@AIC: I disagree with you less than my posts might make it seem. I just find the "I did badly in school because it was boring" indicative of habits like self-justification and inability to critically self-examine that are really bad for trading. I note, by way of similar disclosure, that I too went to non-first tier schools and came at trading from an unusual and gambly angle.
There's also the capacity issue: if you have the capacity to interview 3 people per day and you receive 100 applications per day, who are you going to interview? This goes back to a point someone made earlier which I liked a lot: 2nd tier school with meh grades and a cover letter that reads like it was written by Jordan Belfort? Zzzz. Same resume with a line that says you're the 3rd ranked Arimaa player in the world? Now I'm very interested. If you were getting bad grades in school, tell me it was because you were doing something awesome with that time not spent studying.
Need Some Post-Undergrad Advice
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Peter Muller's Keyboard
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- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 2004 12:00 am
Need Some Post-Undergrad Advice
Apologize in advance for the length, just was having some thoughts about how to reply to all the posts that have been made, and I have a few points I wanted to clarify about myself. The last paragraph is most relevant to my original questions if you don't feel like reading all this.
Lots of great points being made above. To clarify a point I made early on and perhaps unclearly, there were a few things that contributed to my GPA being lower than my excellent HS record and ACT score would have indicated. Some out of my control, some not. I had a very similar experience to AIC....I had spent my whole life attempting to be perfect, and for 4 years I decided that I wasn't going to do that. I still worked hard, although perhaps not as hard as I could have. The reason for my relatively average grades in terms of distribution was not due to a fair number of poor grades intermingled with good grades, it's mostly due to a bunch of As, and a decent amount of Bs that could have been As if I had likely put in just a bit more effort.
However, I can say this...95% of everything I've ever learned in my life has not been in class or from any school-sponsored activity...rather it has been from my own studying, reading, learning, and living. I tend to be a fairly rationalistic person...If I see that I have exhausted the usefulness of a particular activity, I have a hard time keeping on with it past the point of usefulness. At least academically. For example, I do not believe for one second that I will be any worse off in my life because I received a B in my Religions of Southeast Asia class, despite in the near term suffering due to the statistical impact it had on my GPA. That may be the wrong attitude to have...but I can tell you that my knowledge (which is what we are supposed to go to school for after all, isn't it?) of the subjects in that class likely outpaces anyone I was in the class with. I learned as much as I was interested in, not just for regurgitation, but for retention. I don't really see the point of going about anything any other way.
This is why I look back and wish I had studied something much more relevant to my interests, at least for my main course of study. As I've said before, I have a wide array of interests, hobbies, passions, and generally want to know everything about everything. But being graded on those things seems so shallow and trivial compared to the actual process of learning these things. I have never been good at memorization and regurgitation. That's why I almost always retain everything I teach myself, whereas I feel forced "learning" in 99% of the classes I've ever taken in my life has been largely useless.
I do admit it is my fault for not knowing better what my course of study should have been before hand, although I think I could also be forgiven for thinking (without much guidance from anyone ultimately) that in order to get an entry-level job in the financial industry, you should go to school and study finance. Turns out that's not quite how it works, strictly speaking. At the same time, I can't regret any of my experiences, because I am who I am now because of them. Things might be better for me now if things had happened differently, but I can't say for sure. And it wouldn't matter if I could. So, I feel that looking forward and not backward is the best way to..uh...move forward.
Wow...that was longer than I thought it would be. Again, thanks for the advice so far. I feel that talking about things, presenting ideas and making arguments for why you think what you do is very, very helpful. Helps me anyway. More to the original topic of this thread, I recently spoke with the professor in charge (for now) of the MFE program at UChicago, and he was extremely helpful. We spoke about the prep course, which sounds like a great idea, but of course there are some things I'd have to do in order to get down there and take advantage of that.
So again, I feel like I'm sort of left with the same basic thing I started with, although in a much more well-defined context. I feel like the answer I'm getting from many of the replies here is that skills trump pedigree, at some point. However, there are a lot to choose from - after all, just looking at the amount of reading material I've amassed in pursuit of this plan of action (over 200 books), I feel a bit overwhelmed, and that I have to pare it down to a manageable start. Nobody can ever know everything, although I feel like sometimes I have to in order to even have a shot.
To finally get to some kind of ultimate point in this post, I guess my main question would be...regardless of whether or not I purse an additional degree, there's definitely a set of skills that I should have as someone looking to get into a trading program at a decent, respectable prop/market-making firm. If collectively, you could all agree on what this set might include, I would be extremely grateful. As I mentioned, I'm studying Python...for the second time. Really regretting not keeping it up the first time. I've also got quite a bit of actual MFE textbooks, so I feel that's a no-brainer. But it quickly starts to spiral...I've got material on differential geometry, machine learning, neural networks, diff. equations, statistical mechanics, as well as quite a bit on more "regular" stats and probability. Of course, some books to brush up on calc, as well as quite a bit of mental math and general problem-solving material. Even have Hull (of course) as well as CFA study books. Like I said...quite a bit. If there was just a few things I should focus on in order to maximize my ROI in terms of max appeal to HR staff vs. hours spent studying, what would you recommend?
Once again, I apologize for the length. Thanks so much in advance. You all have been very helpful, and I appreciate it.
