Grad Education for Hedge Funds

[Royrburns]

Hey guys,

I got my undergraduate degree in finance as I wanted to become a financial planner. I'll actually be sitting for my CFP examination toward the end of the year as well.

I do plan to pass my exam, but I no longer want to work as a CFP. I want to become a Quant at a hedge fund. I really enjoy math and planned to pursue graduate school anyway.

I've gotten a lot of recommendations to pursue a PhD in some kind of physics. Astrophysics comes up a lot. I'm wondering if a PhD in pure math would make more sense for a quantitative role.

I don't know how to code much at all. I've been told not all roles will be coding though. For example, I'd like to deal more with forecasting using statistics.

I'd like to know which types of degrees would be best to pursue here? My guess is that physics is so sought after because they deal with real world problems and pure math is less so.

Thanks for the help!

 

[Daniel Duffy]

I've gotten a lot of recommendations to pursue a PhD in some kind of physics. Astrophysics comes up a lot. I'm wondering if a PhD in pure math would make more sense for a quantitative role.

Maybe, maybe not. Astrophysics and physics (not enough maths) sounds Cold War at this stage. "pure" maths .. depends ..
Better: more applied/numerical

I don't know how to code much at all. I've been told not all roles will be coding though. For example, I'd like to deal more with forecasting using statistics


Quantnet C++ is the standard. It is a real skill to have.
I feel 95% of jobs entail 'programming'.

 

[MMF]

I've gotten a lot of recommendations to pursue a PhD in some kind of physics. Astrophysics comes up a lot. I'm wondering if a PhD in pure math would make more sense for a quantitative role.

Maybe, maybe not. Astrophysics and physics (not enough maths) sounds Cold War at this stage. "pure" maths .. depends ..
Better: more applied/numerical

I don't know how to code much at all. I've been told not all roles will be coding though. For example, I'd like to deal more with forecasting using statistics


Quantnet C++ is the standard. It is a real skill to have.
I feel 95% of jobs entail 'programming'.

Do you think one in pure math can still get a great quant position assuming they have some familiarity with numerical analysis and programming? I am currently in an applied PhD program but considering switching to pure out of academic interest, but my career interest is still becoming a quant.

 

[Royrburns]

I've gotten a lot of recommendations to pursue a PhD in some kind of physics. Astrophysics comes up a lot. I'm wondering if a PhD in pure math would make more sense for a quantitative role.

Maybe, maybe not. Astrophysics and physics (not enough maths) sounds Cold War at this stage. "pure" maths .. depends ..
Better: more applied/numerical

I don't know how to code much at all. I've been told not all roles will be coding though. For example, I'd like to deal more with forecasting using statistics


Quantnet C++ is the standard. It is a real skill to have.
I feel 95% of jobs entail 'programming'.

I see. Before you commented I actually decided I would learn to code. So, I'm committed to that aspect at least.

As far as the math goes, despite being a finance major, I've spent a lot of personal time studying math. So transitioning wouldn't be too terrible I'd like to think. Whatever I'm behind on, I have no problems catching up in my own time as well.

Should I just go into statistics? Your opinion on this would be really helpful.

 

[princeofbelair]

I feel like quantnet gets too many of these types and can automate a way to provide useful information. Anyways in response to your post, I think ALMOST all quant roles do programming; I have yet to see one that doesn't, otherwise it's probably more of a trading role. I think you're best to just research what kind of quant roles at hedge funds you would be interested, maybe even build a trading algorithm yourself. There's statistical arbitrage, HFT, low latency trading, etc. Then there's subcategories in these spaces. Different roles look for different skills like c++.