Math or Engineering Undergrad for a Quant?
Hey everyone,
- liberal arts school - I'd try to double major in Math & Economics (both BA's)
- Canadian school- I'd major in Chemical Engineering (much cheaper than 1. & 2. but I'm thinking getting a job in the States would be easier coming from an American college.. correct me if I'm wrong)
I'm getting recruited to a liberal arts school and admission is likely, so it's a matter of where I should apply ED.
Thanks in advance.
-I would recommend going with Amherst. It's much more well known on the east coast (where most quant finance jobs are) than Harvey Mudd. Mudd is a great school but it will be tough to get a good gpa there. The alumni network in finance is very strong from Amherst and is well respected.
-I would recommend double majoring in CS rather than Economics if you're going to do a double major. The finance/econ you need to know can easily be learned. At most, majoring in econ demonstrates interest in the field but if you are able to land an internship in finance, that is more than enough. You can take a couple electives or an intro finance class (if Amherst offers such a class). Btw the BA vs BS distinction doesn't really matter (on wall street anyway). A math major is a math major.
-I would not go to University of Toronto.
It's pretty unlikely to land a quant job on the buy side out of undergrad but there are lots of quant opportunities at the big banks on the sell side. Check out the Goldman strats program. Plenty of people get recruited into that program (and similar programs at other banks) straight out of undergrad.
If you want to do engineering instead of wall street, you always can go to grad school after getting your math/cs degree. Plenty of people who have math/physics background go on to get graduate degrees in engineering.
Be careful with this -- a number of accredited Engineering programs want an Engineering undergrad degree (as well as progress towards your PE if in the States). However - CompEng will typically take a CS undergrad degree for Grad School admission...so would second the notion of Math/CS.
Take Econ 101/102 (Micro and Macro) and you'll be fine. You'll pick up enough of the Math to support Econometrics and the like through your Math major that self-studying this nonsense after the fact should be sufficient.
One other thought...If you enjoy Chem, why not think about Chem? You can always go the Pharma route and grab your MBA after a few years. You should follow what you want to do (trust me....I thought I wanted to go to Med School but preferred Engineering. I forced my way through a Bio degree instead of Engineering as an undergrad and have spent a lot of time trying to make up for that decision)
Just to clarify, are you suggesting I go the undergrad engineering route rather than a Stem BA major from Amherst?
Thanks for the advice... definitely leaning towards Amherst rn.
Also, do you think it'd be possible to get a quant job out of Harvey Mudd on the west coast, then eventually try to transfer to an east coast office? Thanks.
There are very few quant jobs on the west coast. They exist but they are far fewer. Also, remember that finance is much much more gpa obsessed. Harvey Mudd will be 100x harder to get a good gpa from. Way, way, way harder.
I like math, but sometimes I need help with my homework. I use one source for it and I happy to enjoy my knowledge.
Honestly I am not sure how helpful an engineering degree would be for quant finance. I know absolutely nothing about engineering so don't kill me for saying this but it seems to me like engineering isn't really all that much hard-core quant/math/coding. If you are really sure you want to do quant finance I would recommend a math\CS combination (both of these are equally important imo) or if you are really, really sure you want to do quant finance I would recommend getting an undergrad quant finance degree. Also I just want to add that even if you love quant/STEM stuff and get a quant/STEM degree, you don't have to be a quant. There are plenty of quant-y jobs in finance that give you better exposure to the business and different career opportunities imo. But if you do decide to be a quant more power to you, it's a sweet gig.
Thanks for the info, I'll take that into consideration. I would definitely try the math/Compsci combo @ Amherst
Engineering is a very diverse field. Lots of engineering is perfect for quant roles and combines applied math/computer science/applied physics in a wonderful way
Engineering is generally very quant/programming heavy. It's just that you end up learning a lot of stuff that isn't really particularly pertinent to quantitative finance.
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