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The ZIRP for several years, and then the 0.25% interest rate after that. Plus little or no capital investment though large companies are flush with funds. There's nowhere profitable to invest -- which makes a joke of the so-called recovery. Record low labor participation rate, which makes a joke...

I agree. The problems that 2008 laid bare were but adroitly brushed under the rug. The US economy -- and much of the global economy as well -- has been on life support, a dead man walking. The problems remain festering and perhaps can't be solved. The metaphor I use is of a dead old whore, in...

Could anyone in 2006 have forecast even the rough contours of 2016 today? I couldn't. We've no idea what 2026 will look like a propos quant finance. My best guess is that for a number of reasons it will implode into a rubble of electronic bits and bytes. It is one aspect of a particular world --...

That is for you to determine. As Krishnamurthi said in his 1929 address, "Truth is a pathless land." The advice you get here will be generic -- Learn coding! Learn math! Learn finance! What exactly this means, few will elaborate. You can find out for yourself by looking at books, by constructing...

Not the way I'd phrase it. Let's say they have real chances. The second and third tier don't (which information their money-hungry second- and third-tier departments coyly withhold from them). There's an old English adage, "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." It is appropriate to...

People out there know about the university but usually not your advisor or the university's ranking in finance or math. Princeton, MIT, etc., open doors. Ohio, Iowa, Florida do not. For the same reasons young hotshot academics gravitate to Princeton, MIT, and so on. The chances are higher that a...

Fairness ain't got nothin' to do with it. You're setting yourself up for failure this way. You're looking at the Ph.D. as a launch pad for a quant career. Over the years many posters here have rightly pointed out that's the wrong thing to do. It's true that the quant world does employ many...

Because if he/she/it lacks command of the language, the questions won't be exactly phrased either. On top of that, the questions are puerile as well. Just another worthless thread. Difficult to recall the last time a worthwhile thread was started.

English is clearly not your first language.

What kind of a master's will be built on such a bare bones stripped-down foundation? Physics majors have much more math than this, let alone math majors.

I doubt it. It's not clear that there is a future in quant. You might be better off in machine learning and/or the study of algorithms. As long as the grid remains up, there will be some sort of future in them. Your background in optimization (linear programming, dynamic programming, integer...

Trump is complete crud as well. I suppose one could quibble about who is worse but with Hillary I see the spectre of mushroom clouds. Here's another trenchant piece of analysis.

Granted, she was the mother of that vile monstrosity known as Obamacare.

But she will win. And if you don't want to wind up dead, you'd better only say positive things about her. Everyone who has been saying negative or critical things about her has been coming to a sticky end. Glen Ford has some trenchant analysis here. For the record I wish to say how much I...

There's more. Even without this overt cheating, the structure of formal education militates against a mastery of course material. The lectures have the nature of a forced march -- there's little time to admire the scenery or to grok the material in fullness. Often the instructors themselves are...

This could be discussed endlessly. I'm not sure the US neoliberal model of whoring and selling one's soul for private-sector lucre and charging sky-high tuition fees is the way for British universities to go -- but they have been prodded by the British government to go down this path to hell. In...

Speaking in general terms, it's not just Imperial. Many (most?) British universities are selling their brand name and the educational standard is low. What value to assign to the brand is not clear but I am dubious. The British university system is grossly under-resourced.

Well, the proles are going to make their existence felt -- they've nothing to lose but their hides (which they're losing anyway). Some interesting analysis from Greer here: The Archdruid Report: Outside the Hall of Mirrors With regard to the situation in the USA, this blog post went viral a...

No more than in Greece or Portugal. "Anglo-American capitalism" = deindustrialization + parasitical activities like finance, speculation and privatization on steroids. A small fraction of 1% making out like bandits, the top 10% or 15% keeping their heads above water, and the rest becoming...

"DD made a good point, stating that the most equal division of wealth in the rich world is to be found in Japan and Germany (after tax and redistribution), i.e. in Nation States whose ruling class power was destroyed in WWII. Unsurprisingly, the ruling classes of the Nation State victors of WWII...

Clearly Rutte has read Orlov's The Five Stages of Collapse. Merkel Warns U.K. It Can’t ‘Cherry-Pick’ as EU Leaders Meet to Discuss Brexit

Scotland wants out of the United Kingdom. If Britain does leave, the EU can initiate a more US-independent foreign and military policy. Good read here: EU leaders call for rapid British exit and European military buildup - World Socialist Web Site For actual conditions in Britain today: I...

