Jane Street coming to campus!

[Gavin L]

Hey guys,

Jane Street is coming to my university this month for some information and networking sessions - the first is a general session and a week later they have an 'Estimathon' which has the description:

"

"What's an Estimathon" you ask?! It's a team contest where the goal is to create confidence intervals to difficult math and science questions. e.g., what's the volume of the earth's oceans (in cubic km); or, how many prime number contain strictly increasing digits. It's a very interactive game, and focuses on some ideas that are central to what we do at Jane Street: thinking about hard problems, assessing confidence levels, trying to strike a balance between quick-and-rough estimates versus more refined solutions. The game is pretty mathematically driven, but we welcome anyone interested in giving it a shot!

"

I'm obviously going to be trying to make a good impression on these guys (seeing as they are coming from out of the country (I assume?)) - what do you think I can do to prepare for these sessions? I've started looking at past Jane Street trader interview questions but I won't be able to 'fully' study these in time. Apparently internship applications for us close April 30.

Thanks for the tips in advance!

 

[Yike Lu]

The "Estimathon" is their substitute for mock trading. Trading is basically making an estimate, establishing confidence intervals, then converting those things to a 2 way price, and controlling the risk thereof.