Intellectually Stimulating Career Path?

[halamadrid]

Hi all,

I was wondering if Financial Engineering (I know, very general) would be the right career path for me if I'm seeking a more intellectually rewarding career? By this I mean something both technically challenging and providing some ability for creative insight/ idea generation on an almost daily basis.

Reason I ask is because I am a Finance major/ Econ minor going into my last year in school. I have recently taken a few IBD internships and found the work mundane to say the least (creating powerpoint slides and formatting/copy paste info/ find and format comps). Worst part is that I saw the analysts/ associates do almost exactly the same work, with just a bit of modeling thrown in (which atleast seemed more interesting) as well as the usual roadshow crap. Then apparently these guys are putting up with 100 hour work weeks of high school level work to hopefully make it up to a VP/MD position where they are really glorified Salesman.

Will the quant roles take me far away from this drudgery?

While I love my finance/ economics classes, the applied practical method seems to be about as fun as.... yes, watching paint dry. Now that I have gotten out of my narrow focused path I have found my mbti testing (INTJ), career counseling to strongly relate to the sciences/engineering spectrum.

I have found that problem solving/ and forecasting really seem to be the two areas that interested me most when describing the perfect career. ( I know, sounds like I just want to skip straight to executive.:wall)


I'm actually most interested in the trading/strategist roles but feel I would enjoy both the MFE program and the possible career path (I've thought about academics as well). Problem is I have almost no programming experience and have not taken math since I passed my highschool AP Calc test. Thus I am planning on cramming a math minor into my last year at school to hopefully satisfy the requirements for both the financial engineering programs and the Masters in Financial Economics at Oxford and LSE.

* Really I'm just wondering:

1.) Will the quant role constitute a more interesting, challenging career? (I've heard programming involves quite a bit of creativity and problem solving)

2.) Will the MFE programs at the very least give me a head start towards a phd path or perhaps even allow me to switch into a more traditional engineering masters program?


Thanks to anyone who can offer a bit of advice. As you can see I've already made up my mind in terms of job satisfaction being more important than money (without having done any FT work yet). I can't possibly think of spending more than 8 hours a day at a job I don't enjoy. 120 hours a week in IBD would have me jumping out the window.

 

[subhrain]

BTW, I would really like a IB job. Do they hire engineers by any chance

 

[Joy Pathak]

Alright, no one has posted anything useful for you...so here goes.

I have switched from Mechanical Engineering to Financial Engineering to have more opportunity for growth, have challenging work and projects that I see actually get implemented rather than wait around for bureaucracy and never see my projects go into play. I wanted something where I would be on edge, and I would be pushed to my intellectual limits. I wanted something that I would b REALLY proud of, something that was just so advanced that the mere mentioning of my profession would raise eyebrows. I even tried other engineering fields like Materials engineering and Fluid Engineering. Fluid engineering was what I liked best and that is why I chose Financial engineering as they are almost similar with more opportunities in Fin Eng. The amount of jobs in fluid engineering is like 1/100 in comparison to Financial engineering related positions.

I am yet to start my program, but from all the research papers I have read, and the books/stories of "quants", this field is where I belong.

Seeing, your post seems like the situation I was in so I can empathize a bit.

This is what I will tell you...

You need very very very very very VERY STRONG Math to even have a shot at admission at the good schools. It is a common fact that Bachelors in Finance and so on are NOT academically rigorous programs. You will have to take the minor in math to make yourself stand out. I know a very smart guy who had a Bachelors in Finance and Minor in Math and got into a top firm out of undergrad in Chicago and will soon be joining a top MFE degree to further his career. If a school let's you in without the math that is not a good sign. It will almost certainly mean that you will get completely overwhelmed when the courses start. MFE is one of the most rigorous programs out there. The small time span in which you have to fit sooooooo much advance knowledge is pretty intense. I have a strong quantitative background from engineering and MATLAB and few other programming languages knowledge and I am sure it will be very tedious for me too.

