Retrospective: some thoughts on choosing CBS for investing

I thought I'd write a retrospective post - in the spring, I was lucky enough to be deciding between three great school -- Columbia, Booth, and Wharton -- and ended up choosing Columbia. I wanted to follow up and give people some thoughts on my choice now that I'm about to start my second semester.

Some details: I'm interested in the investment management space - so HFs / Mutual Funds. For other career options, your decision making process and considerations may look very different.

Quick reaction - I am certain I made the right decision.

I'm having a great time and, frankly, learning more than I expected. Big surprise on the upside with some of the courses available in investment management. I took a stats class specially tailored to investors, a focused class on investing in a particular sector, which was taught by a PM and featured CEOs from companies we were evaluating as guest speakers -- all in my first semester. Unbelievable exposure. Next semester, four out of five of my classes will be investing-focused (my choice). Keep in mind, the value investing program doesn't start till the second year, so these are classes available to first years. There's almost no efficient markets nonsense taught here.

Recruiting: lots of job postings for summer and spring internships, with most of the big HFs and long-only shops represented. I am shortly starting a paid spring internship with a good fund I found through the CBS job boards.

New York: the benefits of being in the city underpin all of the other dimensions - access to great professors, good recruiting opportunities, etc. I have found it to be particularly useful for networking - I've been meeting with people once or twice a week and that many of these introductions would never have materialized if I wasn't in the city. It's hard to say how being here will help for any given person, but for me it has led to several serendipitous interactions that opened a number of doors. Because full-time HF recruiting is much less structured than internship recruiting, I think this will provide an even greater advantage in my second year.

Network: CBS network in investment management is unbelievably strong. I've met lots of people in great positions at great funds that genuinely want to help.

CSIMA (the investment management club): great community full of good people. Decent number of events and support - pitch workshops, modeling training, mentorship, speakers, social events, etc.

The core curriculum: hit or miss. Many of the classes are a waste of time if you have a decent business background. Luckily you can exempt most core classes without much difficulty.

Facilities: bad. Classrooms are fine, but finding meeting space for group work is a pain. On the other hand, the library is a great social scene and you can eat and drink in it. Otherwise Uris is showing its age and the new building isn't going to be ready for a number of years.

People: very nice, down-to-earth, smart students. I don't think this is a differentiator vs. other schools, but I've been very happy with the community. The vast majority of people live very close to school and there are lots of social events to keep you busy and connected. You could spend your entire time living in the CBS bubble, and many do, but I choose to split it across bschool-life and my other groups of friends in NYC.

I can't comment on Booth or Wharton in this space since I obviously didn't go to those schools. I will say that when I was deciding, I spoke to many people in the industry about my choices (PMs, senior analysts, etc.). I would say the responses were split pretty closely between CBS and Wharton, with CBS probably getting a little more than half the votes, but that may have just been due to the sample. On these forums, you tend to think the name and ranking matters a lot. Once you start, you realize that at this level, you're splitting hairs choosing among top schools. At least in my world, no one cares if you have an MBA, they care about what you make of it through classes, activities, stock research, etc. So while I won't say name doesn't matter, I can tell you to not be afraid to choose the school you are most comfortable with.

Happy to answer questions about investment management or Columbia in general.