Hello hello~
Apologies for the delay; I’m posting on a Saturday because I was gone ALL day yesterday from 4am-11pm (!) visiting Wall Street with Wellesley’s Investment Society. (It was a 5 hour bus ride both ways.)
It was such a great experience though! I am so glad I got to go. There were around 30 of us, mostly sophomores and juniors, but a handful of first years, too. We visited Deutsche Bank in the morning, Bank of America Merrill Lynch at noon, and CitiBank in the afternoon.
Of these three, I’d say BAML was my favorite for a number of reasons.
1) When I walked into the room, I immediately saw familiar faces, because many of the girls had just graduated Wellesley in 2014, and I’d met with some of them last year to ask about their experiences and learn more about the industry. They’d all interned with BAML the summer after their junior year and gotten offers to come back full time, so as a first year, it was great for me to hear about their experiences, what their work life was like, and how I could get to where they are.
2) BAML has both a strong women’s network and a strong Wellesley network. Stacy Hadash, Managing Director of Capital Markets, ran the session and is also BAML’s recruiter from schools such as Wellesley, Mt. Holyoke, and Smith. She joined BAML when it first became BAML (Bank of America merged with Merrill Lynch 5 years ago) during the financial crisis, had previously worked in M&A (mergers and acquisitions) at Goldman Sachs, and had worked at Morgan Stanley before that. BAML has a high women to men ratio for an investment bank, and that contributed to me liking them the most out of the three banks.
(note: most people reading this won’t understand all the banking jargon – and that’s totally fine. It took me a while to get up to speed as well, and is part of the intimidating factor of the industry. Once you understand the vocabulary, you realize investment bankers really aren’t all that special, what they do really isn’t that hard, and that the industry is just shrouded in a cloud of mystery because everybody’s talking in a language ordinary people don’t understand.)
3) We got to see the trading floor! Since I’m interested in the S&T (sales and trading) division, it was like seeing my future work space. It looked just like “Wolf of Wall Street”, except without all the crazy shouting and cursing because, according to one of the analysts who showed us around, “everyone is in a food coma”. (It was just after lunch.)
Now that I’m home and recuperated (we got back at midnight and I slept until noon today), I have a lot of work ahead of me! First, I have to follow up with all the people I networked with yesterday (this industry is all about networking, networking, networking) and email them something to help remember me, so when I contact them again in the future they’ll know who I am. Then I need to do more research on the industry (mergers and inquisitions is a good website, as is investopedia). And finally, I need to start sending in my applications (recruiting season is like, right now)!
This is a lot to do, and I will admit that I’m not always stress-free, but it helps if I view this as an investment in my future. The investment banking industry is extremely competitive, and there are even fewer girls who make it (because Wall Street loves Wharton boys), so if I can get an internship that later leads to a 3-year analyst program after graduation, I’ll be relatively set for the future. Having done investment banking is a huge stamp of approval on any resume. Switching careers would be a piece of cake. Plus, I’ve adopted a mindset where I see those 3 years on Wall Street as an equivalent to getting an MBA, because I’ll learn the same things – except I’ll get paid for doing it instead of paying to go to school!
Now for those of you who are prospective Wellesley students – please don’t be intimidated by the seemingly super-intense life of a Wellesley student! First of all, not everyone has to go down the finance path. And second of all, your life here at Wellesley is as busy as you choose to make it! I just happened to choose a very busy one.
I hope everyone’s having a great start to their weekends.
Until next Friday!
Emily