and so yous don't want to pick something that makes your grades plummet.
2. You desire to point that you're competent and intelligent, and a major that'south at least moderately difficult volition requite this impression.
3. Your major is now more important for "Plan B" options in case you graduate into a marketplace crash or recession, or you decide against finance.

A few other important points include:

• If yous're an international student studying in the U.S., you want a degree that qualifies as STEM and then y'all tin can stay in the country and work for 36 months later on graduation. Many degrees count as Stem (Google information technology), including some that are a bit of a stretch.
• Regardless of your official major, you should take classes where yous learn applied skills that you can apply straight to loftier-paying jobs.
• Finally, yous don't want a major that crowds out your time for other activities, such equally networking, internships, and student groups.

Based on all of that…

Hither's my recommendation for the Best Investment Banking Major" (or "Study Plan"):

• Major: Accounting/finance (or, if your academy doesn't have these specific majors, something that has coursework in these areas).
• Minor: Computer science, math, or statistics.
• You should likewise consider taking at least ane-2 writing or advice-intensive classes because plenty of students are good with numbers, but many of them cannot communicate with other humans.
• If you're an international pupil, you lot may accept to flip the order and then your major qualifies every bit "Stalk."

Why This Major/Small Combination?

This combination is special because information technology:

• gives yous the skills required for finance careers
• makes yous seem competent/intelligent, and
• gives you lot adept "Plan B" options in case you make up one's mind against finance.

It should not exist overly hard to earn a decent GPA, and if you run low on free fourth dimension, you tin can drop the official pocket-size and make information technology a few extra classes instead.

As well, you can front-load the easier classes in your first 1-2 years to boost your GPA by the time you utilise for internships.

If you want to be a quant, you tin flip the gild and pick math or CS for your major and bookkeeping/finance for your minor.

Here'southward why each specific component in this program matters:

• Significant Bookkeeping Coursework: Accounting is, by far, the most important "technical skill" for investment cyberbanking, private equity, and many hedge funds. And a lot of mid-level and senior bankers don't understand it that well!
• One or 2 Corporate Finance Classes: Most universities do not offer courses that delve into the real "corporate finance" work done in IB/PE roles (i.e., valuation and modeling transactions), and then you lot should stop with the basics of corporate finance earlier getting into the weeds.
• Math/Statistics/Computer science Background: Y'all don't need to exist an skillful, but these skills will exist applicable in almost whatever field. You should empathize bones programming concepts (control structures, data structures, recursion, memory, etc.) and math through calculus and linear algebra.
• I or Ii Writing/Advice-Intensive Classes: You spend a lot of time reading and writing documents, calling people, and conducting meetings in finance and besides in sales, production management, and real estate.

Finally, if you decide against finance after completing a sequence of internships or an official IB internship, this program will give you other options:

• Tech Companies: Production management, sales, information science, or potentially even programming (but you lot may demand a deeper background for the latter two).
• Finance-Related Areas: Fintech and real estate are ever solid options. Maybe even consulting, if you feel like earning less and living in hotels. And so there are Big 4 firms and others in "professional person services" that look for like skills.
• Not-Finance, Non-Tech Companies: You could likewise join a normal company in a corporate finance, corporate strategy, or projection management role.

Yous won't be the platonic candidate to win the nigh technical jobs with this combination (eastward.one thousand., working on Google'southward search algorithm), and you lot also won't exist in the best position to win the well-nigh sales-y jobs (e.g., enterprise sales at Oracle).

Simply you will accept a lot of flexibility for roles in between those two extremes.

"But Expect! I Want to Study Literature! Or History! Or Gender Studies!"

I hear you lot.

Fifty-fifty though I was a Information science major, I virtually picked History or Literature, and I've been rereading all of Shakespeare's plays this year (for fun).

Merely I don't think information technology's a bang-up idea to option something in the liberal arts or social sciences if your goal is a high-paying chore immediately after graduation, and you don't desire to exist "forced" into law school or another degree.

If you're at an elite university (the Ivy League and like schools in the U.S.; Oxbridge in the U.K., etc.), you might be able to pull this off considering your university's reputation is far more important than your major.

But if yous're at even a moderately-lesser-known schoolhouse, whether a "semi-target" or a complete non-target for banks, information technology's a bad idea.

Bankers might be able to vouch for an English language Literature major from Harvard, but they'd exist a lot more skeptical almost a similar candidate from Podunk U.

Other Investment Banking Major Mistakes to Avoid

Double and triple majors are bad ideas because they volition drag down your GPA and reduce your free time.

Bankers volition non be impressed if you lot earned a iii.ane cumulative GPA and had lower grades because of a triple major – they'd rather rent someone who earned a iii.7 with one major and who also had good internships.

Finally, Economics is not a good choice unless your school offers absolutely zero else related to Accounting or Finance.

Not only is it questionable to telephone call macroeconomics a "science," merely it has very lilliputian to practice with the daily piece of work in IB, PE, or tech careers.

Mayhap if you are interested in asset management or portfolio management or something broader, Economics could be more applicable…

…but information technology's still more useful to know bookkeeping and the financial statements like the back of your paw.

How To Combine Your Major With Activities And Internships

Nosotros have a few examples of how to combine your major with activities and internships in the article on how to prepare for investment banking summer internship recruiting.

In curt, you demand to win finance-related internships early (Year 1 and Year 2) then you lot can ready yourself upwards for IB and related roles – or dominion them out quickly.

Yous don't demand to commit to a specific major in the beginning; you lot just need something past the time recruiting for Year iii internships begins.

Investment Banking Majors: What Next?

Questions well-nigh the "all-time" major never get away, but most communication about this topic is somewhat off.

Banks indeed hire from all majors, and some majors are more relevant to finance than others.

Merely those points ignore the true importance of your major: allowing you to earn good grades while actualization competent and intelligent and gaining a useful skill set that gives y'all alternate career options.

But as I said in the beginning, if someone else is paying for your degree, your education is "free," or you lot don't intendance almost practicality, experience free to practise what you want.

I hear the Gender Studies department is recruiting.

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Source: https://mergersandinquisitions.com/investment-banking-major/

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