Career Decision: Software vs. Trading

[ep510]

I currently have a pretty good offer (deadline next week, $20k for the summer) from Microsoft as a software engineer for the summer (I worked there last summer too), but I'm also really interested in trading. I'm an Electrical Engineering and Computer Science major at UC Berkeley.

I also have ~$50k worth of money that I'm investing in the market that I made from playing online poker. I enjoy trading, and have an internship working for an asset manager and trying to learn as much about trading/markets. I've been actively trading for about 2 months now.

I'm also planning on applying for a Masters in Financial Engineering program.

So here's my dilemma:
1. Take the Microsoft position (and maybe recruit for full time trading next year)
2. Try to delay the Microsoft offer to recruit (but then the company will know i'm not committed to them and that it might be a backup decision)
2. Take Microsoft, recruit for S&T, and maybe accept if I get an offer (but burn bridges with Microsoft)

Other things to consider are that if I take Microsoft, I can relax and not do any work for the remaining year and a half in college. If I take Microsoft, it'll boost my pay when i go into FT. If I stick with software as a career, my pay will prob cap out a lot faster, and I don't plan on going to grad school in engineering.

Thanks for reading and I appreciate your advice.

Eric