Need Some Post-Undergrad Advice

[Peter Muller's Keyboard]

Hi, I'm currently an undergrad student finishing up a finance degree at a small liberal arts school in the midwest...and due to a few things that I wish I could change, I will be ending up with a very average GPA (low end of the 3.x scale) as well as very little in terms of actual knowledge being gained in the field I am interested in.



I have spent an extremely large amount of time self-studying, reading and researching as much as possible, perhaps to the detriment of my actual studies in school. I have read quite a few books, I'm working through calc again, will be going after diff. equations, stat mechanics, and computer science basics next. I'm also trying to teach myself Python, C++, and JS. Finally, I am of course using my meager network to the best of my abilities.



My ultimate goal is to either work at a prop shop or a hedge fund...that's why I got into finance in the first place. Right now however, I'm not sure how to bridge the gap. I will never get hired anywhere, even as a trader trainee most likely, with my current resume/educational history. I feel as if the only option is grad school. However I am doubtful if I could even get into a decent MFE program given my background. I feel like self-teaching is all I really have at the moment. I would love to go back to school at a university that really has an excellent stats/math department, and get prepared for this. However, financially this is not a viable option at all. I have tried to do some research on prep courses although I feel like everything I've found has basically been uncredited, ungraded, and doesn't even really count for anything at all.



I guess my question is, what is the best next step for someone in my situation? I am currently looking at getting into a few prop shop training programs that are not heavily quant-focused, however I am worried that my academic background will ding me before I even have a chance to show them what I know. Should I just skip the whole industry for now and try to get more education under my belt? Or should I fight to break in however I can? Thanks so much in advance.

[briant57]

Put an email address in your profile

[Peter Muller's Keyboard]

Will do, thanks.

[alebron]

Hate to be the jerk here, but: What evidence do you have that you'd be good at the job? By the objective measures you mention, I see zero. Do you have any idea how good your competition is? They're so awesome it makes me cry a bit that they're going into finance and not curing cancer. But, free market in labor, what can you do?



But you have the burning desire you say? Guess what, so do they. And the math skills and the programming skills and the brainpower and the awesomeness at problem solving and work ethic and they're just great kids personally too. They're the best brains our species produces. Every junior that starts on my desk is way better than me at basically everything. The only important advantage I have is chronological, but even that is only a function of delta log t, not delta t, so it too disappears over time.



That's who you're up against, both in the job market, and once you're unlucky enough to get a job, in the real market. One of the important skills in trading is to accurately and critically assess one's own knowledge and ability, and more importantly one's lack of knowledge and ability. You have only my word that the above is true, but let's say it is. Is trading at some quant HF or prop shop really the right place for you?



In summary: do yourself a favor and go cure cancer already.

[Peter Muller's Keyboard]

I understand, and I've thought about all that. I'm not necessarily looking to be a quant, just a trader. In fact ending up on a macro desk someday would make me very happy. I want to do this because it's one of the few things in life that I've been interested in for a long time and have a passion for. The way I see it, I'm going to do eventually, wether I get paid for it or not. I've got quite a bit of study material on signal processing, machine learning, as well as quantitative analysis and financial math. I'm willing to put in as much or more work than anyone else in order to get where I want to be. I know many probably say that, but I'm not really sure how else to describe it. If all that comes of this is that I end up at a decent prop firm, I will be satisfied, because after that it's up to me in order to continue to be successful.



I understand what you're saying, I do. But, I'm not trying to work at RenTech or even D.E. Shaw...I know that will likely always be an absolute impossibility. What I am trying to do is better myself in a way that would allow me to get through the interview process at a place like Jane Street, Spot, or DRW at some point. Or perhaps Citadel. I know it's a long shot but frankly everything worth doing in life is.



What it comes down to for me is whether I should try to just teach myself over the course of time while perhaps working at much less competitive prop shop, using my free time to better myself, and try to push my way up the ladder slowly over time, or save up and work my ass off to kill the GRE and get into a good grad program. Those are basically the choices, as I see it.

[alebron]

If those are truly your only two choices [which I've indicated is narrowing your universe way too much] then definitely don't do the former. Bad or mediocre prop firms are utterly poison in every relevant respect. IMHO of course.

[Peter Muller's Keyboard]

Short-term, unfortunately I feel they are. I mean, sure I could try to work in a completely different industry...but I don't really want to. I've got many interests in life, but unfortunately only a couple will allow me to make a living. This is one of them. There's a few firms in Chicago (close to me compared to NYC) that seem to be not impossible to get into, but yet still have decent culture and know how to train and treat their employees. I'm doing quite a bit of research on this right now but as always good info is hard to find.



So I guess too if anyone happens to read this and knows a thing or two about prop firms in Chicago, that would be helpful as well. There's always the top firms (JS, Spot, DRW, Optiver), but there seems to be a few that maybe aren't quite at the same level, yet aren't complete chop shops.

[Menascyn]

I hope you liked my email

[Peter Muller's Keyboard]

I did very much. Face looked familiar but I couldn't quite place it...should I feel bad for not recognizing it?

[Menascyn]

Candice Swanepoel, so yes.