S&T Waterloo

If I choose to go to Waterloo (which i hear is rather reputable through the eyes of the S&T recruiters), which program should i be taking exactly?

Do i take Math, Accounting and Financial Management, the Financial Risk program, or something else?

Do people often see Waterloo alumni at these trader positions?

Thanks!

EDIT: Is Waterloo better than Ivey for S&T positions?
how does Rotman's Commerce do against these schools for S&T

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Math/Business seems to be a joke program.

In my opinion, if you're gunning down trading, get out of Canada and attend a target from the US or UK during your undergrad or grad, even if this dictates that you do not major in a Business/Commerce related discipline during your undergrad.

I win here, I win there...
 

is the possibility of getting at job at say one of the major banks on Bay St. as a trader with the FARM (Financial Analysis and Risk Management) degree from waterloo the same as an ivey or queens kid getting a job at a big bank on bay st. as an investment banker?

Is there any school in Canada that is better for trading? or is Waterloo VERY heavily recruited?

 

No definitely not. Engineering and computer science student..historically were hired more for S&T jobs than FARM or DD Students. S&T loves Engineering students ONLY.

I believe S&T chance for Ivey & Queens is still higher than any programs at Waterloo. I was actually a SA for one of the large Canadian Bank last summer..and these are pretty much the stories that I heard.

 

Out of curiosity, what are the best Canadian programs for S&T? I was under the preconception that all Canadian programs were horrible for S&T placements relative to the US and UK targets.

I win here, I win there...
 

I can speak for Deutsche Bank and why we directly hire Waterloo kids, and not just for junior year internships. We hire these kids all through their undergraduate career. The Waterloo kids who are in the co-op engineering program, we hire them for a max of 6 times during their degree. (Yes, we have students that intern SIX times before they graduate. ) Naturally we give them an offer upon graduation. Most of them do 2 or 3, but its possible to do 5 or 6.

The engineering/math kids at that school are already brilliant, and we only interview the ones who took those Waterloo math contests and are near the top of the class. I know the Canadian Big 5, especially TD Securities have a strong relationship with Waterloo, but Deutsche Bankès is almost there.

So yeah if you go to waterloo and you're in engineering co-op, getting into S&T in Canada can be a very easy task. But it's possible to get into the US/European BBs as well. Come to think of it, I think MS, CS may have snagged some of their kids too.

 

Aebo.. you do you know that FARM program is very new. The program was established I think in 2009 or something. Hardly anyone know about this program. At least in employer's point of view. DD was also established in 2005ish (correct me if im wrong). Overall, I dont think its suffice..but I wouldnt say its impossible as long as your top 10% of the class. Even so, in terms of S&T, Engineering students will trump FARM or DD kids.

 

Truth be told, I think the engineering/computer science kids have an edge because most of them can program well and if you want to impress someone in S&T as an intern, write the shit out of some macros and automate some processes. But yeah, if you're in some other quantitative degee with programming on your resume, i dont see why they wouldn't look at you if your in co-op as well.

 
Best Response

Uhmm study what your good at. There are DRW Pure math UW guys. Their is Double Degree Deutsche Bank guys. Barclays basically hires any engineer with good grades. The big5 hire lots of FARM which used to be the single-degree finance option etc...

You can apply for the co-op positions studying anything, so do you what you like. Do not study AFM, thats for CAs not traders. I agree with FXtrader as an intern if your coming from UW you best know how to program because everyone else does.

I think UW kids can go anywhere, i know guys who interviewed at some of the top funds in the world and BBs, right beside the best engineer kids from MIT/Stanford/etc. Granted most of these guys turned down MIT/Yale/etc to goto school in Canada do not ask me why usually family reasons.

 
Aebo10:
i dont really understand the relation between trading and programming to be honest? does anyone care to explain

Couple of things here.

Let's say you hire an intern for 4 months onto a specific desk, say Exotics.

1) DO you think they are going to get to trade? Obviously not.

2) Are they legally allowed to take orders from clients or solicit ideas? Not if the firm wants to be prosecuted

3) can they write little programs, macros, etc. to make life on the desk easier for traders? absolutely!

Now this next point is specific to exotics. If they can program and learn the logic of pricing certain exotics, then they have an excellent head start on being able to write up scripts that price certain products. If a customer asks for a customized product, there's often a trader who writes up the script to price it (either based on a previous template, or from scratch if its highly customized). Interns can definitely help here.

But in general, if something process breaks on the desk, who would you rather have, the kid who who can prove the theory behind cholesky factorization from first principles or the kid who can fix the bug in a flash and keep things smooth?

 

haha "the kid who who can prove the theory behind cholesky factorization from first principles or the kid who can fix the bug in a flash and keep things smooth?"

