Quant Trading Summer Intern: Help...

For some reason I cannot fathom, I somehow got accepted into a quant trading internship at a well-known hedge fund. I'd thought the chances were next to zero given that I can't count, am not in a STEM major and probably sounded like a blonde bimbo in my interviews. The problem is that my Math completely blows (I've taken 2 Math courses at college so far and scored B for one of them...). How scared should I be for the summer internship? More importantly, are there any particular topics of Math, Stats or CS that are important for quant trading? I've been told to start learning Python (should be fine since I know Java) but are there any pure Math topics I should focus on? I know there's too much stuff I need to study so I don't look like an idiot compared to the other interns.

Thank you! I'm really new to finance since I've only shifted focus this year (from consulting) so I don't have much knowledge. I don't know what I was thinking accepting a quant internship over BB S&T but it's too late now and I have to do Math over the summer...

 
Best Response

get good at programming in python or R (yes, you really should be fine with a solid grasp of Java). for more specific advice, would need to know the fund or the type of strat (quant is very broad). linear algebra, multivar calculus and mathematical stats are the core 3 math/ sats courses. some combination of time series analysis, information theory, bayesian methods, abstract algebra, econometrics and machine learning would help. but focus on the programming, reading papers on SSRN/ arxiv related to the fund's strat and trying to implement them - the courses are useless.

 

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