Considering my options, advice?

[RiskyTerp]

Hello Guys, I'm new to this forum and am looking for some advice/recommendations. Currently I am a market risk analyst at a forex technology company. The company is evolving and my position is becoming a quant like position, automated trading and such. This is my first job out of college. Have a BS in Math from a tier 1 university with a 2.7 gpa and 3 actuarial exams (including financial economics). I'm working on bringing that up with part time classes. In a couple years I would like to be able to be able to get into a good mathematical finance program.

The goal is that I will have work experience and good recommendations from established quants, one MIT grad. Also my quant gre was a 165 which I want to bring up. What kind of advice can you guys give me? As you can see my gpa is low but I have some other stuff in my favor. Also I do have programming skills.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Welcome to QuantNet. As this is a long term education plan, I would suggest that you download the QuantNet Guide and go over many excellent articles. One of them is from Dan Stefanica which is for people at the planning stage. Any weakness can be compensated at this stage if you have a proper plan.

 

[RiskyTerp]

After reading through the QuantNet Guide I'm thinking I am going to take a couple programming courses to boost my gpa a bit and become a more efficient programmer. In your opinion, would getting my ASA, associate of the society of actuaries, be helpful to get into grad school? I am not too far away and could have it by the end of 2013.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Grad programs only require a bachelor degree. ASA may have little to do with your degree and provide minimal benefit. Spend time on improving the core skill set: programming, math, finance. Being a better programmer never hurts.

 

[Dave Haan]

Given your handle, I suspect we have our B.S. Math from the same institution. (Mine was long ago, but along with homegrown wizardly APL it cleared a path for me into quant, albeit pre-MFE.)

Given your circumstances & background, I'd suggest you might do well to recalibrate your path: rather than MFE, you can build on your experience with data science & stats/machine learning (and yes more programming), and take the CFA route to cover finance.

 

[RiskyTerp]

That is an interesting idea which I have been pondering for a while. Originally I was thinking about getting an MS in finance instead of financial engineering. Getting a CFA would be easy relative to my ASA I am planning to get. Have you seen people get jobs as quants with a B.S. and a CFA?

I personally like school, though I get poor grades in easy courses in challenging courses I do well. I like to eventually get a doctorate which is the reason for wanting to complete a masters degree first.

 

[Dave Haan]

I got by on B.S. and on-the-job self-training but those were different times (CFA was new, I didn't bother).
But you're positioned to benefit both from work experience (evolving with it) and from outside study; CFA rec was specific to your ASA endeavor. MS in engineering or suchlike (with big data getting bigger) + programming chops + CFA demonstrates the necessary skillsets (broader range but less integrated than MFE; but in this environment you got to differentiate yourself )