I am feeling a little lost.

[baz]

First of all, thank you very much for reading this. This is my first post, but I've been a long-time lurker here. Your advice is greatly appreciated.
Before I ask for advice, let me give you some background. I recently graduated with a B.A. in Math and Economics from Rutgers. I knew I wanted to be a quant after I took a math finance course for undergrads in my sophomore year and did well. In the following years, I completed all the prerequisite courses for the masters program in quant finance at my school.
Unfortunately, there are now a few things holding me back. I lost my way in my second and third years, got very poor grades, and gathered no work experience. After maintaining a 4.0 in my senior year, my GPA upon graduating was a 3.35 / 4.00.
At this point, I am utterly confused about what I should do. My plan is to apply for masters programs for the Fall 2014 semester. Before that, I intend to complete the online certification C++ offered through QuantNet. I took the GRE and received a perfect score on the quant section.
My main concern is related to my work experience. I recently accepted a job as a statistical (SAS) programmer for a clinical data management company, just to avoid remaining idle after college. My true intention was to gain experience that would be relevant to my goal of being a quant. My question is: what kind of job would best complement that goal, given my qualifications, and what is the best way to pursue those kinds of jobs?

 

[Ken Abbott]

That job sounds perfectly fine. Keep track of the markets and hone your story.

 

[baz]

That job sounds perfectly fine. Keep track of the markets and hone your story.

Thank you very much for the response, Ken. I was concerned that the position wasn't relevant, but now I feel reassured. If I did want to move to something more relevant before I began the MFE, what kind of positions would I qualify for and how would I seek them out? Someone told me I could land in quant analytics at a boutique if I could demonstrate a basic level of competency programming in Java/C++

 

[C S]

Someone told me I could land in quant analytics at a boutique if I could demonstrate a basic level of competency programming in Java/C++

Keep in mind that the job market for good jobs in finance is highly competitive. Anyone good that has prepared somewhat for a quant career will have basic programming skills. If you are thinking that's sufficient, you should probably get a better idea of the competition in the job market. Personally, I'd consider it the first step of 1000....

It's probably become something of a caricature to insult Java programmers, but in reality, I've found few people are impressed by Java proficiency (if you are a guru, that's a different story). Work on C++; the transition from C++ to Java is much easier than the other way around (at least, that's what a lot of people believe, and in particular, that's what people hiring you or recruiting you will believe). At the least, it will help you on tricky interview questions (one might suspect C++ is the programming language of choice on Wall St not because of its actual features, but because you can ask some ridiculously tricky things about it).