It was all bollocks and bravado. The litmus test is when Britain invokes Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and formally initiates withdrawal proceedings. What Germany and France are saying is, "Start the formal proceedings or shut up. And if you leave, good riddance."

Anyway, it's exceedingly unlikely there's actually going to be a "Brexit." Just posing and bluffing from Britain. It doesn't have the balls to exit. Watch the prevaricating and backtracking now.

Why Brexit is bad for UK banks

Yep, another pathetic me-too program.

UK “leave” vote batters financial markets - World Socialist Web Site

But keep in mind that the referendum is "non-binding" -- it's up to Parliament to decide whether to leave and what timetable to adopt. Paul Craig Roberts says something interesting: Also, even if Britain "leaves", it may still negotiate some deal like Norway, meaning it is effectively in the...

Dunno where I read it. HSBC has also said something along these lines. I suspect everyone will deny it now while surreptitiously making covert plans to shift. London was the financial centre for the EU -- but now that Britain is not EU, there's no compelling reason for banks to stay in...

London will be reduced as a financial hub. In the wake of the Brexit vote, Morgan Stanley has decided to shift 2,000 jobs to Dublin and Frankfurt and I think Goldman Sachs has decided to axe 4,000 in the City (but I don't have confirmation of this).

What's the logic behind MS making less money than BS?

Deutschland uber alles. Ich liebe Deutschland.

Thought-provoking essay in the LARB: The Trouble with Excellence - Los Angeles Review of Books

I once told a girl she had no real chance of getting into her dream school (Harvard). She questioned my mental balance. People don't just want the pill to be sugar coated, they want the pill to be sweet too.

On a general note, the deteriorating quality of math programs (not just fin math) is not the fault of the universities. "A" level standards have gone down -- probably fair to say "been dumbed down" -- so that even students with A grades are not in a position to handle what used to be first-year...

With the exception of Manchester, these are all second- and third-tier schools. My guess would be that in the environment of British neoliberalism, with tuition fees of around 10,000 pounds a year, these universities have to flog anything they think will sell. I took a cursory glance at...

You're right. But as I see it, there's nothing inherently interesting about quant finance. It's a rag-bag collection of techniques and practices in vogue at the present time. If someone writes pious hogwash on how "he has a passion for quant finance," I'd burst out laughing. I wouldn't burst out...

The women, the cocaine, the single malt whiskey, the Porsches (or Bugattis, if you prefer them). Why these shitheads insist on hypocritical responses is beyond me ..... Of course it's for the money. If you demonstrate sound math and programming knowledge and have the financial means, they...

In A level math they teach integration as the inverse of differentiation. The theoretical development of the Riemann integral on the basis of careful definitions and then proving it is the inverse of the derivative usually is presented in a first course in undergraduate analysis. The Lebesgue...

Your own experience should convince you otherwise -- unless the math you're doing is strictly plug-and-chug (i.e., putting numbers into formulas). The concentration can't be maintained for six hours consistently with difficult math -- you will burn yourself out. Bite-sized chunks over a long...

There's a natural pace of assimilation for mathematics (which varies from person to person). Putting in more hours won't accelerate the learning and acquisition of skill but will lead to burnout and frustration.

The odds are you're wasting your time. If you were an ace coder who wanted to learn some math, or the other way around, you'd have a chance. But with coding and math both absent from your profile, your chances of surmounting two big obstacles are slim at best. The math will take years. The...

It's more of a reference book than a text. Very comprehensive, and well-written -- but not a text.

AlphaGo vs Lee Sedol: history in the making

Under the spreading chestnut tree I sold you and you sold me.

And this is where the matching potential of supply and demand comes into its own. You submit these constituent elements into a patented algorithm to be “matched.” And just like contemporary financial markets, the sophistication of the trademarked algorithm is a selling point in itself — with...

Agreed. Just more stupid hoops to jump through, and designed no doubt by some bureaucratic shithead who knows no math himself.

The two CS options -- numerical analysis and data structures.

You are right.

And still do at many US universities. I actually prefer the computation-based undergrad PDE courses to the theory-focused grad courses (Sobolev spaces, etc.)

He's not saying they don't; he's saying it will be difficult to get a job after a PDE-focused master's because of the marked preference for Ph.D.s for the relatively few jobs that are out there. Although I agree that PDEs are forever while the machine learning might just be trendy and faddish.

