Introduction and question about age

[TeeVeeDude]

Hi everyone.

I currently work as Director of Research (market research) for a Television station. But I never graduated from college and I've decided it's never too late, so I'm enrolled in the BSci program in Mathematics and Economics in the University of London's External Programme.

U of L has recently introduced a MSci in Quantitative Finance and that program greatly interests me.

The problem is that by the time I finish a Master's I'll be 57 years old.

Is it crazy to think of changing careers at that age?

 

[alain]

it's never too late if you like to study. However, your salary requirements might price you out. Plus you will need high energy levels to keep up with the pace (get out those Red Bulls)

 

[IlyaKEightSix]

Oh God, Alain...after several days of 2 hours of sleep and red bulls, I was ready to go smash something...more like early to bed early to rise and work all day in the meantime.

There's no substitute for a nice 8 hours of sleep. (I hope 8 hours of sleep a night isn't just a fantasy on Wall Street =/)

 

[cstassen]

8 hours is fantasy, but only 3 is a myth. somewhere in between

Oh God, Alain...after several days of 2 hours of sleep and red bulls, I was ready to go smash something...more like early to bed early to rise and work all day in the meantime.

There's no substitute for a nice 8 hours of sleep. (I hope 8 hours of sleep a night isn't just a fantasy on Wall Street =/)

 

[alain]

If you want to work at GS and make it big (I think that's your dream), you won't be sleeping 8 hours. I can't tell you that. So get used to sleep at most 6 hours. That will be trainning. You can mix it up with a 5 or 4 hours once in a while to see how your body responds... ah, and make sure you are sharp the following day. If not, what's the point? That's what the any job expects from you.

 

[charlesdwright]

Is it crazy to think of changing careers at that age?

If you mean, are you going to meet hurdles and challenges because of your age, the answer is yes.

So what?

 

[Ka Wai]

It baffles me a little bit you want to transition your career to quant at that age.

Obviously, the simplest way for you is to take advantage of your current position and network within your company. However, it's not obvious to me that there will be too many, if any, quant position at a TV station. My guess is your external networks likely are quite irrelevant to quant finance as well.

If you are able to fight those hurdles and get a position as a quant in a very different environment. Your soft skill may help. But your success will largely base on your technical skills. And I think you may find it hard to stand out among PHDs purely on technical skills. And it may not be wise to put your steady income at risk at that stage.

If tuition is not an issue and you don't look at the monetary return, I can understand why you should pursue the MS degree. And I'll be very proud of you if you finally finish your degree. However, you should think twice before giving up your director position for something else.

Just how I analyze your situation...

 

[IlyaKEightSix]

If you want to work at GS and make it big (I think that's your dream), you won't be sleeping 8 hours. I can't tell you that. So get used to sleep at most 6 hours. That will be trainning. You can mix it up with a 5 or 4 hours once in a while to see how your body responds... ah, and make sure you are sharp the following day. If not, what's the point? That's what the any job expects from you.

Honestly? It depends how much fun I'm having. In the classes I've enjoyed, I could sleep through half the lecture and not miss anything. In the class that was boring, even after a latte, I couldn't stay awake.

My last limit was several days on 2-3 hours of sleep and red bull, with my bio clock going completely haywire, and completely botching a phone interview because that interview I scheduled after the supposed deadline for this insane project, but then it got extended indefinitely.

However, that project was absolutely absurd. The program took several minutes to start up, ten minutes for a single run on no animation, and an indefinitely long time to run with animation, so we more or less could forget about finding any sort of solution. Getting the thing to run was a moral victory.

But when I have fun with projects, I can blast through them and work into the wee hours of the night until my inner clock just hard-shutdowns my body. So if I'm having fun, my productivity is through the roof.

Cstassen, on average, what are your sleeping hours like? Could you get more if you were to cut down on the after-work nightlife?

 

[xoxqun]

If you believe that you are up to the challenge and the opportunity, go for it. You only get to live once. What really matters is not how many days or years one counts while on this planet, but what one makes of oneself at any age.

The specific program is available part-time and can be done online, so there doesn't seem much to loose, probabilistically speaking, if the payment of tuition is no problem. Do check the value added as many of the courses are still under development and many others seem more like traditional Finance and Economics courses. Compare with the curricula of the leading programs to see if your investment of time and money is worth it. Best of luck!

Comments about the discussion on this thread and on other forums where people ask if I am too young or too old to do whatever, such as enroll in graduate or doctoral program.:

The real questions to ask would be if one can perform at any age (say past 50 or 70) better or worse than at younger age (say 20 or 30). Does it matter if you are too young 20 (inexperienced) or over 50 (too experienced). As long as you can work harder than others, set up higher standards for others, and achieve better results than others, age is irrelevant in determining what you can achieve. In recent years, we are seeing more and more people who are too young (in 20s) or who are too old (past 50s) defying the 'age old' assumptions about age (pun intended). In both these mythical age brackets, there are individuals who are setting world records in Olympics, who have made billions of dollars in personal net worth, and who occupy positions of great influence in world politics. Such data available in the tallies of newer world records, gold medal tallies, and Forbes list of richest seems to suggest that health, wealth, and wisdom are increasingly uncorrelated with age.

