Career for math major?
Hi, I'm a math major, finance minor at a european school. What are some of the best careers for very quantitative and analytical minds within finance? What about PE and HF? What would be the best division in the world of investment banking for math major?
have interned in IB and now ill be doing a program in s&t this summer so I can't speak fully but.. I have enjoyed markets focused desks because of the fast past/ challenging and intellectually stimulating work (like that of my math courses)
Sorry, that was kind of vague.. for me I like h/y credit trading best but maybe structuring or any sort of derivatives
Thanks for reply Ok, I think it would suit me. What are your long term career goals? Going into distressed fund?
so exits ops was a big decision for me in terms of which side to take (ib vs s&t). honestly it boiled down to the fact that I truly enjoy learning about financial markets and find how companies utilize different capital markets fascinates me.
from there I tossed between credit trading and levfin, and I may find myself looking to lateral into levfin later on, but a markets role as a career in my early 20s in my eyes would be a lot more enjoyable than banking.
To finally answer your question, I’m not totally sure but I want to work in financial services for a while (while not dreading going into work everyday) and specifically focused on capital markets
How did you figure out what you wanted to do in finance? Why would you choose Levfin over S&T?
for s&t I can’t stress networking enough. I was able to shadow tons of desks for a day because of extensive networking and from there I thought s&t was better suited for me in terms of environment/ work/ responsibilities especially as a junior. unfortunately shadowing may not be possible with covid but still networking is key either way. I can DM if you have any specific questions too.
I have just got interested in finance a year ago, so take this with a shaker of salt.
So far after talking with a few people in different areas of finance, I find buy-side quant research area suits my personality the most. I have the impression that the working environment is pretty academic and systematic, and unlike in many other area in finance, you won't be ridiculed for thinking too 'mathematically'.
What year are you in? If you have completed the necessary foundational courses (e.g. real analysis, probability and statistics), I would encourage you to explore more advanced courses in applied statistics and mathematical finance (e.g. stochastic processes, timeseries analysis,option pricing).
You might also want to explore websites like Kaggle and Quantopian. Also, depending on your personality, actuarial science could be a pretty good career choice for a math major. Decent salary, good job stability, 40-50hrs/week (the 2 reinsurance MNCs I interned at were more like 30-35 hrs/week).
I know someone that went into leveraged Finance and although they enjoyed it, they did not have much of a life outside work. This may be fine for an uncommitted early careers person, but I myself could not commit this sort of time. I, as a finance and investment analyst work about 40 hours a week which I think provides a good work-life balance. The hours per week is definitely something to bear in mind.
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