Finance career progression

Hi all,

New here so not sure if this in the right place!

I have a couple of questions - firstly, what is the career progression of someone starting out as an operations analyst? Is it possible to get a good career and pay through operations and is it possible to develop from operations into mid-office, for example?

My final question is somewhat linked to my first. I have a summer internship in operations coming up at a large investment bank and in order to do this this year, I had to change my degree programme from a masters to a bachelors. At the time I didn't see this as a huge deal, since my degree is in physics which isn't directly related to anything financial anyway. But will only having a bachelors hinder me in future job opportunities? Technically speaking I could ow do a masters in something more financially related but I've been told if I do well in this internship I'll get a full time job offer. If I do, should I take it?
I'm probably overthinking this but thanks for reading!

As far as I know, going into say middle office for the intent of progressing into FO is largely frowned upon, it's probably the same case for operations. They want people that are committed to their respective roles long term, so I'd assume the career progression you mentioned is highly unlikely.

A large majority of people that go into finance and especially IB do neither a masters nor a finance related subject. The fact that you managed to secure an internship at a large investment bank shows you already know enough about finance for the job you want to do. Unless you don't want to do the job (in which case I have no idea how you managed to get an internship), I don't see why there'd be any reason you shouldn't take the job offer if you were given one.

I highly doubt doing a masters will give you any advantage over taking the job in terms of career progression later on, having the work experience would be much more invaluable.

Thanks for replying. I understand about trying to transfer from back office to mid-office - it's probably seen an a rather sneaky way of trying to move up the ladder. What sort of career can be carved out of operations then? Once you get to VP, for example, is there much opportunity to move forward?