Quant Trading/Research Internship Progression

[arj-V]

Hi, I am a MS/BS (accelerated masters to complete in same years as BS) computer science student at UPenn (don't know if this is sharing too much). I wanted to know if there is any harm in looking to jump into small boutique firms first. I have been working on ML based research for a while and am planning on preparing myself for quant interviews, but I know of a few smaller firms that would be more open to hiring based off my skills. However, I felt that big hedge funds tend to want to bring in 'fresh' students not with past quant experience, but is that a wildly inaccurate idea of mine?

 

[quanthopefully]

yes that is wrong and makes no sense. take any relevant experience you can get, it will all help