Pros
The best reasons are 1. The people. Morgan Stanley attracts a lot of the best people in the industry and they have a VERY strong new graduate recruitment pipeline that is great at getting the good ones and keeping them on. Attrition rate is very low and a lot of the good people have been around for a long time. 2. The compensation is excellent. Definitely above average or at the top. 3. Flexibility. Management is very flexible about career options, work hours, work locations 4. Range of technology used is wide and it is easy to get interesting projects.
Cons
Although it is a great company to be working at, the biggest downside is the fact that it is in the financial industry :). Given the recent times, it is understandable, but there are a lot of spending cuts and many of them are forcing the company to give up some of the more interesting but not immediately profitable avenues. Feedback from management has not been good traditionally, but has improved a lot in recent times with the change in leadership. The distributed nature of the company makes it a little harder to work. Most teams are split across NY, London, Montreal and Budapest.