Thanks a lot for the info FXTrader, you have been reallllllly helpful throughout this post! :)

 

On my desk, we currently have several UW engineering grads and math/business double degrees. I personally think the new comp sci/business double degree for UW/WLU gives you a perfect skill set for entering trading (since I found some math/business students lacked programming skills if they didn't take it as an elective). But in the end, it doesn't matter which of these programs you choose... the banks will hire the people who fit in socially and can drink beer.

In terms of programming languages, most trading desks heavily use excel, so make sure you can put together macros quickly. I've seen some quantitative desks using C++, Python and Matlab, but for the most part, if you know how to fix spreadsheets and macros you'll be useful to the traders.

 
jrotmensen:
fact remains that ivey, mcgill, and queen's are the only real target schools in canada.

Regardless, all canadian schools are mediocre with the exception of McGill, UofT and UBC.

I win here, I win there...
 

Rotman Commerce is a joke for IB and S&T, and finance in general, they send anywhere from 1-6 people into banking per year. They simply do not match upto the real targets that jrotmensen mentioned. Waterloo has some S&T positions that you can get if you have high grades & a strong profile in a quant major, the double degree and engineering seem to place the best.

Ivey > Queen's > Mcgill gap Waterloo huge gap Rotman Commerce

 
telus325:
Rotman Commerce is a joke for IB and S&T, and finance in general, they send anywhere from 1-6 people into banking per year. They simply do not match upto the real targets that jrotmensen mentioned. Waterloo has some S&T positions that you can get if you have high grades & a strong profile in a quant major, the double degree and engineering seem to place the best.

Ivey > Queen's > Mcgill gap Waterloo huge gap Rotman Commerce

this. i see plenty people at Ivey, Queen's McGill who got s&t. same cannot be said about waterloo

 
jrotmensen:
telus325:
Rotman Commerce is a joke for IB and S&T, and finance in general, they send anywhere from 1-6 people into banking per year. They simply do not match upto the real targets that jrotmensen mentioned. Waterloo has some S&T positions that you can get if you have high grades & a strong profile in a quant major, the double degree and engineering seem to place the best.

Ivey > Queen's > Mcgill gap Waterloo huge gap Rotman Commerce

this. i see plenty people at Ivey, Queen's McGill who got s&t. same cannot be said about waterloo

I think information on placements is less than viable as a means of measuring the adequacy of a certain program/schools ability to place one into a field they choose. Those who go or even often transfer to Ivey, for example, have banking and trading in mind. They do a lot of research and prepare them selves early on hence appearing as better than those that come from other schools - They end up receiving the majority of offers and the cycle continues with every year and their dominance is further solidified . My school, for example, is not a banking target and hence you will not find those that are as diligent, prepared or interested in the field. Indeed, one of the execs at the finance association knew much less than I about the field and he's intending to apply full time, keep in mind full time deadlines have passed... -_-. Alas. there are those here that I think represent all of those that come from such schools, they prepare them selves early on and structure their efforts and extra curricular involvement accordingly - They end up just where they planned to be.

I don't believe your school by its self is detrimental to where you will end up, if you show the right amount of interest and merit you will get interviewed and that's where you prove your adequacy.

Just my thoughts on the subject, conjured on a bus ride home.

 

From what our recruiters tell us, we do not recruit directly from McGill, Queens, UToronto, Ivey for S&T simply because there is nothing that those schools offer that enables students to be effective traders. Banking maybe, but we dont want bankers, we want fast thinking, math whizzes. Ive never met a Canadian on our trading floor from any school other than Waterloo, and there are a lot of them.

Any of you Waterloo kids applying to Deutsche for your co-op terms coming up?

Oh, this may be of interest to some of those kids: a VP at Credit Suisse confirmed that for last year's class, he believes only one Canadian was hired to S&T... guess which school he graduated from?

 

Any school that can send tons of kids to Google over top US schools, I think has the same chance to get the "right kids" in S&T. UW is a target, don't care how many Ivey/Queen's kids go and trade cash equities wherever. UW is a target for exotics/FX/etc...

Also most of the guys I know went to London/Singapore/Hong Kong, to trade some exotic or emerging market product.

 

All I have to say is that I totally agree with FXTrader/m_w on this one. We've had some interns from Ivey work on the rates desk I'm on and they're shit (it took one girl a month to make a macro that could make a pdf and send an email). We recruit top Waterloo kids because of their strong math/comp sci background, period. Sure, if you want ibanking/corp finance, go take business at Ivey/Queens/McGill because they have great connections through recruitment, but trading is a different... having a double degree with computer science or math to go along with a business degree is much more highly regarded right now (not to say that only a business degree won't get you a job, but you better be a rockstar).