The 3rd edition of Brian Overland's C++ Without Fear is now out. If you're new to coding and need to learn basic C++ fast and enjoyably, I can't think of a better book. Amazon is selling it for a paltry $21. The book won't take you very far but will give you the framework to tackle more...

It is very unlikely any of the first-tier programs will accept you. Some of the second-tier programs may (because they want your money). You are in the unenviable position of Groucho Marx, who didn't want to join any club that would accept the likes of him as member.

Of course there is. In course content and in employer recognition of the diploma.

This s.o.b. is responsible for the islands of floating plastic in the Pacific.

The following list is of course not authoritative but suggests McDuck may have a net worth ten times that of Richie Rich: Top 15 Richest Fictional Characters I am pleasantly surprised to see Smaug on the list. His Get Rich Quick scheme was probably the most effective.

You have to pay tax on that $250k. And what about incidental expenses -- clothes, transport, lunch?

How rich? As much as Gordon Gekko? Or the even more fabulously wealthy Scrooge McDuck?

Synopsis of the article: "Blah blah blah. So does quantitative investing have a future? The answer likely hinges on the industry’s ability to adapt and innovate." What is there to discuss? It's not saying anything. Just links to other papers, plus "challenges" and "concerns."

This has absolutely nothing to do with anything quant. But it's interesting to read and might be useful in our Mad Max future. Also one of my favorite sites. SNAP Card Gourmet Gumbo

To the extent that it is a science, it nestles within math. But coming back to coding, I don't understand why coding books have to be so dull, dry, and dumbed down. Why are there so relatively few interesting coding books that demonstrate the syntax with some interesting applications, algorithms...

There are areas like computability -- part of theoretical computer science that is close to mathematical logic. Or complexity theory or automata or formal languages. Not what a software developer needs.

What's the logic behind this assertion? There are different skills involved. Math -- beyond the plug-and-chug calculus level -- involves a sequence of Aha! moments as things fall into place conceptually, as the non-trivial characters of proofs become clear, as the architecture of an entire field...

You were told wrong. If you're coming from outside to math or to programming, the first order of business is to develop the right approach to it, to develop the right way to grok it. The details of the subject matter come later. And there's probably no one canonical way to get this right frame...

I don't think anyone would. Who wants to be an H1B indentured servant, with the Damocles' sword of job termination over his or her head while their Green Card is being processed? And that Green Card takes years as it winds its way through a Byzantine bureaucracy.

To use another metaphor, these calculus courses are like the Bataan Death March, with people falling by the wayside.

In theory. But for someone whose mind isn't oriented towards math it'll take much longer. Trying to do it in two years will be like the Robert Morley character in Theatre of Blood, who couldn't digest the two dogs he was being force-fed.

There have been some new coding books hitting the market in the last year or so that are geared towards such people. The title I gave is one such. Another is Sedgewick and Wayne's "Introduction to Programming in Python," which has more math examples but is considerably more expensive ($70...

Um, not sure about the VBA and Excel part. Maybe some basic Python (McGrath's "Coding for Beginners" is a good place to start).

It's perfectly in order for you to mention you're a US citizen and it does matter, makes you easier to employ.

Then you're more than competent enough to tackle the Imperial and Oxford programs. Whether they accept you is another matter.

What courses and what content?

For the money and the job security Kiss your EU passport reverently. I do mine.

Read this first, then comment on Obamacare. Sorry, forgot the link: The neoliberal restructuring 
of healthcare in the US | International Socialist Review

Get into finance -- if that is your interest -- on your own terms. You possibly have an entrepreneurial streak; in that case the MFE may not be the best option for you.

If you're smart enough to make that money playing poker, you're smart enough to not want to be an office drone -- which is essentially what many MFE graduates end up being. Look for something different. Something of your own, something off the beaten track.

Econometrics will bore you insane. I presume you've studied the math theory of poker -- books like The Mathematics of Poker. If you have, build on it and look at books like The Doctrine of Chances and Knowing the Odds and see how you can apply it to finance (which is gambling on a larger scale).

The US has a stripped-down vocabulary. Certain words and slogans go viral and monopolise popular discussion. Words like "passion", "excellence", and "pro-active." Makes sure your resume has them (in bullet-point form ideally). Besides, "passion" has seven letters and "perseverance" twelve.

