Take our quiz to find out what your revision personality is! >>

Career path for an investment banker or software dev?

I'm currently picking maths, computer science and physics for my a levels. Further maths isn't offered by my sixth form hence I chose CS, and I'd like to keep the door open to software development as I've heard it's relatively safe and easy to get into.

I've also heard economics is not that good at a level nor it is necessary to do economics in uni, which is why I went with CS which helps me learn some programming which will definitely be helpful if I'm doing software development.

Will these a levels be good for university if I'm planning to become an investment banker or a software dev? Which degrees would be the best for both careers? I'm torn between Computer Science and Economics.

I've heard of some CS grads getting into the finance department but never of Econ grads getting into the programming side, which makes me lean towards CS. I really love both maths and programming, so both of these careers are attractive for me. Although, investment banking seems much more lucrative however I'm afraid it's a high risk high reward degree (economics). If I don't land investment banking jobs at a top banking firm, I'm guessing a software developer would be making more than a failed econ grad.

Reply 1

mskr710

i can't speak for investment banking but for software dev, id think your alevel choices are good. Though, you mind need FM if youre applying for really top unis, so maybe you could do it privately idk. You could stick with CS and specialise in financial jobs w/ CS after, like you work as a software dev for a bank or something. also don't just look at careers for the money, look at what youre actually interested.