Master in Statistics for banking
I’m a senior graduating in finance, I have some internships in finance, one in a bank (ib division). I am applying to masters to get the stem visa extension (3 years vs 1). I’m unsure on the major to pick. My school offers both a master in finance and a master in applied statistics and decision making. What do you suggest considering want to do ib for 2/3 years to then move on the buy side? Consider that my undergrad major is finance and I have some experience in the field too.
Stat is way more important than finance in terms of getting a degree (IMO). Not only is stat much more impressive, but a lot of what you learn in a finance program is picked up during the first month or two of actual work. Taking grad-level statistics courses (and actually learning the material) will serve you greatly for banking. Excellent models get to be extremely complicated, but you’ll learn how to understand/build them with much confidence if you do decide to get the MS in stat.
Also, it would expand your pool. I’m in quant and a colleague in my team went applied Math/cs undergrad, stat grad. She’s incredibly smart and provides insight on some of the most advanced models I’ve seen to date! So, finance ug is enough to land you a spot in PE/IB/WM, pretty much all of the above in terms of entry level positions. The masters in stat would make your application stand out incredibly amongst others, and you could change fields within finance if you decide it’s not right for you.
Can you elaborate on what kind of models you are using? I think personally a Masters in Stats is overkill (as someone who studied stats) and probably not worth an extra year of school for? granted a Quant role I could see it but for IB/PE. I don't think it would be that helpful.
That is a fair point. I am in quant so yes, my answer may not entirely apply to your interests. I do a lot of stochastic analysis, which I took an ug course in— was titled “Probability” but the entire curriculum was just stochastic process. I got a high A in the class and there are still some instances in which I have to crack open a highly-advanced stochastic textbook. Next to my setup at home (I’m currently remote until 2022) I have a few grad level math textbooks that I can refer to, but I wouldn’t understand it at all if I hadn’t been exposed to it previously. Forest regression is also important, diff eq is essential. I can explain more if you really need but since you don’t want to go quant it technically doesn’t matter at all. Good luck with whatever you decide to do, you’ll make it if you truly want to.
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