pre mba books/ courses etc

PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE... it be really helpful.. 3 months.. especially for us engineeering students! .. i want to know what finance is all about.. and the girl i am seeing right now is a finance major.. so i can ask her all the questions..

Will trade mba prep tips for photos of totally hawt college aged finance Private Equity girl. just kidding.

I'll try to type up some general advice tomorrow from school. I dont plan on actually covering the material, just pointing you guys to what I would recommend you look at and what I would say not to bother with.

In general, my advice would be not to study anything, but I realize some people wont be able to help themselves.

Rhyme--

I'm just that person

I always feel like I need to be learning and moving forward...Stagnation is a horrible feeling to me.

I'd be very interested in hearing what you have to say about what would be good to focus on.

I've actually been reading some great corporate scandal classics (Smartest Guys in the Room, Den of Thieves, Barbarians at the Gate, When Genius Failed) and have been learning a lot just from those. Any others that should be considered?

Gracias

haha, I'll have to tell myself not to study too much. I'll probably spend the summer doing informational interviews with students on what VC is all about and how I can position myself to get a VC internship. Yes, I'm starting way early and most VC students told me I didn't have to do anything in the summer, but if I'm bored, why not?

For future bankers, The Predators Ball by Connie Bruck is a must read.

For people interested in VC, a couple books I've read that I really enjoyed were: The VC Way by Jeffrey Zygmont and Valley Boy by Tom Perkins.

These books won't brush up your accounting or finance skills, but they are great reads that will give you an insight into the industry. If you're looking for technical books, Damodaran on Valuation is a great place to start.

Monkey Business (IB) and Liar's Poker (bond trading) are both good reads.

well instead of photos, I will take you out one night in Chicago and we will be good as far as girls are concerned.. )

yeah.. I am looking for the advice on what books to read, what to do.. I am definitely travelling, and visiting family and other stuff.. but i want to be a bit productive at the same time.

I dont know anyone in M&A for technology firms and that is something which sounds interesting to me. I dont even know how to get informational interviews from people in and around that area..

More Fun Reads...
Liar's Poker (sales, Salomon Brothers)
Monkey Business (CorpFin, DLJ, now Credit Suisse)
Bombardiers (sales, more of a story)
When Genius Failed (crash of Long Term Capital Managment)
The Smartest Guys in the Room (Enron, I think, haven't read it yet)
The Predator's Ball (IB)
Barbarians at the Gate
Den of Thieves
Moneyball
Accidental Investor

Career Reads...
Vault Guides
Wetfeet Guides

Reading on Different Firms...
McKinsey Culture
Goldman: Culture of Success (I'm assuming it will be really dry)
House of Morgan (Another rediculously boring and long read)

Motley Fools Recommended Reading (for individual stock evaluation type stuff)...
"Elementary"
One Up on Wall Street, by Peter Lynch
Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist, by Roger Lowenstein
Value Investing With the Masters, by Kirk Kazanjian
The Davis Dynasty, by John Rothchild
Valuegrowth Investing, by Glen Arnold
"Junior High"
The 5 Keys to Value Investing, by J. Dennis Jean-Jacques
Beating the Street, by Peter Lynch
Investment Fables, by Aswath Damodaran
The Vest Pocket Guide to Value Investing, by C. Thomas Howard
Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits, by Philip Fisher
"High School"
Made in America, by Sam Walton
Forbes' Greatest Investing Stories, by Richard Phalon
John Neff on Investing, by John Neff
The Intelligent Investor, by Benjamin Graham
The Money Masters, by John Train
"University"
Stocks for the Long Run, by Jeremy Siegel
Quality of Earnings, by Thornton Oglove
Investing in Small-Cap Stocks, by Christopher Graja and Elizabeth Ungar
The Book of Investing Wisdom, by Peter Krass
You Can Be a Stock Market Genius, by Joel Greenblatt
"Grad School"
Break Up!, by Campbell, Koch & Sadtler
Investment Gurus, by Peter Tanous
Value Investing: A Balanced Approach, by Martin Whitman
Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond, by Bruce Greenwald
The Road to Serfdom, by F.A. Hayek

If you can find it - I highly recommend the movie Barbarians at the Gate. Or the book. Excellent book and movie about private equity and the buyout craze in the 80s.

Ok, ill go with something brief for now...

In general, my advice is to do nothing and relax. There will be lots of other people in the same boat as you anyway, and you'll be fine. Admittedly, this is more likely the case at the GSB than at other schools (were, for instance, those with a CFA Level III cert will self select out of basic investments, while at other schools you may well find those people in your class), but in general, I don't think its something you have to do. Enjoy your free time now because time gets to be pretty precious later.

As for what to study, I'd say there are four general areas that are probably considered rudimentary.

1: Statistics:
Pretty fundamental, especially important if you plan on doing finance. I prepared with these notes and found them quite helpful: https://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/alan.best ... index.html

If you want an EASY book to read, I recommend the cartoon guide to statistics. I know, it sounds retarded, and it sort of it sometimes, but its actually something you can tolerate reading. https://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-Guide-Sta ... 0062731025


OCW Link: https://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Mathematics/1 ... /index.htm

2: Accounting
Painful. Just painful. Not an easy subject to learn on your own. Scribd and many many many other sites have tons and tons of stuff to get you started.
See for instance: https://www.scribd.com/doc/2541346/Financial-Accounting
Also helpful: https://ac.boisestate.edu/ac205novakes/
More complete, despite the stab-me-in-the-eye color scheme:
https://intra.som.umass.edu/mannino/Cove ... %20630.htm

I've also attached some notes I had found somewhere once. Not very helpful if you havent seen accounting before, but still.

OCW Link: https://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Sloan-School- ... /index.htm

3: Economics
Personally, I'd focus elsewhere but.... if you need a memory jog:
https://web.mit.edu/~bilalw/www/cases/microeconomics.ppt
(yes, its a GSB ppt hosted by someone at mit, cute)

If you want something more substantial:
https://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Economics/14- ... /index.htm

4: Investments / Basic Finance
Probably not worth studying if you have seen this stuff before. Invest in an HP 12C calculator now and learn it over the summer. I recommend the anniversary edition.

OCW: https://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Sloan-School- ... /index.htm

Also,

If you want to start thinking about interviews...

https://web.mit.edu/~bilalw/www/cases/

thanks a ton - rhyme..

FWIW, Texas-McCombs recommends Essentials of Accounting and Freakonomics for incoming 1st years.

Hello from the GMAT Club MBAbot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.