But what do I know... just listen to the douchebag from Ivey for all I care.

 

^But a Mathematics degree fails to provide any foundation in programming...

Plus, most Waterloo DD students major in Actuarial Science to satisfy the mathematics requirement, which has little relevance to trading.

I win here, I win there...
 

those that major in Actuarial Science for the BMath degree, probably aren't looking to be full time traders anyway though

also, as a question, wouldn't it be fine to major in math or even finance and still learn VBA, C++ or any other language yourself? Over the course of a year or two, VBA and C++ would be learnt well enough for trading purposes (assuming you take it upon yourself to learn them) so in such a case, is it not alright to be a math major?

 

Speaking as a prospective S&T recruit (2011 Class) from a Canadian school, I totally agree with slice09 and FXTrader on how Waterloo is a preferred recruiting ground for traders.

I've done 3 co-ops/internships in trading (none with BBs though). All my buddies, who are also doing trading, are all from Waterloo (Engineering or Double-Degree - one or the other) and they have all had BB S&T co-op experience. One of those guys is the Credit Suisse recruit, whom FXTrader mentioned was the only Canadian to get into last year's S&T Class for CS. My other Waterloo friend, who graduated two years ago, did his last co-op for BarCap's Exotic Rates Desk in London after working S&T for the Canadian banks.

As slice09 said, it still is POSSIBLE to break in if you're only from a business background but you better be a "rockstar".

 

I also know the CS kid, he was a software eng dude. Also CS was not the only shop that wanted him.

arbitRAGE., Are you a programmer or DD? Because some of these posts are way way too silly.

Programming is all mathematics, its the algorithms and quickly writing them that creates value, no one gives a crap about syntax. It's the brainpower mathematics creates that traders like.

DD kids major in Act Sci/Statistics are very popular. Also DD, ActSci/Stats may be the perfect major for anyone who wants to work on an exotics desk, they are straight up math whizes.

 
marcellus_wallace:
I also know the CS kid, he was a software eng dude. Also CS was not the only shop that wanted him.
JCI:
I've done 3 co-ops/internships in trading (none with BBs though). All my buddies, who are also doing trading, are all from Waterloo (Engineering or Double-Degree - one or the other) and they have all had BB S&T co-op experience. One of those guys is the Credit Suisse recruit, whom FXTrader mentioned was the only Canadian to get into last year's S&T Class for CS.

come on guys, is Canada that small that you both personally know the ONE canadian guy that was hired in S&T at Credit Suisse? What did he do that was different from the millions of other canadians to get the job? Those odds are pretty steep...

 
CanadianTrader:
marcellus_wallace:
I also know the CS kid, he was a software eng dude. Also CS was not the only shop that wanted him.
JCI:
I've done 3 co-ops/internships in trading (none with BBs though). All my buddies, who are also doing trading, are all from Waterloo (Engineering or Double-Degree - one or the other) and they have all had BB S&T co-op experience. One of those guys is the Credit Suisse recruit, whom FXTrader mentioned was the only Canadian to get into last year's S&T Class for CS.

come on guys, is Canada that small that you both personally know the ONE canadian guy that was hired in S&T at Credit Suisse? What did he do that was different from the millions of other canadians to get the job? Those odds are pretty steep...

Canada, in itself, nope. The Co-op S&T community at Waterloo/UT/etc., maybe.

He just knew all the right people.

 

again... m_w knows what he's talking about.. WLU used to have some trading co-ops, but I think UW surpassed it. And I know guys who have done co-op terms at deutsche, gluskin, and fidelity from WLU so they actually do have some connections.

 
jrotmensen:
slice09:
again... m_w knows what he's talking about.. WLU used to have some trading co-ops, but I think UW surpassed it. And I know guys who have done co-op terms at deutsche, gluskin, and fidelity from WLU so they actually do have some connections.

what a bunch of b.s. WLU can't even place kids into Big5 other than Scotia (1 person last year).

No, I can vouch for what slice09 has said.

I saw a student in the Laurier LSIF who got a position at fidelity. Gluskin's website has employee profiles which detail that many employees did co-op work terms with them from WLU. There are some students working with DB but very few.

 

Didn't you start this exact thread a couple of days ago?

I studied Math and Finance (Though not at UWaterloo) for a short time before graduating, mostly because my degree(Electrical Engineering, specializing on Data Analysis and Signal Processing) already covered 90% of the material.

It really depends on what you want to do, other than being a quant. Those programs do aim at that part of Finance (Obviously), but from what I know people end up all over the place in the banking and insurance sector, not just quants working as prop traders or in R&D.

