Major Decision
I’m currently a freshman at a target school not majoring in business. I want to eventually work at a HF/PE fund, and do banking first but I’m also thinking about potentially trying to work at a quant fund. I’m looking at potentially majoring in one of the following combinations.
Financial Math and CS: Pros: - More quant focused while still leaving banking to PE path open
Cons: - Difficult as hell - GPA would probably suffer (probably close to a 3.3)
Econ and CS Pros: - Easier than Math - might be more applicable to PE work? (Could be totally off on this) - could have a social life and decent GPA (guesstimate is about a 3.5) - might still be able to do quant (also not sure on this. Would appreciate any feedback)
Cons: - Econ seems less applicable to Quant HF
Business and CS Pros: - top 5 undergrad business school - easier than math or Econ - could have a social life and very solid GPA
Cons: - have to apply to business school and might not get in (25% cross campus transfer acceptance rate) - less applicable to potential quant roles
I’m more interested in opinions on Econ vs Math, since I probably won’t be able to do business. I know I want to do CS, since I believe it’s only going to become more useful and I actually enjoy it a fair bit so far. Any feedback is appreciated.
I did Econ at a top-tier undergrad business school. Econ is a waste of fucking time, it's all theoretical academics rather than practical applications. Sure, it helped me get finance interviews, but over 4 years I didn't look at a single income statement in traditional coursework.
If I was smart enough, I would've done Math/CS in a heartbeat. Recruiters, particularly quant, cum their pants over Math/CS people. Smartest kid I met in college was a Math/Econ major and had FT offers out of college with 2 BB IBD's, 1 PE analyt offer, and a quant trader gig out in Cali with some fund. I haven't stayed in touch so I don't remember what he took or where he is now.
In my opinion, the pecking order for you should be: Math, Business (Finance), Econ
Thanks for the response. I talked to my math professor and it seems really interesting so I’ll likely end up doing that.
Do recruiters generally give GPA leeway to harder majors?
Yes but also don’t underestimate yourself. If you find it interesting you might find yourself being really good at it and do well. There is also “leeway” because you go to a target school so your gpa matters less than for us mortals at non targets
The GPA “leeway” question is interesting and I’m not 100% sure. From my understanding though, it’s more of an box-checker and would be the last determinant (considering all candidate GPAs meet a threshold of 3.5+).
Also you go to a target. Your 3.5 math/cs is going to beat a non-target 3.9 finance. Best of luck tho and god bless for even having the baseline intelligence to realistically consider that path.
Still waiting to see recruiters cum their pants.
You're missing out, its like one big cum party over there
You only get to do undergrad once. Study what you want to study and the career part will figure itself out. Whatever you do coming out of college, you'll probably change course in your career at least once or twice anyway.
This is the right answer. Study what you find most interesting and career choices will work themselves out.
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