Future Failed Physicist: The Switch to MFE

[David Maughan]

Hi Everyone!

I'm a physics major undergraduate at a no name school (Utah State and I LOVE it here) and I realized that I don't have it in me try to walk the path of a theoretical physicist. I don't really want to spend 6 years doing a PhD and 6 years doing postdoc work before I have a decent job. So I want to switch to the life of a quant.

I was wondering what advice you can give to people like me to get into a top program.

Here's my situation
I'm a junior.
-3.98 GPA (4.0 in physics)
-Math classes in everything up to abstract algebra, foundations of analysis, stats, probability, LA, ODE (math was an earlier major of mine)
-I worked for NYS Department of Health as a Student Assistant doing Excel and a bit of VBA.
-This summer it looks like I'm doing statistics/data analysis for a Healthcare company in Salt Lake.
-I am beginning research solving the Einstein equations for Gen. Relativity, programming computers to verify the solutions, and storing them in a database with relevant data (big data sort of stuff)

I plan on having three great letters of recommendations (research, employers) and scoring high on the GRE.

Maybe relevant is that I served a full time two year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and speak fluent Spanish because of it.

Next year is senior year. Does it look like I can get into some top programs? What can I do to round out my application?

Thanks in advance!

 

[ronaldy]

I think you have a great shot!

 

[David Maughan]

I think you have a great shot!

Thank you so much! I don't know anyone in the field so all of my information comes from the internet so it makes me a bit nervous. Thanks for being so kind

 

[yetanotherquant]

I don't really want to spend 6 years doing a PhD and 6 years doing postdoc work before I have a decent job. So I want to switch to the life of a quant.

Pretty bad motivation.
One should switch to quant due to passion to (first of all) financial markets and (then) number crunching ability.

It doesn't mean that you will inevitably fails as a quant but you should invent a better answer to the question "why have you decided to be a quant", which is very probable on a job interview.

 

[KillingField]

Pretty bad motivation.
One should switch to quant due to passion to (first of all) financial markets and (then) number crunching ability.

It doesn't mean that you will inevitably fails as a quant but you should invent a better answer to the question "why have you decided to be a quant", which is very probable on a job interview.

I couldn't care less whether someone is into markets, and indeed there are very few quants that got more than a whiff of education in finance; most everyone has a technical background of some sort and there's more than a handful of "failed physicists" who maybe even resented the idea of working for personal gain rather than the betterment of mankind through selfless pursuit of knowledge and distribution thereof. Yet they make excellent quants.

You really have to try to answer a question like "why quant" badly. While that may be a job interview question you'd ask of someone who has a nontraditional background, nobody is going to question the motives of someone who holds an MFE. Skills and technical knowledge and know how will be tested, but nobody is going to challenge your claimed hobbies or passions or care if they are not perfectly aligned with theirs.

 

[yetanotherquant]

I couldn't care less whether someone is into markets, and indeed there are very few quants that got more than a whiff of education in finance; most everyone has a technical background of some sort and there's more than a handful of "failed physicists"

This was true for the first cohort of quants, now it is not anymore.
At least quant jobs get more and more generalistic and more and more non-quantitative skills (i.a. the knowledge of [the basics of] regulatory frameworks) are required.

 

[pingu]

Pretty bad motivation.
One should switch to quant due to passion to (first of all) financial markets and (then) number crunching ability.

It doesn't mean that you will inevitably fails as a quant but you should invent a better answer to the question "why have you decided to be a quant", which is very probable on a job interview.

Working for Passion is a lot of crap.

Don’t do what you love for a career—do what makes you money
A Steve Jobs quote perfectly sums up why passion isn't enough for career success
Why "Follow Your Passion" is Pretty Bad Advice

what you said about missionary work and knowing spanish is not going to move the needle that much. Most of the chinese students in these programs can barely speak english. They can ACE the TOEFL but can keep a conversation aka, can't communicate.

Do research, present work in conferences if you can. Keep a blog with your musings about the field or something related to it (that's a good marketing ploy).

 

[ronaldy]

Working for Passion is a lot of crap.

Don’t do what you love for a career—do what makes you money
A Steve Jobs quote perfectly sums up why passion isn't enough for career success
Why "Follow Your Passion" is Pretty Bad Advice

what you said about missionary work and knowing spanish is not going to move the needle that much. Most of the chinese students in these programs can barely speak english. They can ACE the TOEFL but can keep a conversation aka, can't communicate.

