- Joined
- 6/27/13
- Messages
- 61
- Points
- 268
Hi all,
Maybe it's the time for me to contribute back to quantnet society.
3 years ago, I was in the position as some of you (I mean those who have finance bachelor and want to move to quant finance).
A bit of my background:
- BBA degree majoring in Finance and minoring in Accounting from Southeast Asian Uni.
- 2 years of work experience: one year in commercial banking doing loan portfolio analysis, another one year in securities company doing equity derivatives trading.
- C++ certificate from this website
- Around 6 online mathematics courses (those required by FE program: Calculus III, Linear algebra, Diff eq, etc.)
- Introduction to MATLAB from Coursera
- GRE: Q165 V153 AWA4.0, IELTS: 7.5
- Applying to: Imperial's RMFE, LSE Finance Econ, Columbia MSFE, CMU MSCF, MIT Mfin
- Got accepts from UK uni and rejects from US uni
My current situation:
- I am studying at Imperial's RMFE programme.
- My grades are great so far (Shouldn't be among top10% of the class, but at least more than 70s in all subjects)
- Got some interview invites but no offer so far
As I said, 3 years ago I was a Finance student about to get my Bachelor's degree. I became fascinated in the field of quant finance and want to get a career relating to it. I researched for more info and found this website. I found out that there were so many people that were in the same position as mine in that time and there were only a few who can address our specific needs.
For those who are studying business at the moment, i.e., accounting, finance, management, etc., and want to move to quant finance because you think you are good at math. You feel you have a good grasp at Calculus in business degree. I advise you to rethink again. You've gotta make sure you are really good at maths and in order to be sure, I recommend you to take more math classes. No one would ever know if he is actually good at math or not until he actually take more advanced math courses.
Next, since quant finance is not just about math and finance, it also involves programming and statistics so before planning to apply to any FE program. Please at least take those required by the program.
The reason that I mentioned this is that I've seen some of my frds in the program, who can get in without good preparation in all the fields (finance, math, programming, stat), suffering with the content of the program. Those programs out there, when they stated that they require you to have at least these courses and those courses, they actually mean it. This preparation doesn't only apply to those with business degree like me but also for those with engineer or math background without any prior finance experience at all. All the instructors at Imperial lecture like you know basic time value of money, CAPM, portfolio theory, properties of matrices, linear system of ODE, probability theory, programming language, and etc.
My turn now, I would say that I prepare myself well enough although not so strong in all the maths, stats, programming concepts. I would say that I barely have proper education in computer science. I don't have a strong ground in data structure, algorithms, etc. I am also not so good at probability theory and some advanced statistics. However, I managed to get good grade and be able to digest all the contents pretty well although the path for these is pretty painful. It's not so easy as I first thought.
I will probably stop right here as it's getting longer and longer. Anyway, if any one of you with similar background to me would like to ask more questions about how I am doing right now and how I got some offers from those Master's program, just ask me! either PM or just post it below.
Please also be noted that all the things I've written above are based entirely on my experience and my knowledge so far. I am open to other opinions.
Phongvasu
Maybe it's the time for me to contribute back to quantnet society.
3 years ago, I was in the position as some of you (I mean those who have finance bachelor and want to move to quant finance).
A bit of my background:
- BBA degree majoring in Finance and minoring in Accounting from Southeast Asian Uni.
- 2 years of work experience: one year in commercial banking doing loan portfolio analysis, another one year in securities company doing equity derivatives trading.
- C++ certificate from this website
- Around 6 online mathematics courses (those required by FE program: Calculus III, Linear algebra, Diff eq, etc.)
- Introduction to MATLAB from Coursera
- GRE: Q165 V153 AWA4.0, IELTS: 7.5
- Applying to: Imperial's RMFE, LSE Finance Econ, Columbia MSFE, CMU MSCF, MIT Mfin
- Got accepts from UK uni and rejects from US uni
My current situation:
- I am studying at Imperial's RMFE programme.
- My grades are great so far (Shouldn't be among top10% of the class, but at least more than 70s in all subjects)
- Got some interview invites but no offer so far
As I said, 3 years ago I was a Finance student about to get my Bachelor's degree. I became fascinated in the field of quant finance and want to get a career relating to it. I researched for more info and found this website. I found out that there were so many people that were in the same position as mine in that time and there were only a few who can address our specific needs.
For those who are studying business at the moment, i.e., accounting, finance, management, etc., and want to move to quant finance because you think you are good at math. You feel you have a good grasp at Calculus in business degree. I advise you to rethink again. You've gotta make sure you are really good at maths and in order to be sure, I recommend you to take more math classes. No one would ever know if he is actually good at math or not until he actually take more advanced math courses.
Next, since quant finance is not just about math and finance, it also involves programming and statistics so before planning to apply to any FE program. Please at least take those required by the program.
The reason that I mentioned this is that I've seen some of my frds in the program, who can get in without good preparation in all the fields (finance, math, programming, stat), suffering with the content of the program. Those programs out there, when they stated that they require you to have at least these courses and those courses, they actually mean it. This preparation doesn't only apply to those with business degree like me but also for those with engineer or math background without any prior finance experience at all. All the instructors at Imperial lecture like you know basic time value of money, CAPM, portfolio theory, properties of matrices, linear system of ODE, probability theory, programming language, and etc.
My turn now, I would say that I prepare myself well enough although not so strong in all the maths, stats, programming concepts. I would say that I barely have proper education in computer science. I don't have a strong ground in data structure, algorithms, etc. I am also not so good at probability theory and some advanced statistics. However, I managed to get good grade and be able to digest all the contents pretty well although the path for these is pretty painful. It's not so easy as I first thought.
I will probably stop right here as it's getting longer and longer. Anyway, if any one of you with similar background to me would like to ask more questions about how I am doing right now and how I got some offers from those Master's program, just ask me! either PM or just post it below.
Please also be noted that all the things I've written above are based entirely on my experience and my knowledge so far. I am open to other opinions.
Phongvasu
