Best careers for quantitative majors right after undergrad?
Hi, I'm a statistics and math double major, economics minor at a top 20 school. What are some of the best careers right out of undergrad for very quantitative and analytical minds?
Also, do you think it would be a waste to pursue IB with this kind of background?
quant trading at the top proprietary trading firms, hands down.
Tech should also be a consideration. Let's face it. You're smart. You're probably smarter than I am. You may not be a genius. You are probably not getting a PhD from MIT or Chicago, and you are probably not getting hired by DE Shaw, AQR, or GSAM, at least straight out of undergrad.
Tech is less of a winner-takes-all game than is finance. There is also a lot less skew. People who work in tech tend to be happier and you can do just fine out of a UC Berkeley or UVA.
Aim for that quant role, but keep your mind open to tech.
If you pursue IB and you stay in IB or some non-quant field for five years, the work you did to get a quantitative degree vs. a basic business degree at your school will probably be wasted.
Sales is generally not quantitative. Trading can be more quantitative than other parts of the firm. Quant Research, Exotics trading, and Portfolio Strategy are probably the most quantitative parts of the sellside.
This is certainly an option, but the problem is that trading is often a dead-end career. Especially market-making at a typical prop shop. Traditional trading strategy quants and desk strats- who don't actually trade- usually have a few more options than the traders actually do even though they work for the traders for the time being. It's a subordinate role but it's a lot more marketable than being a quant trader.OP needs to be pursuing several avenues at once. If he needs to focus on a single avenue that will give him a lot of options in three years, provide fallback options in similar careers if things don't work out, and maximize the value of his undergrad, he should consider pursuing a role as a sell-side desk strat, or perhaps a similar role at a prop shop or hedge fund. This would probably be an S&T hire (except at MS or GS- they have direct Strats programs) but it would be a position that focused more on coding, statistics, and trade strategy than actual trading or sales. For a stats major, OP would need to be in the top one or two deciles in a stats interview and the top three deciles in a coding interview at his school to get offers. You need to be excellent at stats and a good coder or you need to be an excellent coder and good at stats.
If things don't work out, being a good coder with a stats major gives you a lot of avenues into tech as well as analytics firms.
Would you say programming knowledge is very important for most of these jobs? I am proficient with R. Is C++ something else I should learn? I may be interested in working in silicon valley, what kind of jobs would this background be good for. Are there any data science/ analytics roles for undergrads fresh out of college?
Trading is also something I may be interested in. Is it a dead end career even at a top place like Jane Street? That is what turns me off the most from trading. Why do you say finance is a winners take all game?
A lot of desk strats work in a slightly higher-level language than C++; often Java or C#. At the end of the day, they are all imperative programming languages, but the newer '90s era languages are a lot easier for a developer to cover 1,000,000 lines of code with than C++ with good OOP and architecture.
If you aren't making gobs of money, trading is always a dead-end career. Quants have more options and the vast majority generally create some value for the desk. Because 95% of traders don't make very much and the other 5% make a killing. It's even worse in HFT from what I have heard. If you are running the fastest algo on that exchange that week, you make gobs of money. If not, you make $0. And there are so many players out there, the odds of you being the fastest on the exchange that week are fairly low.Aspernatur a voluptatum sunt eligendi qui quod aliquid. Quibusdam ut nemo odio non quia natus. Quo odit voluptatem voluptatibus.
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