The interesting thing is that once you get past the bull about "passion" and "excellence," how little you see of genuine craftsmanship and meticulous attention to detail. The "passion" is just an euphemism for getting rich quick by a superficial display of effusive enthusiasm.

There lie the roots of unthinking and unyielding fanaticism. Maybe with a glutted job market it would be best to leave it rather than pound one's head obdurately against a brick wall. Terry Eagleton has come out with a new book, from which this essay is excerpted:

Here we go again ...

There's an interesting discussion at Doomstead Diner on what will happen to finance when the grid goes down. Quant finance depends on the power of electronic exchanges. Paper-based exchanges effectively mean the end of quant finance. Markets will continue -- but HFT and stochastic calculus will...

More horseshit. At least so far. Speaking of which, quant finance is not a science in any sense of the word -- except for some eclectic borrowing from math and computer programming for the purpose of making some money in the current economic setup. As this fossil fuel era of ours draws to a...

It was horseshit from the outset.

Right you are. It's been 40 years since I saw it. You wouldn't think that an unfavorable review of a theatre performance would exact such retribution.

I don't know if you've seen that 1973 British horror flick, Theatre of Blood, with Vincent Price, Diana Rigg and Robert Morley. The Morley character is force-fed his own poodle through a funnel. This is the kind of force-feeding that is taking place in these courses and programs -- too much, too...

Waste of time and money. Generic stat and math courses from a no-name school. Didn't even see a coding course.

That's a respectable first course in PDE.

LinkedIn is a vile instrument of this neoliberal age.

Tis but a trifling detail. I've been looking at these online math courses ever since you mentioned there was no syllabus for the PDE course. None I've looked at so far have given a syllabus. They are very anxious, however, to get your email and contact details. It seems they're in the business...

We don't needs no stinkin' syllabus. We pays our money and gets our "A" grade.

This background is a joke. It's a bridge too far. There have been numerous posts over the years on this forum from posters claiming that while their background is squat they have "always" been interested in math/comp sci/fin engg and by sheer dint of will, perseverance, and hard work, they...

Become a CA. The skill set and mind set of a CA is very different from that of a quant. If you had gone to IIT and earnt a master's in math, physics, or even engineering, it would be a different story.

Can't be done.

A lot of the time (most of the time?), the research adviser holds the Ph.D. student's hand and guides him step by step towards an acceptable dissertation. There's a lot of drudgery involved but not necessarily that much "research." The exceptions would be the best students with the best research...

Things have changed since the time of Ford. We live now in what the theorists describe as a "post-Fordist economy" -- i.e., an economy with a hollowed-out manufacturing base, with a focus on service jobs that are typically low-skill and low-wage (like that depicted in the Office Space clip). The...

This looks good as well:

Just about everyone who works for a wage is exploited. That's why they get hired -- the ones doing the hiring figure they'll make some money from the labor of the employee. But what we've been seeing the last few decades is ever-higher exploitation of labor (and there are a number of reasons for...

I agree. Complete malarkey. Mention of "passion" as a pre-req figures in many US job adverts. Empty filler. I presume what it means is someone anxious to conform and willing to put in extra unpaid hours to demonstrate his "passion" and "commitment."

Ask yourself how many schools are teaching analysis from books like Whittaker and Watson (A Course of Modern Analysis) or Titchmarsh (Theory of Functions). Ask yourself how many schools are not bothering to teaching things like lim sup.

Coz they know math. The pure mathematicians may work in applied math -- as Gauss, Hilbert, Euler, Riemann, and Poincare did -- but they know math inside out.

Agreed. And not enough credit to Hilbert.

It's become a "glass bead game" (read Hermann Hesse's novel).

Little or no coding, I think (except maybe VBA spreadsheet macros).

It's become baroque -- a sign of decadence and senility.

It's not relevant to your purposes. Pick up a book on single-variable calculus and make your way through it, step by step. Then pick up another book ....

Rephrase your question: 1) Where are the jobs? 2) Who is getting the jobs that do exist? If it's Cass, go for it. Remember that there are too many master's programs in financial math and only some of them are placing their grads in real jobs.

Tsipras is a wimp, as is Syriza as a party. What's the use of a referendum if you don't listen to what the people are telling you? After the referendum Syriza went back to the negotiating table like a whipped cur. The new proposal is completely untenable. More here...

Good piece by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Telegraph.

