Is finance a good career path to get into?
No. I would recommend a career in one of the sciences. The pay may not be as high, but you’ll learn more and end up being more satisfied with your life balance.
If you really want to enter finance, consider working on the quantitative front end–devising new models that will generate trades or capitalise on some recognised pattern of market efficiency for example–rather than trading or investing yourselves. Trading is tricky because it’s competitive; most companies have shut down their internal trading operations to get rid of the additional element of competition they had when they were just small entities making margins off rounding errors. Investing is hard because unless you’re doing very well, there aren’t many opportunities for job mobility; a fund hires you to manage a fixed portfolio, and if you’re not delivering the returns, you’ll be out of a job very quickly. You can always try being a trader or an analyst at a very large bank, but it’s unlikely to be much fun.