If you do not have some background in programming or advance mathematics it will be very hard if not impossible to survive in the program. Now I have heard of programs ...mine included where you can take lighter quant load in the program. What is the point of MFE degree without the quant courses? Well mine is MFin...but you get my point. Just get an MBA-Fin then. If you want to be in a "quant" related position, your mathematical and programming skills have to be VERY strong. The positions are usually filled by PhD Mathematics/Engineering/etc.

1.) Will the quant role constitute a more interesting, challenging career? (I've heard programming involves quite a bit of creativity and problem solving)

MFE will give you the challenging work environments you are looking for. The job you secure after the MFE degree...I don't know about that. You have some IBD experience so that is a good thing as it will aid in your job search atleast a bit.

I have not worked in the field yet of finance, but I have been in quantitative roles previously at various companies focusing on programming and statistical work, and it is challenging at times. I am sure it will be A LOT more challenging and fun in the finance field.

Others will be able to comment better on this question.

2.) Will the MFE programs at the very least give me a head start towards a phd path or perhaps even allow me to switch into a more traditional engineering masters program?

MFE is a professional degree. You will invest at minimum 50K in tuition + living. 50 seems to be the average price of an MFe/MFin etc degree. Baruch is cheaper, look into it...but without the math/programing you won't be as competitive there. You really think you can go into a PhD degre with 50-70K debt on your head? The program builds you to get into the work-force and not into academia. You're taught by practitioners (at least the good programs), not by academic researchers.
BUT...it is your choice. If you want to enter PhD after, you will be a good candidate for PhD Finance or PhD Mathematical Finance etc. The rigor of the program will look very attractive on your application.
If you are 100% sure on getting a PhD then you're better of entering a MA Economics, or MA Math/Stats.
I personally have been very interested in pursuing a PhD finance, but it would not be for a while as I want to just completely keep my focus on getting the best possible grades I can and gain as much knowledge out of my program as I can so that I can get a good job in a quantitative finance field. Maybe PhD in the future depending on my job.

I am almost 100% sure you cannot get into a Masters in Engineering(mech,electrical,civil,etc) program by completing a Masters in Financial engineering even if it is housed in the engineering department. You need undergrad in physics atleast, or engineering to enter Masters in Engineering. You need a technical undergrad degree.

My $0.02. Hope it helps. Feel free to ask more questions.

Here are lots of math courses mentioned that would be useful.

Any Math courses? - Forum | Quant Network

Here are two blog posts I made on QuantNet that might be a bit helpful.

The Beginning | Quant Network
Reasons why I joined the Illinois Institute of Technologys Master in Finance program | Quant Network (Take this post for content of what you should be looking for in programs...and not the Illinois Tech program specifically)

In terms of programming...

Knowledge of MATLAB, Excel/VBA, C++ are helpful for admission. Many students here are learning Python also...together. Take a course in programming to show your proficiency though. It will serve you better than telling ad-coms that you self studied.

Learning Python together - Forum | Quant Network

 

[atreides]

BTW, I would really like a IB job. Do they hire engineers by any chance

Please don't hijack other peoples threads.

 

[halamadrid]

thanks for the response Pathak.

Anyone who has actually worked as a quant or knows someone who is working as one that can give me some info?

 

[halamadrid]

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

 

[Andy Nguyen]

"Anonymous Senior Wall Street Executive Who Frequents This Site" emailed me this (Note: many Wall Street people read Quantnet but can't post directly due to the firm compliance rules).

I've done quant work and hired dozens of quants. People wouldn't do it for long if it weren't intellectually stimulating. You may not get the most interesting assignments right out of school, though. There are dues to be paid in any job. Consulting and/or entrepreneurial work will likely provide the most interesting variety of tasks, early on. Working for a trading house requires working your way through the ranks to the point where senior management will come directly to you for your opinion and you can direct the research on hedging strategy, market direction, etc.

That said, I got many interesting blue-sky projects as a young man, some of which didn't start out that way but morphed mid-project into really substantive work.