Advice on undergraduate degree to pursue

[Future Quant]

I just finished high school in Victoria, Australia, and I have been looking into quant jobs and have become very interested in becoming one especially a quantitive researcher. I am very talented at maths and am starting to learn code now and I was just wondering what undergraduate degree I should pursue to have the best path into getting a quant job. I have looked at the quantitative finance degrees at UTS and Monash but they are masters degrees and I am looking for a bachelor's degree. As of right now I am thinking of doing actuary at melb uni and then try to transition into the quant industry and if I cannot I will stay on the actuary path which I am somewhat interested in as well. I just need some advice/options of other pathways I could take.

 

[Daniel Duffy]

If I were in this position, focus on applied/numerical maths degree.
And learn C++ asap.

Everything else follows, more or less.

// not sure if actuary is quant as such.. but useful skills nonetheless.

 

[_quanty_]

Math/stats as a major and econ/finance as a minor (or second major) is a good combination. In my experience, many firms are looking for people with the technical skills but also understand macroeconomics, keep up with financial news, and can connect finance to statistics.

 

[MikeLawrence]

I'd do maths as a major, with mathematical statistics as electives for that major. Unless you can take a bunch of masters courses, the other statistics courses are often not taught in enough depth to make them preferable over the solid grounding in analysis/linear algebra you can get on the maths side. Throw in some numerical methods/analysis courses (or take them from Dr. Duffy at DataSim, which is what I'm planning on). Econ/Fin minor is fine, but I'd rather take *maybe* 3 of those courses (intro to corporate fin, and maybe micro Econ. just enough that when you pick up the finance side it isn't a foreign language) and just focus on math/C++/stats/prob. Take the programming courses offered on this site. Once the groundwork is really solid you can venture into stats stuff.

I took 'applied' regression and time series, which meant no matrix math/theoretical stuff was taught at all since none of the stats majors had any prep in that area (me included, at the time, after this semester's theoretical linear maths I can take a lot of it- I think.). It was cool to use stats, but I missed the majority of the purpose behind the material. I'd have gotten a lot more out of it if it were taught with any rigor.

This doesn't fully apply if you're at a truly 'top' Uni. I'm not, so they often have to do things like give 50/100% extra credit to avoid failing a bunch of seniors in Classical Statistical Inference.

 

[Future Quant]

If I were in this position, focus on applied/numerical maths degree.
And learn C++ asap.

Everything else follows, more or less.

// not sure if actuary is quant as such.. but useful skills nonetheless.

About the maths degree wouldn't actuary be a nice mix of both maths/stats while also being in the finance side of things?

 

[Future Quant]

I'd do maths as a major, with mathematical statistics as electives for that major. Unless you can take a bunch of masters courses, the other statistics courses are often not taught in enough depth to make them preferable over the solid grounding in analysis/linear algebra you can get on the maths side. Throw in some numerical methods/analysis courses (or take them from Dr. Duffy at DataSim, which is what I'm planning on). Econ/Fin minor is fine, but I'd rather take *maybe* 3 of those courses (intro to corporate fin, and maybe micro Econ. just enough that when you pick up the finance side it isn't a foreign language) and just focus on math/C++/stats/prob. Take the programming courses offered on this site. Once the groundwork is really solid you can venture into stats stuff.

I took 'applied' regression and time series, which meant no matrix math/theoretical stuff was taught at all since none of the stats majors had any prep in that area (me included, at the time, after this semester's theoretical linear maths I can take a lot of it- I think.). It was cool to use stats, but I missed the majority of the purpose behind the material. I'd have gotten a lot more out of it if it were taught with any rigor.

This doesn't fully apply if you're at a truly 'top' Uni. I'm not, so they often have to do things like give 50/100% extra credit to avoid failing a bunch of seniors in Classical Statistical Inference.

same thing I said to Daniel Duffy wouldn't actuary be a good mix of both the maths/stats and finance?

 

[Daniel Duffy]

same thing I said to Daniel Duffy wouldn't actuary be a good mix of both the maths/stats and finance?

What are the topics in an actuarial degree?
My gut feeling is the maths may not be hard enough for quant maths.

 

[_quanty_]

What are the topics in an actuarial degree?
My gut feeling is the maths may not be hard enough for quant maths.

My question too. Real analysis, theoretical linear algebra, calc based probability, rigorous statistics, differential equations, and numerical methods should be in your toolkit.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Do a degree where if you change your mind about being a quant in a few years it still allows you flexibility. Maybe a math or CS degree will flexible enough to get into most technical roles.

 

[MikeLawrence]

What are the topics in an actuarial degree?
My gut feeling is the maths may not be hard enough for quant maths.

My question too. Real analysis, theoretical linear algebra, calc based probability, rigorous statistics, differential equations, and numerical methods should be in your toolkit.

The calc based probability will be in the curriculum, but none of these other topics will be. They will all be replaced with micro/macro Econ and finance courses.

 

[Lukee]

If you want to be an actuary then study actuarial science. If you want to work in quantitative finance study math and/or CS. Actuarial degrees are very career oriented and a lot of time is spent preparing for the SOA exams

 

[Future Quant]

What are the topics in an actuarial degree?
My gut feeling is the maths may not be hard enough for quant maths.

These are the subject I would be doing at unimelb for actuary, for stats it says we will cover:
Concepts covered include: descriptive statistics, random sample, statistical inference, point estimation, interval estimation, properties of estimators, maximum likelihood, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing and Bayesian inference. Applications covered include: exploratory data analysis, inference for samples from univariate distributions, simple linear regression, correlation, goodness-of-fit tests and analysis of variance
and for probability it says:
But as _quanty_ mentioned studying actuary doesn't really cover things like real analysis.

But looking at the maths degree its does cover most of what your saying:

So would you say this would more of a better pathway to take?

 

[Future Quant]

Do a degree where if you change your mind about being a quant in a few years it still allows you flexibility. Maybe a math or CS degree will flexible enough to get into most technical roles.

Yea thats why I was thinking of an actuary degree cause if I change my mind about quant I can stick on the actuary pathway. But with a maths degree what flexibility will it have to get into other roles apart from an engineer?