Finance

Unlike Accounting or Business Analytics, Finance is a broad major that doesn’t equip students with highly specialized skills for any particular industry. While it does teach essential fundamentals such as financial statement analysis, DCF modeling, and portfolio optimization, the finance industry today has significantly raised the bar for job candidates. As a result, strong grades are now considered a basic requirement rather than a distinguishing factor in recruitment. Therefore, students should aim to get involved in student organizations, network with industry professionals, conduct research with professors, engage in online learning (e.g., certification programs), and, most importantly, cultivate an interest in a specific area of finance, such as investment banking, portfolio management, quantitative trading, equity research, wealth management, private equity, or commercial banking, early on.