Two separate things surely -- the federal system and the fact that the empire is running on empty? Though I suppose an argument could be made that without a federal system of government as initiated by Hamilton there would never have been an empire subsequently .... But, yes, the US empire is...

Au contraire, mon ami: I know full well what the pre-Euro era was like. But to make the Euro work the Europeans would need a federal system for taxation and evening out regional imbalances. Something similar to what the US has. This current system has to topple -- Greece is the worst but Italy...

Nothing. The euro has been a half-assed idea that put Southern Europe in a subordinate and indentured position to German capital. More generally, the sclerosis at the heart of the European project has become clear for all to see.

First Grexit, then Spexit, then Frexit, and finally Brexit.

There are sound self-interested reasons for this: the reputation and credibility of the program are at stake. That reputation and credibility in the job marketplace is what keeps top-ranking programs alive. It allows them to place their graduates in ranking banks and companies, and this allows...

This holds a fortiori for the bum programs, which are essentially just selling meretricious certificates to foreign students for hard cash. The program director and instructors don't care because the reputation and credibility of the program are not something to be maintained as they doesn't...

It's not huge. I probably know all the more important books. Not that many. In chess I stopped counting when I hit 800 but I've probably got around 1500 or more books. I can take a novice and raise him to decent club standard within a few years with a structured training program. I've no idea...

John Wayne. Clint Eastwood. Marilyn Monroe. Ronald Reagan.

I believe you. They want the money coming in. The 8,000 who got expelled must have been for absolutely egregious and flagrant cheating it was impossible to turn a blind eye to. As I said, the tip of the iceberg.

The culture of pervasive and endemic cheating in China is one aspect. Secondly, for them the expense is something big -- they don't want the investment to come to nothing. Thirdly, language problems factor in. And therefore all types of, er, unethical academic work become inevitable.

With regard to Chinese cheating in the US, believe me that it's only the tip of the iceberg.

Ain't that the truth?

A reader is roughly equivalent to an associate professor in the US.

With regard to learning something new, one can't start at too basic a level. I've got the book myself and I think it's a sound choice for newbies. Learn to walk before you run and all that.

I don't really agree with starting with the Stroustrup book (though it's a fine treatment). I like the recommendation for newbies at Harvard's CS50 course: C Programming Absolute Beginner's Guide, by Perry and Miller.

Interesting video:

Seconded. Baxter and Rennie is garbage.

Yes, but his series (involving Achilles and the tortoise) converges. In Catch-22 no pilot could ever meet the increasing quota of bombing raids because that's why they were being increased -- to make sure no-one qualified. Likewise for those chasing the chimera of state-funded old-age pensions.

Did you ever read Heller's Catch-22, where bomber high command kept upping the number of flying missions needed to retire from the fray?

Retirement age will always be tantalisingly out of reach -- when you reach 75, the'll have upped it to 80.

Amen.

You are right -- but I just can't summon any enthusiasm for this kind of math.

I have a personal bias against computational/applied linear algebra courses -- linear algebra for dummies. If it involves some non-trivial coding, go for it, otherwise give it a miss. I presume you've already taken linear algebra (the real thing) at some time -- up to the spectral theorem and...

It's a real analysis course. Description is vague but seems to be "Real Analysis II" or "Intro to Real Analysis for Grad Students." If you've already taken basic real analysis as an undergrad you'll be fine -- otherwise you may still be able to follow the course, get a good grade in it, but...

You're not making any logical sense. If you're spending $100,000 or more on an MFE, it's as an investment, and the courses are tailored to make you marketable in the world of finance -- not prepare you for academic research, which is the purpose of a Ph.D.

It is? Okay, if you say so ....

Bollocks to US News ratings.

The latter can often be very shitty.

So far has only happened to countries whose bonds have been denominated in a currency other than their own -- e.g., Mexico, Argentina, and Russia in USD.

Problem is that by their very nature black swan risks cannot be calculated, often cannot even be anticipated. In a sense he's right that we're now in terra incognita, and extrapolations from the past may be poor indicators with regard to what will happen in the future. But not clear there is any...

Nope, not if you got admitted to Baruch. It would be a different story if the only other program admitting you was Dogdick University in Swampwater, Missouri.

On cost Baruch wins hands down -- but you must be knowing this.

Didn't know that. Thought that an MSc takes one year (which includes a hurriedly written "thesis" written after the exams are over) and that an MPhil takes two years. If the Cambridge program is one year, then my usual criticism of British master's programs holds: too much too fast, and too...

