Should private University students proceed with Masters program to have a better shot to enter investment banking?

TL;DR: Quite unlikely

​

Getting into investment banking is no easy feat. With that being said, education does matter so in my experience i think it's extremely difficult unless you have something that sets yourself apart from candidates who come from more prestigious backgrounds (NUS,SMU,NTU). Maybe an MBA from NUS would help if you're thinking of a masters? But then the value behind the MBA is really the connections and networks your build as oppose to actual learnings.

​

Also, it would be good to have an idea of what you want to do in investment banking rather than just having a broad idea of entering IB. There's Financing and Advisory as two big ones so getting familiar with those and building up/aligning your skillsets to those would help.

​

Finally, there's the bulge bracket banks and smaller more boutique ones. I would think an 'easier' path would be to start from those then work your way up to the bulge brackets.

​

But, 'easier' is very subjective as the boutique ones are typically quite lean in terms of their team size and openings pop up ocassionally so they would definitely pick the best candidates.

​