I was wondering if it is possible to break into a quant from a finance major. Say you were to take programming classes, like WSO’s python class, could that be enough to break into some quant shops with”quantitative researcher” positions? Is there any way to break into these positions from a business major? Thanks
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Possible? Yes. Likely? No.
As I’ve said before, quant is a bit of an overused term. Some places require PhD for a quant role. The larger places (citadel, DE Shaw, aqr, 2 sigma) that take undergrads mostly focus on hard sciences/engineering/math from top schools. And even then they look for different things (some require understanding of advanced math, others focus on problem solving).
You’ll have more luck at “quantamental” and just more traditional HFs that are branching out into data analysis but aren’t the strict “super hard math” kind of places. Learning to program will be mostly useful, but that most likely won’t be enough to get in the door in most true quant places (but will help in analyzing large sets of data).
Made it to the second round of a quant trading internship as a finance major. However, I’ve used my electives to take math courses (Calc 3/Lin Alg/Differential Equations) and I had that listed on my resume as well as my involvement in math extracurriculars. First round was a hackathon problem set with some basic math questions as well as some coding problems. You’ll want to practice on a platform Iike leetcode or codeforces. Second round was a phone interview and final was the superday. Unfortunately my phone interviewer had a strong comp sci background and wanted to know if I had done any dev style projects (which I hadn’t) and so I got canned.
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