I can't remember where i heard this from but apparently IB's/Hedge funds are beginning to prefer hiring people with a Physics/Engineering background over Economics and other degrees because of the tough content in those degrees.
Is this true? In the future, do you think having a Physics/Engineering degree will be better than having say a Maths or Econ degree in the financial worlds
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Implying a maths degree isn't as tough as physics.
I'm doing a joint, and I have friends on either side of the discipline and let me tell you, the maths is quite a bit harder than the physics. We on the joint do around 20 hours of Physics and 30 hours of Maths per week, where the pure Physics guys do around 20 hours plus a day in labs, and Maths do around 35+ hours of maths.
Most joints will take more Physics options than Maths options because it is WELL KNOWN that the Maths becomes harder than the Physics as you go up.
i can't speak for economics, only that it seems far less quant in general.
A VP at a major bank I interviewed with once told me that his favorite junior bankers were engineers in college who either got a masters in finance and made the jump to analyst or an MBA and made the jump to associate. (This was for M&A). It's not hard to see why, I'm a junior in college and my friends in engineering have 10x the work ethic and problem solving ability that my friends majoring in finance (I'm a finance major myself) have.
Let me stop you right now.
I fell for this trap in college. I loved physics, was great at it, but also was interested in finance and knew I would end up in it. I didn't have the patience to make a career in academia. Instead of going focusing on finance in college, I focused on physics and math. I killed it too.
But the one drawback is that it was time consuming, and I had less time to focus on reading economic/finance books/learning economic theories and generally following the market that non physics kids have time to. This was a huge obstacle I had to overcome when applying of jobs. Small things like now knowing buzzwords or general common knowledge (like the importance of a spring time internships, the difference in banking jobs, etc.) really hurt you as you go through recruiting.
Firms want people who are BOTH good at what they have done AND have a solid foundation so that when they are brought on full time the learning curve is not as steep.
Keep this in mind when picking a major. Pick something you can dominate, but also make sure to constantly be reading books on the market, finance and economics, always follow the market and general news, and even try to have a personal trading account-even if its paper money. And of course-make your internship experience finance related, regardless of major!
To the 5 kids on WSO that this applies to (those going to quant jobs instead of IBD/traditional investing/AM/PE/HF jobs), picking physics/eng to go into quant. trading/prop trading/quant HFs is a weak idea IMO. As someone who almost went that route-you are a lot less versatile, and the room for advancement in the industry is uncertain. Also the amount of math needed is huge-so you'd likely need to go to grad school in higher science just to move over to finance. Stick to the most direct route-this roundabout way is not worth it and should only be pursued by those who realized they want to leave science once in grad school.
I agree with you except the last sentence. You shouldn't put math and econ/finance together and compare to physics/engineering. I think in term of difficulties: Math = Physics > Engineering > Economics > Finance > General Business (at undergrad level), though workload of Engineering students is probably heaviest.
at PhD level, econ and finance are almost as same difficult as, if not harder than math/physics/engineering
Wait so Econ is better than finance as undergrad for IB?
What...? Where did I compare difficulty? What does this have to do with what I wrote...
lol I didn't reply to your comment.
My mistake
Do what I did - major in engineering, minor in business. Employers love this.
Or study business at a target
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