How to get a grip on finance?
"I think this question is perfectly on topic, and probably has been asked and answered many times.  However, I cannot help myself. Here are some basics however: Personal Finance is not only about math.  As a guy who ""took vector calculus just for fun"", I have learned that superior math skills do not translate into superior net worth.  Personal finance is about 50% behavior.  Take a look at the housing crisis, car loans, or payday lenders and you will understand that the desire to be accepted by others often trumps the math surrounding a transaction. Outline your goals  What is it that you want in life?  A pile of money or to retire early?  What does your business look like?  How much cash will you need?  Do you want to own a ton of rental properties?  How does all this happen (set intermediate goals). Then get on a budget  A budget is a plan to spend your money in advance.  Stick to it.  From there you can see how much money you have to implement various goals.  Are your goals to aggressive?   This is really important as people have a tendency to spend more money then they have.  Often times when people receive a bonus at work, they spend that one bonus on two or three times over.  A budget will prevent this from happening. Get an Emergency Fund  Without an emergency fund, you be subject to the financial whims of people involved in your own life and that of the broader marketplace.  Once you have one, you are free to invest with impunity and have less stress in a world that deals out plenty.  Bad things will happen to you financially, protect against them. The best first investments are simple:  Invest in yourself.  Find a way to make a very healthy income with upward mobility.  Also get out and stay out of debt.  These things are not sexy, but they pay off in the long run. The next best investment is also simple:  Index funds.  These become the bench mark for all other investments.  If you do not stand a good chance of beating the S&P 500 index fund, why bother?  Just dump the money in the fund and sleep well at night."
"If that's your goal.   Watch the entire webinar on warren buffet books by Preston Pysh first for a good intro into stocks bonds etc:  https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PLECECA66C0CE68B1E&amp;v=KfDB9e_cO4k  Read Dale Carnegies book ""How to Win Friends and Influence People"" in order to learn how to communicate to people effectively and create networks. The most important skill in any field you choose to go into.   Read ""The Everything Store"" for essentially an MBA in business.   Read ""The Intelligent Investor"" by Benjamin graham for a bachelors in finance.   Then take classes that get you the very best professors in the field of finance, economics, and business at your school and make sure you never stop asking questions.  Continue to develop your skills and create good saving &amp; communication habits.   And if you want great jobs, get internships. To get internships be involved in as much as you can in campus and take leadership roles (especially when you think you can't handle it) you will grow quickly as a leader and businessman if you do it right.   If reading is a bit much for you, try audiobooks.   And make sure you enjoy college and surround yourself with ambitious youngsters like yourself. It will help you grow. Enjoy school and be social, make mistakes and do whatever it takes to get a minimum 3.5 GPA (get old tests study groups easy teachers or GPA boosting classes if you need to)   Aight that's all I got haha" It seems he has now been infected by the baby talk virus, which was cute about 16 years ago, but today, its just considered more shit talk from US politicians who have lost their grip on reality and imagine lying through their teeth and throwing in some well used terms like human rights and freedom and democracy will actually garner some support from some one naive enough in the world.  Hey Fucking Moron 2nd in command . . .make a speech about Israel and human rights and freedom of speech and media  Hey . .make a speech about shooting children in the face with shotguns in Indian occupied Kashmir. Some backstory before my questions.  I am a First year student in the UK  (course: Finance and Investment). In the future I would like to get into IB or PE. I already have CISI and CFA exams on my radar.   My questions are:  1) With the recent boom in cryptocurrencies should I start researching how they work and what are the future prospects of investing in them? Do you think it will become mandatory by 2020? Are GS employees currently working their butts off to learn as much as possible about it and how to profit?   2) What is the best way to network? Should I focus only on insight days,applying for shadowing/internships etc. Is cold-calling worth it?   3) Do actual people work in Clearing Houses? If so, what are the career prospects there?   4) Can someone give me a real life example (in the form of eli5) about how  financial institutions use swaps and futures?   5) I recently picked up “Lords of Finance” as a book for my spare time. I am genuinely intrigued but I was told that I am wasting my time and in the future it wont do me any good because no one will know I read it?   I am well aware most of these questions are basic but It will be very helpful if I even get one question answered. If some of these questions have already been answered please give me a link. Thank you in advance Yeah. I'm in my junior year as a political science major but it's not holding my interest and to be honest, I hate it. I've always loved watching stocks and businesses and kept a close eye on financial news. I was just too blind to see that I could get an actual job doing that kind of stuff.    I don't care how long it take to get there, as long as I get there. So maybe finance and stats? I was told that there isn't a real specific degree needed to be a prop trader, but some degrees help more than others. Just by chance I recently encountered this link - Do It Yourself MFE, which describes an attempt to self-educate to the level of Master of Financial Engineering. It lists books, online courses, etc. which I think may be interesting for you too. Lots of good advice so far. Here's some meta-advice. Read through everything here twice, and distill out what the big picture ideas are. Learn about what you need to know about them. Pick a strategy and/or long term goals. Work toward them. Get advice from many many places and distill it. This is currently known as crowd-sourcing but I've been doing it all my life. It's very effective. No one will ever care as much about your money as you. Some specific things I haven't seen mentioned (or not mentioned much): You sound ahead of the game. I personally regret locking myself in rooms in post-hs depression with the Internet and books.  Honestly, I have regrets from that time a few years ago. Recognize and cherish your freedom. I know this sounds cliché as hell but at this unique stage it's priceless and fleeting. Hang with friends, drink, chase girls, have adventures with friends as much as possible before you go separate ways permanently.   In your free time, lift weights to have even more fun in college.   It sounds like you're hustling. In a few months life is gonna hold a proverbial gun to your head and say you can't NOT hustle for years and years and years. It doesn't have to be like that but it is for most ambitious people. Especially in finance.   Assuming you're not about that or have your bases covered, any coding is great. Check out R. CSS, HTML if you wanna know web design. Read Wall Street Oasis instead of this sub.   Excuse the rantyness of that Unlike other responses, I am also not good with money.  Actually, I understand personal finance well, but I'm not good at executing my financial life responsibly.  Part is avoiding tough news, part is laziness. There are tools that can help you be better with your money.  In the past, I used YNAB (You Need a Budget).  (I'm not affiliated, and I'm not saying this product is better than others for OP.)  Whether you use their software or not, their strategy works if you stick with it.  Each time you get paid, allocate every dollar to categories where your budget tells you they need to be, prioritizing expenses, then bills, then debt reduction, then wealth building.  As you spend money, mark it against those categories.  Reconcile them as you spend the money.  If you go over in one category (eating out for example), you have to take from another (entertainment).  There's no penalties for going over, but you have to take from another category to cover it.  So the trick to all of it is being honest with yourself, sticking to it, recording all expenditures, and keeping priorities straight.   I used it for three months.  Like many others, I saved enough the first month to pay the cost of the software.  I don't remember why I stopped using it, but I wish I had not.  I will start again soon.