Lots of great points being made above. To clarify a point I made early on and perhaps unclearly, there were a few things that contributed to my GPA being lower than my excellent HS record and ACT score would have indicated. Some out of my control, some not. I had a very similar experience to AIC....I had spent my whole life attempting to be perfect, and for 4 years I decided that I wasn't going to do that. I still worked hard, although perhaps not as hard as I could have. The reason for my relatively average grades in terms of distribution was not due to a fair number of poor grades intermingled with good grades, it's mostly due to a bunch of As, and a decent amount of Bs that could have been As if I had likely put in just a bit more effort.
However, I can say this...95% of everything I've ever learned in my life has not been in class or from any school-sponsored activity...rather it has been from my own studying, reading, learning, and living. I tend to be a fairly rationalistic person...If I see that I have exhausted the usefulness of a particular activity, I have a hard time keeping on with it past the point of usefulness. At least academically. For example, I do not believe for one second that I will be any worse off in my life because I received a B in my Religions of Southeast Asia class, despite in the near term suffering due to the statistical impact it had on my GPA. That may be the wrong attitude to have...but I can tell you that my knowledge (which is what we are supposed to go to school for after all, isn't it?) of the subjects in that class likely outpaces anyone I was in the class with. I learned as much as I was interested in, not just for regurgitation, but for retention. I don't really see the point of going about anything any other way.
This is why I look back and wish I had studied something much more relevant to my interests, at least for my main course of study. As I've said before, I have a wide array of interests, hobbies, passions, and generally want to know everything about everything. But being graded on those things seems so shallow and trivial compared to the actual process of learning these things. I have never been good at memorization and regurgitation. That's why I almost always retain everything I teach myself, whereas I feel forced "learning" in 99% of the classes I've ever taken in my life has been largely useless.
I do admit it is my fault for not knowing better what my course of study should have been before hand, although I think I could also be forgiven for thinking (without much guidance from anyone ultimately) that in order to get an entry-level job in the financial industry, you should go to school and study finance. Turns out that's not quite how it works, strictly speaking. At the same time, I can't regret any of my experiences, because I am who I am now because of them. Things might be better for me now if things had happened differently, but I can't say for sure. And it wouldn't matter if I could. So, I feel that looking forward and not backward is the best way to..uh...move forward.
Wow...that was longer than I thought it would be. Again, thanks for the advice so far. I feel that talking about things, presenting ideas and making arguments for why you think what you do is very, very helpful. Helps me anyway. More to the original topic of this thread, I recently spoke with the professor in charge (for now) of the MFE program at UChicago, and he was extremely helpful. We spoke about the prep course, which sounds like a great idea, but of course there are some things I'd have to do in order to get down there and take advantage of that.
So again, I feel like I'm sort of left with the same basic thing I started with, although in a much more well-defined context. I feel like the answer I'm getting from many of the replies here is that skills trump pedigree, at some point. However, there are a lot to choose from - after all, just looking at the amount of reading material I've amassed in pursuit of this plan of action (over 200 books), I feel a bit overwhelmed, and that I have to pare it down to a manageable start. Nobody can ever know everything, although I feel like sometimes I have to in order to even have a shot.
To finally get to some kind of ultimate point in this post, I guess my main question would be...regardless of whether or not I purse an additional degree, there's definitely a set of skills that I should have as someone looking to get into a trading program at a decent, respectable prop/market-making firm. If collectively, you could all agree on what this set might include, I would be extremely grateful. As I mentioned, I'm studying Python...for the second time. Really regretting not keeping it up the first time. I've also got quite a bit of actual MFE textbooks, so I feel that's a no-brainer. But it quickly starts to spiral...I've got material on differential geometry, machine learning, neural networks, diff. equations, statistical mechanics, as well as quite a bit on more "regular" stats and probability. Of course, some books to brush up on calc, as well as quite a bit of mental math and general problem-solving material. Even have Hull (of course) as well as CFA study books. Like I said...quite a bit. If there was just a few things I should focus on in order to maximize my ROI in terms of max appeal to HR staff vs. hours spent studying, what would you recommend?
Once again, I apologize for the length. Thanks so much in advance. You all have been very helpful, and I appreciate it.
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prfj
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- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 2004 12:00 am
Need Some Post-Undergrad Advice
Another point: Know how to communicate in a clear and concise manner 
I hope some people will take the time to read through your post and reply more constructively though.
I hope some people will take the time to read through your post and reply more constructively though.-
Peter Muller's Keyboard
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- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 2004 12:00 am
Need Some Post-Undergrad Advice
Haha I figured someone would say that. I generally do - but I just felt I had to get some points across in that post. That's why I put the disclaimer at the top
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buddyforall
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- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 2004 12:00 am
Need Some Post-Undergrad Advice
People want to project their own inability/lack of motivation on to you. Getting admitted in UG level at Ivy League has a lot to do with the financial background/educational level of parents. My suggestion would be to take any job that challenges you technically - for example a C++ programming job, a role involving data analytics etc - and pays you a sum of money that allows you to save atleast 10k-20k USD/ year. Work for 2 years , clear CFA Level 1 or FRM. From here you can follow any of the following paths
Path A - Apply to Top 10 MFE. You may get an offer from programs in the range 5-10 such as Baruch/UIUC.
Path B - Use you Use your technical experience and financial certification to get into Finance. Work 2-3 years here, try to progess/complete CFA program. Now you can get admitted to Berkely, CMU, NYU.
Path A - Apply to Top 10 MFE. You may get an offer from programs in the range 5-10 such as Baruch/UIUC.
Path B - Use you Use your technical experience and financial certification to get into Finance. Work 2-3 years here, try to progess/complete CFA program. Now you can get admitted to Berkely, CMU, NYU.