Do you enjoy Statistics? The Math part consists of Calculus, Diff. EQs, Lin. Algebra, Numerical Methods, Stochastic Calculus, Optimization etc. Rest of it is some Computer Science, Mostly Statistics, and some Finance classes. Depending on the school, a Bachelors in Math and Finance also qualifies you for Grad school in Math, Math and Finance, Statistics and Economics.

Where do you want to work? What do you want to do?

 

A vast majority of HF managers have degrees in plain Economics. Of course, you have some with Math, Engineering, and some liberal arts...but it's mostly Econ, if you look at the statistics.

Unless you REALLY enjoy math and statistics, I'd go for regular Economics and aim for top grades. You have a much better chance of getting your foot inside the door with a degree in economics and high GPA, than math fin and a mediocre GPA. And truth be told, the grade statistics in Math Fin is almost identical to what you see in Engineering.

 
Gangsta Killah Blood:
First off -- learn better grammar, I don’t have time to waste trying to decipher your written Asian accent babble. Next, if you’re in the math at Waterloo and business at Laurier program you are fine as this is a good program for any job in IB. You don’t need to think about your masters yet -- just get into co-op and work your way up to front office in your last work term.

First, I would like to correct your grammar:

First off -- learn better grammar, I don’t have time to waste trying to decipher your written Asian accent babble. Next, -- (parallelism) if you’re in the mMath at Waterloo and business at Laurier program you are fine as this is a good program for any job placements into IB. You don’t need to think about your masters yet -- just get into co-op and work your way up to front office induring your last work term.

Second, I would appreciate it if you can enlighten me with the meaning of "Asian accent babble."

Thanks!

 

With regards to DD at Waterloo/Laurier, I know of a few people who did co-op terms for BBs.

If I remember correctly: - BarCap Rates (NY) - BarCap Rates (London) - BarCap Rates (Tokyo) - Deutsche DCM (NY)

I -think- these postings were only available if you used the Waterloo Co-op Office, as opposed to being based out of the the Laurier one. Postings change all the time in co-op, so I'm not even sure if these are still even available.

Hope this helps.

 

Choose UW as your home school if you want S&T. Laurier side mainly TD and RBC. Though some people do get to the UK/Asia, usually those apart of the investment fund.

Overall though I would say for trading recruitment, UW is better than any other school in Canada. I have known people who interviewed/went to DRW/Clariium Capital and other places like that, I do not think any other school in Canada even gets invitees from those shops.

As an adiditon to JCI's list. I know DD guys also worked in MS and other desks at DB.

 

Be warned however... Most (70%) BB or Canadian Big5 S&T jobs that recruit from waterloo are very technical based. So they are mostly looking for quants/engineers with good programming knowledge.

I go to UW, study math, but don't have strong programming skills, so I know the frustration when seeing all the job requirements for these jobs.

 
bapester:
Be warned however... Most (70%) BB or Canadian Big5 S&T jobs that recruit from waterloo are very technical based. So they are mostly looking for quants/engineers with good programming knowledge.

I go to UW, study math, but don't have strong programming skills, so I know the frustration when seeing all the job requirements for these jobs.

Your a math student and you want to trade cash equities? Most products need some form of programming skills also you have to take 2-3 tough CS courses. Find it odd that your programming skills would be that weak if you goto UW Math.

 
bapester:
Be warned however... Most (70%) BB or Canadian Big5 S&T jobs that recruit from waterloo are very technical based. So they are mostly looking for quants/engineers with good programming knowledge.

I go to UW, study math, but don't have strong programming skills, so I know the frustration when seeing all the job requirements for these jobs.

In my experience, this wasn't the case. A lot of the S&T jobs that specify lots of technical skills are still willing to interview students without this background and have them pick it up on the job.

Also, Waterloo has better postings than Laurier when it comes to S&T positions. TD/BMO/Scotia post quite a few S&T positions, and OTPP/CPP also recruit Waterloo students for their trade floors. TD especially has a large number of Waterloo grads, and some of the desks recruit Waterloo co-ops exclusively. This is also the case at CPP, which only recruits Waterloo students on their trade floor now. DB also takes 3-5 co-ops every term (all FO positions), and Jane Street Capital usually has a couple of postings for trading assistant and developer positions.

UBS (equity) and JPM (quant research) also take a few students, but their presence isn't as large as the ones I mentioned above. MS/BarCap also scaled back postings after 2008, so they mostly post developer positions these days.

Naturally, since Waterloo has a lot more kids in eng/CS than in finance, there's a lot more developer/IT postings for co-op. However, there's still a large number of jobs for S&T that come up, and most students that are really interested end up satisfied (with regards to internships/full time placements). In the past 2-3 years for example, grads got full-time placements in S&T at places like DB/GS/CS/BarCap in NY/HK, not to mention all the ones that stay in Toronto.

 

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