Do research, present work in conferences if you can. Keep a blog with your musings about the field or something related to it (that's a good marketing ploy).

Well if your passion is to make money, then you have passion

 

[bigbadwolf]

Working for Passion is a lot of crap.

I think the idea is to find what is lucrative and then (somehow) develop a "passion" for it. In other words, delude others (and probably oneself) that one has an enthusiasm for it.

 

[yetanotherquant]

Working for Passion is a lot of crap.

Doing a boring job is even more crap

Do research, present work in conferences if you can.

Unless you have passion for it, don't!
When you are not a renowned scientiest, doing a research (with a goal to have your paper accepted to a conference or a journal) is a very long-term project with pretty small probability of success.

Look which response I got from JoPM, as I tried to publish my paper on Kelly criterion.

Dear Mr. Nekrasov,

I received feedback on your paper from two reviewers. Neither felt that your paper warranted publication in JPM. Let me summarize what both reviewers said.


1. It's simply NOT TRUE that Kelly strategies cannot be used with n rather than one asset. An example is a paper published in Management Science in 1981 by Hausch, Ziemba, and Rubinstein.
(remark: the whole paper(!) is on how to use the Kelly criterion in case of n assets, not just one. And I am quite sure that Bill Ziemba - who definitely was a reviewer - merely envies me. He discovered a lot but he failed to find a close-form solution that I did)

BTW everything what happens happen for your own good. In particular, my paper on SSRN got more than 7000 downloads and I don't think I would have so much readers in JoPM (and an impudent requirement of JoPM is to remove paper from web or to pay $2000).

In this sense: do a research for yourself. Unless pursuing academic career, forget this stupid peer review journals and most of conference. Remember Grigori Perelman, who refused to take $1 000 000 prize with explanation "who are they to fucking judge what I have done?!"

Keep a blog with your musings about the field or something related to it (that's a good marketing ploy).

In a sense yes, but again - unless you have a passion, your blog will join the tons of neglected and abandoned blogs.
I run mine (which is actually more than blog, since at least some posts have interactive quantitative tools) and it takes a lot of time and efforts.

I think the idea is to find what is lucrative and then (somehow) develop a "passion" for it. In other words, delude others (and probably oneself) that one has an enthusiasm for it.

This is likely the most clever advice.
In a sense, I, myself, did it.
First I had a passion for pure math but soon saw that one hardly can make money with it.
Then I turned to more applied things, which are also very challenging and they bring you to money more directly

 

[KillingField]

...

Pingu's advice is on career development and how to boost one's chances of getting accepted into a university program, not to be taken as a suggestion that research is what one should dedicate oneself to. A blog will certainly signal strong interest in the subject even if it is just posting worked solutions to textbook answers that nobody cares about. The same goes for research, which shows ability to digest the current literature and to solve new problems (however isoteric).

As for the rest of your post, I did not quote it in mine so as to give you a chance to remove the unfounded, bitter slander and the rant which will score you high on Baez's crackpot index despite it being "designed" for physics.

 

[yetanotherquant]

As for the rest of your post, I did not quote it in mine so as to give you a chance to remove the unfounded, bitter slander and the rant which will score you high on Baez's crackpot index despite it being "designed" for physics.

Dear, I appreciate your generosity but I don't care about Baez's or whatever crackpot at all.
In asset management and trading only track record matters and I belong to the absolute minority that can beat the market.

Look at Taleb, he is not my idol and there are a lot of things I disagree with him but he is great in telling the direct truth (or what he hold for it) instead of political correctness.

If you disagree with my statements, I am open to a sachliche (factual) discussion but if you want to preach me a morality, then don't waste your time, please.

 

[pingu]

A blog will certainly signal strong interest in the subject even if it is just posting worked solutions to textbook answers that nobody cares about. The same goes for research, which shows ability to digest the current literature and to solve new problems (however isoteric).

Through the years, I have found somebody will find value in your blog posts and reasearch whatever they are as long as they are technical in nature. Some people will find it interesting and some people will find it stupid. Don't worry about it. Hopefully your detractors will give you good ideas instead of bashing for the sake of bashing.

 

[David Maughan]

Thank you everyone for your replies! I really appreciate the input. I will try to start a blog and update it weekly with my research.

I should have mentioned that I have already taken some business classes and I'm currently in a finance class. I do have interest in the subject, although the money is exciting.

Thanks again!

 

[Daniel Duffy]

Working for Passion is a lot of crap.

Replace this word by creativity, motivation and graft is more exciting.