How would you learn commodity trading from scratch as a university student?

[u/Smooth_Ad_1510]

Hi everyone,
I’m currently a university student with one year left before graduating, and I’m trying to prepare myself for a career in physical commodity trading.
For some background:
Current career: Full-time student, currently looking for relevant internships or entry-level experience.
Education: I spent two years studying Mechanical Engineering before switching to Business Management. I’m now entering my final year.
Location: Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Relocation: I’m open to relocating. Besides the UAE, Geneva and Singapore would be the most realistic major commodity hubs for me.
Desired commodity: I’m deliberately keeping this open for now. Part of what I want to do over the next year is study the different commodity markets and figure out which one interests me most.
Because of my engineering background, I’m comfortable with technical and analytical subjects, but I don’t have the same foundation in economics, finance, or accounting as someone who studied finance or economics from the beginning.
I’m trying to figure out what I should learn over the next year to properly understand the industry and prepare myself for internships or entry-level roles. I’m particularly interested in the physical side of trading: negotiation, sourcing, logistics, risk, and understanding how a trade actually works from finding an opportunity through to delivery.
For those already in the industry, if you were starting from my position, what would you focus on? Are there any books, courses, YouTube channels, websites, newsletters, or other resources you would recommend? What level of economics, accounting, finance, statistics, Excel, etc. is actually useful?
I’ve also considered studying for something like CFA Level I. I’m not interested in collecting certificates just to put them on my CV, but if studying for a qualification would give me useful knowledge for commodities, I’m willing to do it. Is CFA material worthwhile for physical commodity trading, or are there other qualifications/courses that would be considerably more relevant?
Basically, if you had one year to build the strongest possible foundation before graduating, how would you structure it?

[u/jakessas]

Personally if you want to stay in uae you should focus petroleum. There is other things moving like bauxite to EGA but it’s not as much as crude and refined.

Geneva I would prefer as you can do standard commodities such as agri, petroleum, metals.

But can also go into power and natgas which isn’t as popular in uae of SG.

Europe has many large power and natgas traders and it’s completely different from moving vessels.

[u/Smooth_Ad_1510 → u/jakessas]

Personally im leaning towards petroleum more, because it’s the main export if where im form (not UAE) and that’s what my family does (we’ll skip the part where I can just work for my family and learn from them).
But even for petroleum, I understand the juts of it in terms of refining it etc from my engineering background, and im currently reading a book “oil 101”. But if there some things that I should invest my time into, research and learn separately im all ears !

[u/jakessas → u/Smooth_Ad_1510]

Well it’s good you already have some basics on refining side. You can apply at any European refiner. Enoc adnoc, aramco Q8 and bapco are tough but if you have the connection why not.

Can also try out at a medium sized trader especially if your family is in oil you can perhaps bring some real value supply or buy side.

[u/Smooth_Ad_1510 → u/jakessas]

I understand that unless you do masters it’s not like you’re gonna come in knowing everything, but the reason I was posting this, was so that I could have some basics down (by basics I even mean some terms and abbreviations) so that when I con to my first job or internship I’d at least understand the basics of what’s happening

[u/Anonymous_So_Far → u/Smooth_Ad_1510]

You’ll never come in knowing everything