Economics

Any type of Engineering

Physics

Math

Computer Science

The only thing accounting is good for is…you guessed it! Accounting! Not financial analysis or trading, not by a long shot

Courses you want to take include: Econometrics, Macroecon, Microecon, Monetary Policy, Finance & Accounting, Financial Economics, etc, etc.

For the most part, you need a very high GPA (at least 3.5), and have graduated from a top school (i.e., MIT, Ivy League, Stanford, etc). If you’re coming from anywhere else you better know someone, and have a 4.0…

Also, not knowing how to spell college correctly destroys any chance you have of working for a financial firm.

I once interviewed at a firm where ten out of the fifteen analysts graduated from Columbia University, the rest were from either Harvard or Princeton.

The top firms (Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citibank, Bank of America, etc) recruit heavily at the above mentioned schools and will pretty much throw your resume out unless you have a high GPA. They look for strong analytical skills, strong reasoning skills, good knowledge of the economy, good teamwork, good communication, etc.

For the most part they hire you out of undergraduate on a 2-3 year contract, after which the firm assesses your performance and decides whether to keep you on as an associate, or make you go to business school for an MBA (you’d come back and interview for the associate’s job).