Prospect of the Military as a Means to an End (Advice Welcomed!)
This post will be quite personal, but I view the potential responses as highly insightful; hopefully insightful for others as well. I'm hoping people already in industry / mentors / admissions administrators may provide their thoughts. I will be cross-posting to Quantnet and Reddit as well.
I have recently graduated from a state school with a bachelors in mathematics with a lower GPA (3.3). During my time in undergrad, I pursued fin-math research sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and I completed two graduate-level courses in financial math.
My long-term ambition is to be a quant or trader of any sort, a banking risk quant, quantitative trader, quantitative analyst, as well as a non-quant trader / fundamental trader. Since graduation, I have received quite a few interviews from some well-known firms as well as more obscure firms. Roughly 1/3rd of these have lead to final rounds, in which I face a more challenging probability/programming question and get shunned. Overall, I have the innate sense that if I sharpen my fast-twitch thinking, I can break through. Yet also I need more grounding in general quantitative finance as well; I was once asked what Principle Component Analysis was in an interview and I had never studied the concept before, for example.
I am seeking advice on the prospect of commissioning as an officer in the U.S Army, targeting a 4-year all-in commitment. I intend to pursue this as 1) It will build discipline. 2) I will gain practical real-time ability. 3) veterans are generally appreciated in Finance writ large. 4) Great MFE programs that previously rejected me could re-consider. 5) I will have time to max out my GRE. 6) I will be overall more mature. 7) Significant cost reduction for my future MFE. 8) I will be gratified in serving my country.
I recognize the complete disconnect between this career ambition and what the military provides. The obvious downsides include 1) my math ability will be dulled over time. 2) lack of sleep could (??) be damaging. 3) loss of intellectual friend group / community I had in undergrad. 4) employers may view this trajectory as un-committed to one venture or another. What is the alternative? My only alternative is to apply further to trading-adjacent roles, or wait another 7 months for my lower-tier MFE program to begin.
Thank you kindly to those who give even one line of advice. It is truly invaluable!
Bad idea, for a lot of reasons. I'll list them here
If you want to be a quant, in some capacity, the answer is to go to a good school for math/stats and do really well there. T25 schools. Forget MFEs, they're kinda a joke across the industry at this point because they churn out foreign students into risk roles at banks at 90k a year. Look at good schools for pure/applied math masters programs.
I don't believe you can whole-heartedly say that MFEs do not place some of their students into great roles, especially the better schools. Even some of the bank roles are great too. Here's my response 5 mins ago to someone on quantnet:
I have scoured a countless number of profiles on linkedin of those in trading, those looking to begin their career in trading, and those adjacent to trading. Through this, I've formed a loose bearing of what it takes to break in. When I say "break in", that could be anything from a small prop shop, a smaller or larger bank, to a researcher at a household name firm. I know that I can one day break in. Despite others' advice, I see four years of service as anything but detrimental. I say that with a deal of confidence. If you wanted specifics, I have failed interviews due to a green book style uniform distrib. question, a more complex kelly criterion question, and several options theory questions.
I have conversed with an army veteran who became a stellar quant after service, and he did not impart any reluctance on my plan as I was walking him through it. Opposite of that, I have talked to another veteran who very much did not benefit from his service: he exited and started a new bachelor's degree pivot afterwards. The former benefitted as I quote "I probably would not have been accepted to that masters program without being a veteran". Of course this is anecdotal; two data points among a vast number of lives lived after service. Yet there is absolutely something to say about the fact that Harvard and the ilk carve out MBA admissions seats to veterans, that Goldman and others have veteran integration job programs, that many of our political leaders have gone through boot camp alongside high school dropouts, that Steve Cohen's son was (is?) a marine, that we have people like Jonny Kim walking the earth; the list goes on. One would think Princeton's ROTC program would be empty?
I believe I've made the mistake of conveying my plan incorrectly. "As a means to an end" is actually a very bad way to frame it; I concede that. It is both a means to an end but more importantly a challenge that I am genuinely interested in attacking; I am leaning towards combat arms / special operations, the wilder side. The true "means to an end" aspect comes from multiple angles: receiving stellar discipline, heavy veteran tuition assistance for a master's program, and the added benefit (however small) from having service on my resume. I can claim with higher confidence that graduate school admissions will weigh my service as a positive, more than interviewers will. I may have implied in the original post that I don't think i'm inherently good enough to be a trader. However, I definitely believe I am, it will be a matter of continued study and preparation. I wouldn't mind starting a career at Joe's Crab Shack if they somehow had a trading floor.
