Internship Takes Quantitative Finance Student Down the Road Less Traveled
Ethan Boucher ’26 is putting his quant skills to work as a treasury intern at Dow
When Ethan Boucher, a second-year quantitative finance major, began his summer internship search, Dow was not the first company that popped into his mind.
However, after going through the interview process, the chemistry was undeniable.
As an intern in Dow’s treasury department, Ethan works on the financial risk management team, focusing on providing investment opportunities that maintain proper risk and liquidity levels, while also increasing the portfolio’s yield. The chemical manufacturing giant is not the typical place for students interested in working on Wall Street to begin their training, but the company’s size and scope make it practically its own economy.
“While they are a chemical company, they are also a multi-national company,” Ethan explained. “That naturally leads to increased financial risks when it comes to cash flows. Those risks can be modeled and mitigated through quant finance.”
The decision to head to the company’s headquarters in Midland, Michigan was not automatic.
Ethan also had an offer for a position with Jeffries, one of the world’s leading investment banking firms, right across the river in New York City. At first glance, it would be a much better brand name for future employers, but the job itself was more technical than experiential.
“It still had to do with the finance side of things, but it was more about the infrastructure for their wealth management team,” he said. “I'd still be working on how their wealth management is constructed and how it runs through the system, but I wouldn't really be hands-on with the finance or the quant aspects of that. But I was still really open to it. And the other thing that got me was it's an investment bank in New York compared to Dow Chemical in Michigan. How do I turn it down?”
When both offers came through, Ethan had about two days to decide. Should he go with the big-name bank that would be recognizable on his resume, but the responsibilities weren’t exactly what he was looking for, or the more marketable job skills with a non-traditional company?
To his credit, Ethan knew he shouldn’t make the decision all on his own. He reached out to as many people as he could that he thought could be helpful. The common theme was, “You can't go wrong either way.”
The chance to do quant work was appealing, but there was still some doubt. A conversation with professor George Calhoun, Director of the Quantitative Finance Program and Director of the Hanlon Financial Systems Center, on the PATH train to New York City put his mind at ease.
“We had a nice talk, and I saw that he had a lot of respect for Dow,” Ethan said. “It was reassuring that a program director had respect for Dow, and everyone I talked to had respect for Dow.”
With many of our faculty having industry experience at Fortune 500 companies, they have the first-hand expertise and insights when it comes to selecting the right internship, job or career path.
“I felt like I psyched myself out because I was trying to convince myself I had to take the Jeffries offer. I started mulling it over more and more. At Dow, I can get great experience, check out a new area, and meet new people. I feel like I'll get some respect for venturing out and going to a company that's not a finance company, and I’m going to be able to leverage experience at a company that participates their own market.”
With the decision phase behind him, Ethan is ready to get to work and expand his knowledge.
“The most important skill I think you can have to is to be able to learn quickly,” he said. “I think everyone knows going into an internship that you're not going to be perfect. I’m not going to know everything that they assign me, and that’s okay. I need to be able to adapt. I’ll realize I’m applying the same techniques I’ve learned in school, but I think it's going take a second for me to see it. But once I see it, it's going to click.”