Howdy y'all
Before I start, I must say I have been lurking around in the shadows on Quantnet for a while now...I came across this forum about two months ago and I must commend all you folks for doing such a marvelous job. I 'm almost half way across the country but I feel I know y'all already. I have been sucking up a lot of information, knowledge and advice from this forum and felt it would be selfish not to contribute and keep this forum going. Well without further ado here is my story or rather my path to discovery. I sincerely hope you won't get too bored
I just recently graduated with a BA in physics, BS in Electrical Engineering and minor in CS and I wasn't really enthusiastic about going to graduate school right away because I already spent my fair share of time in school and I was ready to go out there and change the world. About six months ago, I went on my journey of discovery to figure out what I wanted to do. I was good with software and knew enough hardware and Linux to be dangerous, but I just didn't see myself taking up a job exclusively as a code monkey or just a business person.
Two summers ago, I had an internship with a reputable firm as a business analyst, I wrote some code but I also collaborated with folks from other groups, and made some business decisions (yes, I was important), then last summer I had an internship as a software intern for another reputable company, I ended up writing code 8-5 and most times I took my work home and also worked on weekends. After a gruesome 12weeks I knew that wasn't what I wanted to do the rest of my life (write code 8-5). I wanted to write code but I also wanted to interact with people, make business and strategy decisions and all that.
Most of the EE type jobs out there didn't really excite me (no offence to EE's), so my goal was to find something that was both interesting and dynamic. I decided to broaden my horizons, and I secured a position with one of the big 4 consulting companies. With that set, my eventual master plan was to work for about three years, go back to grad school, then work for a couple more years, gain enough experience and break out on my own..The thought of being a paycheck slave doesn't excite me either (no offence meant). When you attend, career talks, they always tell you to follow your passion that the money will eventually come. I was good a problem solver, I loved puzzles, I loved coding and I loved business, so I was thinking about possible grad school options and decided I was either going to apply for Systems Engineering and Operation Research at a top university, Computational geology and mathematics at a top university or SDM at MIT.
I had taken a class in discrete math and the prof. made it really open ended, one of your test scores would be based on any exciting math stuff you can come up with, so I built a fuzzy logic / probability model of the lotto number generator and I achieved a 2% accuracy, when I back tested with winning numbers from the past ten years. :smt024(hey, 2% is better than nothing). I felt really good about it, so I approached the prof. for a recommendation and she casually mentioned to me that there's a lot of exciting stuff going on in financial math and all and that she thought I would be really interested in it. So I when back and did some research and lo and behold, I discovered the field of financial engineering. The thought of playing with code/computation/math just makes my blood boil (literally).:dance: I guess the only reason I didn't study computational math was because, where I come from, if you're not an engineer or doctor then you're a waste to society, and my folks probably won't pay for it.
Anyways, I hope this hasn't bored you guys too much, but I plan to contribute to the many threads here in the future. By the way I have also decided to pursue an MFE in the future. I would still want to study System Engineering or Computational Math before I apply to the MFE program (I'll be 30 by then), because I'm sure it going to be super competitive, with all the Ivy math and physics PhDs, trying to get into the field. Is this a good idea? Any thoughts or advice will be greatly appreciated. I don't necessarily want to work on Wall Street forever; my goal is to accumulate enough experience and then start my own finance/software outfit. It's going to be a long journey, but every journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. I'm half way through Derman's book and I'm loving it (had to return It to the library bcos someone recalled it)
From what I can see on Quantnet, I have no doubt that Baruch MFE will become one of the crème de la creme MFE programs in the US and the world. :prayer:No matter the hype about the ivy programs, a program can only be as good as its graduates and y'all are worthy ambassadors. More power to your elbows.
thanks
Ike
Before I start, I must say I have been lurking around in the shadows on Quantnet for a while now...I came across this forum about two months ago and I must commend all you folks for doing such a marvelous job. I 'm almost half way across the country but I feel I know y'all already. I have been sucking up a lot of information, knowledge and advice from this forum and felt it would be selfish not to contribute and keep this forum going. Well without further ado here is my story or rather my path to discovery. I sincerely hope you won't get too bored
I just recently graduated with a BA in physics, BS in Electrical Engineering and minor in CS and I wasn't really enthusiastic about going to graduate school right away because I already spent my fair share of time in school and I was ready to go out there and change the world. About six months ago, I went on my journey of discovery to figure out what I wanted to do. I was good with software and knew enough hardware and Linux to be dangerous, but I just didn't see myself taking up a job exclusively as a code monkey or just a business person.
Two summers ago, I had an internship with a reputable firm as a business analyst, I wrote some code but I also collaborated with folks from other groups, and made some business decisions (yes, I was important), then last summer I had an internship as a software intern for another reputable company, I ended up writing code 8-5 and most times I took my work home and also worked on weekends. After a gruesome 12weeks I knew that wasn't what I wanted to do the rest of my life (write code 8-5). I wanted to write code but I also wanted to interact with people, make business and strategy decisions and all that.
Most of the EE type jobs out there didn't really excite me (no offence to EE's), so my goal was to find something that was both interesting and dynamic. I decided to broaden my horizons, and I secured a position with one of the big 4 consulting companies. With that set, my eventual master plan was to work for about three years, go back to grad school, then work for a couple more years, gain enough experience and break out on my own..The thought of being a paycheck slave doesn't excite me either (no offence meant). When you attend, career talks, they always tell you to follow your passion that the money will eventually come. I was good a problem solver, I loved puzzles, I loved coding and I loved business, so I was thinking about possible grad school options and decided I was either going to apply for Systems Engineering and Operation Research at a top university, Computational geology and mathematics at a top university or SDM at MIT.
I had taken a class in discrete math and the prof. made it really open ended, one of your test scores would be based on any exciting math stuff you can come up with, so I built a fuzzy logic / probability model of the lotto number generator and I achieved a 2% accuracy, when I back tested with winning numbers from the past ten years. :smt024(hey, 2% is better than nothing). I felt really good about it, so I approached the prof. for a recommendation and she casually mentioned to me that there's a lot of exciting stuff going on in financial math and all and that she thought I would be really interested in it. So I when back and did some research and lo and behold, I discovered the field of financial engineering. The thought of playing with code/computation/math just makes my blood boil (literally).:dance: I guess the only reason I didn't study computational math was because, where I come from, if you're not an engineer or doctor then you're a waste to society, and my folks probably won't pay for it.
Anyways, I hope this hasn't bored you guys too much, but I plan to contribute to the many threads here in the future. By the way I have also decided to pursue an MFE in the future. I would still want to study System Engineering or Computational Math before I apply to the MFE program (I'll be 30 by then), because I'm sure it going to be super competitive, with all the Ivy math and physics PhDs, trying to get into the field. Is this a good idea? Any thoughts or advice will be greatly appreciated. I don't necessarily want to work on Wall Street forever; my goal is to accumulate enough experience and then start my own finance/software outfit. It's going to be a long journey, but every journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. I'm half way through Derman's book and I'm loving it (had to return It to the library bcos someone recalled it)
From what I can see on Quantnet, I have no doubt that Baruch MFE will become one of the crème de la creme MFE programs in the US and the world. :prayer:No matter the hype about the ivy programs, a program can only be as good as its graduates and y'all are worthy ambassadors. More power to your elbows.
thanks
Ike
). I guess quantnet is a great plaform to come across people like you.
