Quant Jobs for Masters in Physics

[Anthony_Physics]

Hello,

I am new to the quant world and am trying to find good information about potential careers. I am currently in my first year of a Masters in Physics program and am wondering--what opportunities for quantitative analysis on Wall Street might I have with my degree when I finish (if any)?

I originally intended on working in industry as physicist, but I am now learning that I jumped the gun a bit and would have been much happier in a different flavor of program (e.g. financial engineering). I do intend on finishing my degree, but what skills and knowledge can I work on while I'm in physics grad school to place myself in a good position for employment in finance when I finish?

Most of my research involves programming in MatLab to analyze x-ray emission data from dense plasmas...so nothing really to do finance at all. But I certainly have time to learn how to program in other languages, independently study required mathematics in depth, and do internships over the summer if they're available.

In summary, I'd greatly appreciate any knowledge on what is out there for people with physics backgrounds and what steps I can take now to ensure that I will be a competitive applicant within the next 1-2 years.

Thanks!

 

[alain]

...
I originally intended on working in industry as physicist, but I am now learning that I jumped the gun a bit and would have been much happier in a different flavor of program (e.g. financial engineering).

much happier or less miserable as in "if I'm going to be miserable I rather get paid for it"?

 

[Yike Lu]

It's going to depend on what you want to do (Wilmott career guide is helpful). Obviously probability, statistics, stochastic calculus, option pricing basics, programming (these are the common core competencies). The general trend I see is towards machine learning (which extends beyond finance). The rest depends on your chosen specialty.

 

[Anthony_Physics]

much happier or less miserable as in "if I'm going to be miserable I rather get paid for it"?

"if I'm going to be miserable I'd rather get paid for it"...all the way! I just wanna use math more or less. I've come to realize I don't care too much about the concepts behind the problems I'm solving, but rather, I just enjoy solving them. So if I'm going to be solving problems all day, I wanna get paid more for them!

 

[Anthony_Physics]

It's going to depend on what you want to do (Wilmott career guide is helpful). Obviously probability, statistics, stochastic calculus, option pricing basics, programming (these are the common core competencies). The general trend I see is towards machine learning (which extends beyond finance). The rest depends on your chosen specialty.

Thanks for the advice, I'll definitely check out eh Wilmott career guide. Probability and stochastic calculus sound particularly appealing to me. I'll have to do some more exploring to see what jobs are out there and what the day to day tasks are like. This is rather encouraging though because it doesn't sound like my masters in physics is going to be detrimental without a business background...is that fair to say?

 

[Andy Nguyen]

"if I'm going to be miserable I'd rather get paid for it"...all the way! I just wanna use math more or less. I've come to realize I don't care too much about the concepts behind the problems I'm solving, but rather, I just enjoy solving them. So if I'm going to be solving problems all day, I wanna get paid more for them!

Looks like you need to be really good at programming. There are lot of people who will be happy to pay you to solve their technical problems.

 

[Yike Lu]

Thanks for the advice, I'll definitely check out eh Wilmott career guide. Probability and stochastic calculus sound particularly appealing to me. I'll have to do some more exploring to see what jobs are out there and what the day to day tasks are like. This is rather encouraging though because it doesn't sound like my masters in physics is going to be detrimental without a business background...is that fair to say?

No, not detrimental. You know there are a LOT of physics people in FE / QF, right? I'm a BS in Physics, and there are plenty of PhDs.