Double Degree - Finance With Math or Computer Science?

CS

math/cs instead

There is no math/cs except a math major with cs minor or cs major with math minor

I would do computer science. It's more practical and applicable to trading. Traders can use algorithmic trading to increase their profits. You can write the shit out of some macros to improve efficiency. If you look at UPenn's (Wharton's) employment statistics, you can see that a lot of finance + cs kids ended up at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. As Carl Icahn said in a guest lecture to a Yale class: "I wish I understood the computers. They're over my head. Back in the 60's, I found the bonafide arbitrage opportunities by looking hard for them. Now, I can't beat the computers." I'm doing the computer science and business double degree. I got rejected from Wharton, so I'm coming to Waterloo. I'm going to try to transfer to Wharton after one year at Waterloo, and I suggest you do the same. Wharton is Ivy League and frankly, Waterloo doesn't compare. UPenn has a Wharton + engineering dual degree program that's basically a more hardcore version of this program, and these kids place into Wall Street better than anyone else.

Look at this thread //www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/st-waterloo Everybody says that cs is better. One BB recruiter says, "Some of those Math/busi DD don't take enough CS electives..."

But, the financial mathematics concentration would help too. They're both great programs, I just didn't apply to the Math/Busi DD lol.

I would do CS and BBA. I know that Waterloo offers two computer science courses for freshman, the beginners and the advanced course. So just pick the beginners course (like the majority of the CS freshmen) and you'll be fine.

Also, you might want to limit your geographic scope as the placements for Laurier/Waterloo graduates outside of Canada (ie US), especially for BBs isn't that strong. But I know of some engineers from Waterloo who work in the Big 5 banks, so there's that.

Hey guys, thanks for the responses.

Toby, I have read the posts on that thread a couple times before I posted my own. Valid points are brought up for comp sci/BBA. I also recieved an offer to Waterloo's Math/CA. While I'm not sure if I want to go, my parents are kind trying to persuade me to choose Math/CA - they don't really know the differences in the business job industry >

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Dude, don't do the math/CA program. You do realize that you're about to let your parents force you to become an accountant? Do you want to be mocked for the rest of your life and have a pitiful existence? Here's a stat for you: 2% of the Wharton class goes into accounting. 60% go into the financial services. Wharton kids can do whatever they want, they can conquer the world, and the vast majority choose finance over accounting.

I have a question too. Should I have Waterloo or Laurier as my base school? I want to do S&T.

One thing that hasnt been brought up is that you shouldnt let your desire to have the best major combo on your CV fuck your GPA over. It doesnt matter if you have a BBA/ECS/Math tripple major if you have a 2.0 GPA your still going to be fucked.

As far as S&T goes a programing based CS is a much better choice it will allow you to write your own systems for trading and do it on your own.

Well, again, this is assuming a strong program. For a strong undergraduate CS program, for instance, I would expect three algorithms courses with a strong emphasis on algorithmic complexity management and reduction, with the final one at a level where it can be taken concurrently for PhD/MS credit. If you are coming out of school without knowing when to do a radix vs divide-and-conquer sort, or not knowing how to handle network flow problems, or not knowing how to avoid deadlock in threading, that's going to put you at a competitive disadvantage for algorithmic trading. That's the baseline for algo trading; from there, you then have to be better than the competition at taking insights from the market that others can't see.

If you can't take a 400-level algorithms course, or a course on threading, I would steer you towards a Math major instead.

Waterloo has one of Canada's top Math, CS and Engineering programs in Canada. In fact the only comparable school would be UofT (But UofT is more focused on academics and research, Waterloo more focused on industry). Basically, the math program and computer sciences programs are the best I can get.

In terms of how conservative I am - I honestly don't really how to assess myself properly to answer that question. I guess I could say I am on the less conservative side but not too impulsive/risky either.

In regards to the GPA comment - one of my top priorities would be to be able to attain a high GPA and I think I could be suited to in both programs (Although less sure in computer science).

Also, I mentioned I'm not set in stone at all really for S&T, or anything for that matter. I'm pretty interested in finance though - I don't think there are many high school kids who were deeply interested in things like the recent financial crisis and the financial products that caused it (Maybe there are, but not around here in Toronto ahahahha).

That's so true. I'm from Toronto too, and most of my friends don't know what Goldman Sachs is. "Who's Goldman sach's? Some jewish guy?" Are you waterloo side or laurier side? I heard laurier has more finance-related coop. But I'm on the waterloo side for now.

Most likely on the Waterloo side.

Seriously, which school as the better coop system for S&T? I know that Laurier has more finance positions than Waterloo, mostly for ibanking. But since S&T is such a quantitative job, and a lot of traders are engineers, wouldn't that mean that Waterloo's coop system would be better?

Bump.