All of this is to say that will the opportunity cost be that severe? I am aware that I could pursue a business analyst / data analyst role for 2-4 years and study on weeknights/weekends, and eventually receive an offer. Or just begin the masters program that has already accepted me in 7 months. But Why steer away from the calling that I feel? Will I actually lose any core intelligence from having not studied in 4 years, that which I could not re-sharpen later? No. Could I instead simply wait until the next admissions cycle with a top 5% GRE score and some more experience on the resume, and be accepted to better schools? Probably. I have a ball-park estimate of my skill, and I do not believe being 23+4 years older will be a negative signal, especially when those 4 years were spent in a deeply challenging environment. I felt comfort today talking to a 70 year-old millionaire CPA who served in vietnam, he was so non-chalant. I have written this lengthy response mostly for myself, as I haven't fully written or typed down my rationale yet. Hopefully it clears up some confusion, thanks again for the advice.
I work in the quant/quant adjacent industry. I've worked in prop shops, and am now at a macro hedge fund with a pure systematic arm. We do not hire MFEs for alpha roles unless we personally know the person involved. The things we look for are research and thesis' from well respected schools. Doesn't matter if it's BA, MA, or PhD level. MFEs do not provide any of these.
Quantnet is inherently biased because they're a site centered around MFEs.
Okay, but I'm telling you AS A TRADER who TRADES at a hedge fund AND HAS WORKED at prop shops, BB, and now a hedge fund, it isn't useful. Are you actually trying to tell me that I don't know what trading is like? Because I've been in trading for nearly a decade now. I think I should know what the fuck it takes to be a trader.
If you want to be a quant, you should understand the principle of selecting on the DV. You only talked to those who exited the service into successful long term careers, and not the thousands of others who exited to PTSD and drug abuse. Taking a few small examples ignores the fact that vets, on average, would've been better served going to private sector.
I say this as someone who went to school in the south, and went to community college in a military area right next to a large naval base. Around half our student body was former military. They almost all suggested pursuing other things if they could.
Okay, if you want to be a trader, go do a masters in math or stats and become a trader. Having "stellar discipline" won't help you much if you don't have trading related experience. Trading isn't like anything else. There are correlated things, but I've never actually encountered any game or experience or competition to be anything like the actual role. There are so many other jobs that have "stellar discipline" and acting under stress as a corerequisite. Surgeon, Police officer, Pilots. Do I think most of them would make great traders? Probably not, because acting under stress is just one component to making money.
There's also WAY easier ways to train these skills without getting shot at. Play fuckin starcraft. My former prop shop loved that shit.
Look man, if you want to go serve in the military, knock yourself out. Don't act like it's solely to be a trader though. I can tell you, having met hundreds of traders at many many different firms, I have yet to meet a former vet. I have met plenty of people from state schools, bad GPAs, decent masters programs, etc. all of which broke in by just being pretty good and applying to enough places to eventually break in.
I come from a military family, with a grandfather, father, and brother who went the officer route. I decided to go private sector. My advice is more general though: you should focus on what you actually want to do. You don’t learn anything about finance in the Army. It would be a non-sensical detour and easily sensed that you’re using it for something else. By all means if you feel called to serve, go all in, but I would never suggest doing X as a roundabout way to get to Y. Nobody goes to work on an oil rig to prepare for a career in medicine.
I feel the call to serve.
In all, I view this as the decision of perhaps taking a financial analyst / data analyst / operations analyst role for several years and then transitioning, or undertaking this tangential exciting challenge and then pushing my way back through to begin 4 years from now. I do not think it is selfish or narrow-minded to have a post-service plan; however I concede that my post is poorly worded in that I implied I'm only using service as a stepping-stone. To some degree it is; I imagine to some degree it is to nearly everyone in the armed forces. Thank you for the advice!
If you feel the call to serve then do it and figure everything else out as you go. No telling what you will want to do when you're done.
The only way I would recommend this is if you were to go National Guard 18x. That being said, the Q course is not easy, it is long, and you will still have much more responsibilities outside of a traditional Guard soldier.
But, you will get looks for simply having that on your resume. It’s an easy sale. This is what I did, and I would not hesitate to do it again, but I am glad to be out now.
how were you involved in fin-math research and took grad level courses but never studied pca? it looks like skill issues
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