Cambridge is in a league of its own. The M.Phil. must be a two-year program -- a year for classes and a year for thesis.

Can you tell everyone here what Galois theory and number theory have to do with quant finance instead of engaging in idle and worthless ad hominems?

Number theory, Galois theory, groups, group reps, module over a PID, algebraic topology, and a whole bunch of other pure math subjects, yes. And your advice is utter garbage. It won't help him become a quant. Nor does he need business studies. Or medical stats -- which is to regular stats what...

This is outright bad advice.

Is it a detailed breakdown so that you know starting salaries and which banks/companies hired them? And to be candid, I wouldn't be surprised if some of these programs you mention weren't better in terms of job placement than Columbia's MAFN. See, the only logical reason to not disclose...

Absolutely. And the well-developed theories have come about after years and decades of reformulating, honing, and polishing.

Their MFE rackets would implode if they did. They choose, rather, to maintain a dignified silence.

I see people doing that with Create Space (an Amazon outfit I think).

Written by my good pal, Ted Rall: http://anewdomain.net/2014/12/11/dont-hire-anyone-30-ageism-silicon-valley/

Two words (among many others) grossly abused in the USA are "passionate" and "excited." An undergrad can't be "passionate" about an area of study because he doesn't know anything about it. And even if he was "passionate" about it (whatever the hell that means), it wouldn't help him. The PhD is a...

An undergrad doesn't know anything. But he has had a brief and superficial exposure to some areas and thinks he would like to explore them further -- topology, differential geometry, group theory, number theory, numerical analysis, complex functions. As he progresses in his grad study and work...

Everyone should at least know what a tensor product is and thus how to extend the ring of scalars of a module. Basic linear algebra.

Carol Alexander made the transition from algebraic number theory to quant finance (I think she runs the quant finance program at U of Reading). And I have known a geometric topologist who also became a quant -- so it can be done.

*Sputtering up my coffee* -- nein, nein, nein.

It's a developing eloi/morlock divide.

That's a key point. The original quants were physicists and mathematicians who either could not get jobs in their disciplines (hardly surprising given the surfeit) or just wanted a change of scene after years of dreary grad school. Money was not the lure. If money is what draws you, there are...

No, that's not the point. The point is that business calc serves no purpose -- it has nothing to do with business skills. It's just another useless filler course. Differentiation and integration of polynomial functions and then some "applications" to things like marginal revenue and marginal...

Ah, silly me: the sole criterion is of course the dollar. That alone measures how much of a man one is, one's virility, one's power.

Eagleton's one of my favorite writers. Here he explains how British universities are going down the same road to hell as US universities -- but without the affluence. The following is an excerpt. http://m.chronicle.com/article/The-Slow-Death-of-the/228991/

Just as there's "business calc" (hang on a sec, let me throw up in disgust), there should also be "business stochastic processes." And there's a definite niche for books like "Stochastic Processes for Dummies/Idiots."

C'mon, how many posts have we seen in the last few months? And they're all asking pretty much the same question. It's a case of the bad driving out the good (in terms of posts).

If you're doing all these courses simultaneously, it's too much too fast and you won't be able to digest it all, or see the connections between them. "Less is more" and "less haste, more speed."

Because, er, they've always been fascinated by the sexy but arcane world of quant finance (while knowing bugger all about the details) and the siren song of big money is irresistible. For some inexplicable reason they never took calc in high school and took psychology or political science in...

You are right. Chicago is one big hick town. It cannot match NYC in sophistication. NYC is where the action is -- both in a general sense and financially.

Nope, sorry, no idea about the placement rate.

Even worse is if they say yes and then you find you can't complete the program because of your weak math background. And maybe even worse is if you somehow limp through the program, spending tens of thousands of dollars, and then find you can't get a job.

And legitimately so as the government has changed the post-study work permit system and hiring in the City is not what it used to be. In addition, the Oxford program is not what it might be cracked up to be: heavy on theory, light on computation (but then, so are most of the other British...

Over-rated. The CSE, and not because it's Harvard.

It's a fluid term, a "floating signifier." In some texts it is close to real analysis -- some semi-rigorous definition of the reals, some semi-rigorous proofs of the intermediate value theorem and mean value theorem.

How much calc? Just calc 1? And regular calc or business calc? Are there any? Are there any in the ranking programs?

