VBA advice Intern

Hi all,

I am currently doing my MSc in Financial Mathematics at LSE and yesterday started a 1-month part-time internship in Quantifi (risk, analytics, and trading solution provider), at London office. The tasks I have to complete throughout my internship are mostly based on VBA programming and Excel in general. My concern is that I have never written a single line of a VBA code (I am totally a newbie on it). In general, I know little things about programming (I am currently learning C++ as part of my master's degree, but I am quite novice).

  • What would you suggest me to do now? Is there any fast as well as effective way to learn VBA and deliver at least some tasks, considering the time constraints (it is a 1-month part-time internship which means I will go 8 full days in total)?

  • Also, I am wondering if VBA is essential for someone who wants to become a quant to learn it. I know that programming languages like Pyhton, C++ and Java are must for a quant career, but haven't heard of extensively using VBA.

PS: I never told the recruiters I know VBA programming!

Thank you in advance for your contribution!

2 Comments
 
Most Helpful

VBA is very easy to learn...just pickup VBA for dummies to start off. and do a few simple example exercises to learn

example 1 - given a column of data (say, 100 items), write VBA code to loop over the column of data and pickout items that fit some criteria, and then make a new column with just that data in another worksheet.

(this will teach you how to use variables, loops, if/else/then statements and that is the bulk of programming).

VBA is powerful, because it has access to the Excel object and all the features of excel (which can be convenient), but programatically. The downside to VBA is that compared to other languages (like C++ or Python) it executes very slow (measured in milliseconds, not nano seconds). This is not an issue for small projects where 1000 iterations takes 1000 milliseconds = 1 second...but if you have a loop doing millions of iterations to solve a problem, then that time lag starts to show. Also, Excel itself has memory leaks that appear randomly (not often, but often enough to cause problems every now and then), which can be annoying and hard to track down.

just google it...you're welcome
 

Fugit ut necessitatibus aspernatur a autem quaerat autem. Ut nemo odio et ullam. Quibusdam ab reiciendis impedit expedita qui. Ea nihil officiis autem quam. Non aut reiciendis a atque.

Ratione voluptate voluptatem neque. A explicabo sit sint nostrum nulla velit explicabo. Provident sed mollitia nulla sequi illo nemo. Omnis voluptates omnis non omnis. Dolores recusandae placeat voluptate earum vel animi. Repudiandae aut vitae dignissimos iusto vel nam illo. Qui omnis perspiciatis ipsam debitis ad vitae.

Eos tempore et accusantium quos. Neque cum eum dignissimos. Non eveniet sint inventore dolor. Dolorem praesentium eos corporis est vero. Amet similique molestias magnam harum explicabo consequatur.

Similique aut omnis odio accusantium aut ut. Iusto laudantium deserunt qui fugit velit aut. Omnis modi fugit distinctio et minima aliquid.

Career Advancement Opportunities

August 2026 Hedge Fund

  • Point72 99.0%
  • D.E. Shaw 98.0%
  • Citadel Investment Group 97.0%
  • AQR Capital Management 96.0%
  • Magnetar Capital 95.0%

Overall Employee Satisfaction

August 2026 Hedge Fund

  • Magnetar Capital 99.0%
  • D.E. Shaw 98.0%
  • Blackstone Group 97.0%
  • Citadel Investment Group 96.0%
  • Two Sigma Investments 94.9%

Professional Growth Opportunities

August 2026 Hedge Fund

  • AQR Capital Management 99.0%
  • Point72 98.0%
  • D.E. Shaw 97.1%
  • Citadel Investment Group 96.1%
  • Magnetar Capital 95.1%

Total Avg Compensation

August 2026 Hedge Fund

  • Portfolio Manager (9) $1,648
  • Vice President (27) $464
  • Director/MD (11) $372
  • NA (9) $320
  • Engineer/Quant (83) $287
  • 3rd+ Year Associate (26) $284
  • Manager (4) $282
  • 2nd Year Associate (32) $253
  • 1st Year Associate (76) $193
  • Analysts (233) $178
  • Intern/Summer Associate (29) $145
  • Junior Trader (5) $102
  • Intern/Summer Analyst (276) $95
notes
16 IB Interviews Notes

“... there’s no excuse to not take advantage of the resources out there available to you. Best value for your $ are the...”

Leaderboard

1
redever's picture
redever
99.2
2
kanon's picture
kanon
99.0
3
BankonBanking's picture
BankonBanking
99.0
4
Secyh62's picture
Secyh62
99.0
5
dosk17's picture
dosk17
98.9
6
CompBanker's picture
CompBanker
98.9
7
GameTheory's picture
GameTheory
98.9
8
DrApeman's picture
DrApeman
98.9
9
Betsy Massar's picture
Betsy Massar
98.9
10
Jamoldo's picture
Jamoldo
98.8
success
From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship

“... I believe it was the single biggest reason why I ended up with an offer...”