Engineer interested in wall street
Hello all,
I am an engineer working in the Canadian oil and gas industry interested in working in an investment type role, preferably focused on macroeconomic analysis. I am split between doing an MBA with a macroeconomic focus or a pure quantitative economics masters and joined wso to get some advice.
I have a thesis based Masters in aerospace engineering from the UofT with pretty good grades and have been told that I should be able to get into places like Oxford if I do well on the GRE.
Any thoughts, suggestions, and criticism would be welcome. Thanks!
Do you wanna be a trader or an investment banker?
An MFE would be a better choice than a quant Econ degree, look at MIT and Princeton's MSF programs, they may be a good fit for you. If you want an MBA that will place you into an HF/MF role aim for M7.
Thanks for the advice. I am primarily interested in investment banking, but it can't hurt to keep my options open. I would like to study abroad for a change so I also wanted to ask if places like LSE and Oxford have brand recognition in the USA or Canada.
LSE/Oxford will have worse IB recruiting than M7 if you're looking to work in the US afterward. If you're looking to stay in Canada, I'd probably still stick with M7, but your prospects get a bit better from LSE/Oxford.
In any case, you want a top MBA to break into IB or to "keep your options open".
You don't need an MBA for trading; it's not considered a prerequisite like IB would consider an MBA. Is the firm you work at a large O&G firm? If so, it would likely have a trading arm (BP, Conoco, Shell, etc. have substantial trading divisions) and you can network your way into a position within the firm. There are also a number of smaller O&G focused trading firms which you can cold call or find an alumni connection.
This good insight
Thanks for the insight guys. I have already missed the deadline for MSF/MFE programs in the USA, but Oxford and LSE are still open. I will aim there and 2-3 of the 10 major business schools in the USA.
Just wondering why you're more interested in investment banking instead of something like equity research? You're not going to be doing a lot of "macroeconomic analysis" in the former. The latter will offer you a lot more opportunities to do actual analysis. Unless you're trying to use IB as a springboard into a macro-based HF or something.
Yep that's the plan exactly. In the short term I admit ER would be pretty entertaining, but my research indicates that exit opportunities would be fewer.
Having said that, if the GIR group at GS came calling, I probably wouldn't say no.
How long have you been working in O&G?
A year and a half now
My opinion of the O&G space was that it's pretty booming right now. It may be worth sticking it out for a little while to accumulate some more cash before going back to school. It would certainly sound better to have a little more experience and you could use it to sell yourself into a sector specific team.
I would agree with you, if I were in an O&G company. Sadly I am in an engineering consultancy that designs industrial facilities for the O&G majors. I have seen my future here, and I don't think it's worth sticking around much longer.
Who knew that designing industrial facilities like they have been designed for the last few decades wouldn't be fun.
Your plan doesn't make sense.
First you words were very clear that you wanted an investment role using macro analysis. Then you said you in fact want to do banking. And you claim you want to do energy banking to end up at a macro based fund? The last thing they need is an energy banker... Bankers are focused on companies, not macro.
Macro includes taking a view on fx, rates, commodities, and futures. It's a very trading oriented type of investing. Moving to the trading operations in your firm and then moving to a bulge bracket trading desk from there or straight to a fund is your best bet. Have you tried that with extreme diligence? You should exhaust that route completely before spending money on an expensive degree.
Missed that you are not at an O&G company. In that case, if you missed the deadline just wait a year. Don't go somewhere because you missed deadlines to another place.
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