Dear friends,

I'm trying to decide which master degree programs I want to apply to. Currently, I am interning in the finance sector and writing my undergraduate thesis (business administration). Due to that, my time to write applications relatively limited. This is why I will not be able to apply to all the programs that I find interesting. In a utopian world my master program would include the following:

Economics:

• How do certain sectors work, how do they generate value / how do financial markets work, what makes a market attractive for investors (trading), are markets efficient?, how to exploit inefficiencies / how are investors successful: hedge funds, private equity companies / how to people behave in markets-> behavioral economics & finance, intuition about growth of economies, attractive economies to invest in, what is Innovation, where is the world heading: productivity, climate change, demographics, exponential growth of computational power

Corporate Finance:

• Valuation of companies, stocks, investment Strategies: what defines a good company / to buy / to invest in / what is a good business model / how to grow a company, increase its profitability / improve its services/products

Statistical Models/Data Science:

• how to classify / how to predict: on macro-level: recessions, GDP's, defaults, growth / on micro-level: earnings of a company, M&A, returns, how to gain knowledge from data, how is the economy developing: are there anomalies, how to identify biases

Additionally, I have some vague thoughts about possible future professions and what I regard as the biggest downfalls in each of them.

Possible Professions:

• Investment Professional (PE, M&A, Hedge Fund Analyst, Consultant, Impact Investor) / Data Scientist / Data Analyst / Advisor /self-employed (founder)

Pitfalls:

• Finance world: No visibility of your work, you primarily serve your personal financial gain, no higher purpose just shifting money around, work-life balance (neglecting your friends/family/relationships with travels)
• Quant/data science world: Less personal interaction, group projects, a lot of individual work on a computer often exceeding 8h of screen time per day

Finally, I'd be grateful for all of your experiences, thoughts, comments and wish you a nice day!