Undergrad?

[nilknarf]

Hello, I am a high school senior planning on becoming a quant. Can anyone give me recommendations on where to go for undergrad and which major I should choose? I have been researching and found that I could major or get a degree in financial engineering/computational finance but I need some advice. CMU offers a bachelor's, master's and a PhD degree in computational finance. Does anyone know the difference between the 3 levels of computational finance offered by cmu in terms of prestige, recognition, opportunities, and difference in depth of knowledge/things taught? And is a mscf equivalent to msfe? What about Operations Research: Financial Engineering major from Columbia? Do I HAVE to go to graduate school to become a quant? or can I just major in financial engineering in undergrad? And if I majored in financial engineering in college, will I be repeating classes if I decide later on to get a masters for it?
Thanks for reading.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

There aren't many real financial engineering program at the bachelor level around. Majority of FE is master level hence M of MFE. They call them different names but they differ slightly

Your bet would be to get a BS degree from a solid school which has good quantitative programs. Popular choices would be Computer Science/Math. Pick up a minor in Finance or something.

Once you got a BS, then you can apply for MFE or PhD. By then, you may change your mind so first, get a taste of programming/math intensive program by getting a BS in such disciplines.

Congratulations on doing research at an early age.

 

[kean]

Long tern

In the past, there were no QF undergraduate programs. However, you will find more and more universities offer such program. The QF sooner or later will be generalized.

We need some good maths and programming backgrounds to succeed in this field, but do we really need extremely high level maths to do the job? I doubt. Sometimes, I just feel that Phd people like to think extreme so simple thing is becoming do damn difficult. They make people do not understand, some think that they are smarter because nobody understand.

Therefore, I think undergraduate QF is just good enough.

Hello, I am a high school senior planning on becoming a quant. Can anyone give me recommendations on where to go for undergrad and which major I should choose? I have been researching and found that I could major or get a degree in financial engineering/computational finance but I need some advice. CMU offers a bachelor's, master's and a PhD degree in computational finance. Does anyone know the difference between the 3 levels of computational finance offered by cmu in terms of prestige, recognition, opportunities, and difference in depth of knowledge/things taught? And is a mscf equivalent to msfe? What about Operations Research: Financial Engineering major from Columbia? Do I HAVE to go to graduate school to become a quant? or can I just major in financial engineering in undergrad? And if I majored in financial engineering in college, will I be repeating classes if I decide later on to get a masters for it?
Thanks for reading.

 

[bob]

There are oppoprtunities to enter the industry at every level--undergraduate and beyond--but the kinds of positions you'll have access to will depend on what you know.

The main thing I would find out about the undergraduate programs you're considering is whether you'll have access to graduate-level FE classes once you have the required math background. If you're taking BC calculus now in high school and can skip the freshman sequence, you could conceivably get the math required for FE at the masters level--ODE's, multivariable, linear algebra, and some sort of mathematically rigorous probability / statistics course--done within two years, at which point you'd be ready to take more advanced classes.

I don't know whether such programs exist yet, but in traditional engineering many schools have joint BS/MS programs that are usually 5 years, and I expect it's only a matter of time before schools create such programs in financial engineering. You may be able to create one of these ad hoc for yourself if you can find a department that's willing to work with you.

Good luck.

 

[Vic_Siqiao]

just do whatever u love in undergrad, i think

 

[Yuriy]

just do whatever u love in undergrad, i think

Thats exactly what I did