This means the lecturer will have to cover the rudiments of ODEs and the heat PDE in class, and with this perfunctory and inadequate coverage then proceed to the Black-Scholes PDE and finite difference methods to solve it (it's another discussion as to whether this should be in an MFE curriculum).

The essence of finance, but we're not supposed to say it. The ascendancy of finance over manufacturing, as the US follows in the wake of Britain.

And Deming's work on statistical quality and process control. But Deming was ignored in the USA. Then his name became a buzzword in US management circles in the '80s -- but only a buzzword, because US executives didn't have the stat background to understand what he was saying, and in any case...

You're correct. In the pre-2008 world, stochastic calc was the jewel in the MFE crown. It was supposed to be the secret esoteric subject that made quants the high priests of finance. But those days are over. Yet MFE faculty still see stochastic calc as the subject that defines the MFE.

American executives being morons generally, they'd not have read Herman Kahn's 1970 book, The Emerging Japanese Superstate, which was remarkably prescient about Japan's economic future.

Volantis in Essos is now the pivot -- sending a mercenary company to Westeros as well as a fleet to Meereen. Hopefully Vol. 6 will be ready by the end of this year -- the battles of Meereen, Storm's End, and Winterfell will be interesting. Also want to know what happens to Jaime and Jon Snow.

You have to be kidding. Each book is more complex than the previous one. The story has expanded tremendously in scope and detail. Global geopolitics, trade, and banking.

You've read the GoT books? Watching the series doesn't count.

The kind that are hurriedly put together on shoestring budgets, with inadequate resources and crud "faculty," to offer themselves as alternatives to the strong programs. Their sole raison d'etre is to make a bit of money.

Machiavelli is not in vogue. Discourses is better. And Florentine Histories. I would also recommend reading Game of Thrones, particularly for the approach of The Iron Bank of Braavos.

That was before 2008 (those were the days ...). Today a quant is a glorified scientific coder. Those "well-paying research-y roles" bring back tears of nostalgia for they are, alas, only of historical interest. Mostly dead and buried. KCL is another "me-too" program and likewise for Cass. Your...

Bud Fox would have been too stupid to understand it. But also Sun Tzu is overrated. Why not Lidell Hart? Why not Clausewitz?

There are quite a few translations around. I like the one edited by James Clavell (I don't think he translated it). In Noble House (his novel of three decades ago, set in Hong Kong), some of his key characters had read it and were applying it.

Clearly you have read Dante's Divine Comedy.

He, Gauss and Riemann would have wet themselves silly. But on this forum you have ignoramuses pontificating about the strict line of demarcation between pure and applied. And I confess that after reading the same bilge year after year here, I grow weary. Another thing that bothers me -- while...

The division between pure and applied is fake, a bureaucratic convenience. Without courses in real analysis and linear algebra, mastery of ODEs, PDEs, and numerical methods is seriously hindered.

You need to code but you also need to think about it deeply. The Project Euler problems are one place to start. Another is Spraul's Think Like A Programmer.

If you're giving it this kind of divided attention, your mastery of coding will be superficial. You will probably still earn the certificate and know some of the C++ idiom -- but really understand little of coding in general.

Nope, nope, nope, yep.

I'm not saying "worst"; merely that this is an era of general economic contraction. Which means intensified competition for what jobs there are on offer. I'm not predicting some apocalyptic "end times" where the few survivors will be scrounging for cans of baked beans. Finance has been used by...

This one ain't no stinkin' recession.

It's like a game of chess where you have a bad position. The first thing is to understand you have a bad position so you can make appropriate moves (defensive and consolidating rather than attacking, for which you need positional advantages). But hardly anyone says these "negative" things.

Are there any -- other than maybe some obscure niches? This is an era of general contraction.

In the USA just about useless -- unless the interviewer specifically knows what the Part III is (and that still might not help). In the UK, maybe gives you a fillip, particularly if the interviewer/s went to Cambridge themselves. The Part III is useful in getting you into ranking math PhD...

He's finishing his BA, not the Part III. And the class (first, upper second, lower second, third, pass) of his BA remains unknown at the moment.

That's a good idea. If you get a first, you can probably get admitted to the Part III, and if you get a merit or distinction in that, you can get into a top US PhD program.

No, and I don't think even the second-tier programs will admit you. Furthermore you haven't said you enjoy math -- the ones who make the good quants are the ones who are genetically predisposed to do math and have enjoyed it since they were in diapers. The ones who have no aptitude for math are...