The following exceptions prove that the age old hypothesis about age is increasingly obsolescent.

Hiroshi Hoketsu
Michael Bloomberg
Warren Buffet
John McCain
Barack Obama
Michael Phelps
James Simmons
Dara Torres
Tiger Woods
World's Youngest Billionaires

There are many other such individuals in their 20s and in their post-50s across various worldwide professions who typically work 17-18 hours every day and yet may literally hold the future of the world in their hands today or tomorrow.

Lesson Learned: Often, you may hear that such cases are 'exceptions.' Sounds familiar. Some of the world's most significant financial crises including the current ones are also being called 'exceptions' by many. However, greater number of exceptions (such as the 10- or 20-sigma events occurring with much higher frequency than what is their expected probability based upon the Gaussian bell curve) tend to prove that the current assumptions about such models are outdated. In a nutshell: Performance matters, everything else is b.s.

Hi everyone.

I currently work as Director of Research (market research) for a Television station. But I never graduated from college and I've decided it's never too late, so I'm enrolled in the BSci program in Mathematics and Economics in the University of London's External Programme.

U of L has recently introduced a MSci in Quantitative Finance and that program greatly interests me.

The problem is that by the time I finish a Master's I'll be 57 years old.

Is it crazy to think of changing careers at that age?

 

[alain]

what was the point you tried to make with that list? All of them were really young when they started and then, they became famous.

BTW, politics is not the best way to measure performance. There is a huge machinery behind the politcal system so it has nothing to do with the person's performance.

 

[bigbadwolf]

it's never too late if you like to study. However, your salary requirements might price you out. Plus you will need high energy levels to keep up with the pace (get out those Red Bulls)

He will be too old. Quant work -- like chess and mathematics -- is a young person's game. The young have the mental and physical stamina, the keenness of memory, and the speed of thought. A person over 50 can't live on 4 hours of sleep a day and not have his concentration and work suffer. The meticulous attention to detail that quant work requires will in any case not be there. Other than attention to detail, the speed of learning will be down, and the rate of forgetting will be higher. Let's be real and not dole out fake optimism. To give an example from chess, grandmasters over the age of 50 frequently faint at the board during the fifth hour of play -- and even before the fifth hour, their play suffers as they can't keep up the razor-sharp concentration that come effortlessly to players in their teens and twenties. With age come certain compensations -- learning short-cuts, learning how and where not to fritter away energy needlessly -- but they in no way make up for the drive and energy of youth.

 

[alain]

BBW, you are right but I don't agree with the chess analogy. If you are well prepared physically, you can handle the game.

the OP might be extremely smart and have the wits and vision to apply the knowledge. IIRC, Math is a young men's game for new discoveries but not for application. I think that's the reason why the Fields Medal is only given to really young people.

 

[xoxqun]

Point: There is no correlation between age and performance / success. Performance and success are defined in terms of whatever is most meaningful to the specific individual. It could be a benchmark of health, wealth, wisdom, their combination, or anything else: competitively measured, appreciated in terms of self fulfillment, or a combination of both. For some billionaires whom I heard recount their stories: as they flourished more, it was just a matter of 'keeping score.'

Here is a verbal analysis of the above list. Some achieved high level of performance and sudden success at a younger age, Tiger Woods starting playing golf at 3. Some started from scratch in their 40s and achieved success over the next 10-20 years. Bloomberg lost everything and started on his success story when he was around 40. Simmons was an academic until around he was 40 and launched RenTech. Lee Iacocca was fired when he was 54 by Ford, before he took Chrysler to its helm and turned it into Ford's archrival. In contrast, some had best performance as they grew past 20s and 30s, and into 40s: they are the best at their sport in 60s and 40s while beating competitors in their 20s and 30s. Ergo, there is no correlation between age and performance or success. Some achieve success young and later loose it all: those are not in the above list. We are familiar with examples from the recent events in the corporate USA and the Wall Street: how the Big-8 in Accounting is now Big-4 and how the Big-5 in investment banking will be recounted after the dust settles from the current storm.

Many can and do perform at a higher level even as they age past 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and few even past 80s and 90s. They seem to embody what some notable person said about excellence: Excellence is a habit. Some may call such individuals ‘lucky’ or 'outliers,' and perhaps some of them are. Many wait for a lifetime to stretch themselves to the next level, to a higher level of performance and success. Others just drift, sadly, waiting to start exerting themselves to perform and succeed at a higher level tomorrow or next week which sometimes never comes.

The reference to political leadership needs some qualification: the specific hint was to individuals such as the young Ivy League graduates in their 20s and 30s who occupy senior positions of power in national governments such as in Colombia. There are and were other national government leaders, including women in their 60s and 70s, who were leading countries considered among the world's leading economies today. Some of them were known for sleeping four hours a night while heading countries with billions or hundreds of millions of denizens.

what was the point you tried to make with that list? All of them were really young when they started and then, they became famous.

BTW, politics is not the best way to measure performance. There is a huge machinery behind the politcal system so it has nothing to do with the person's performance.

 

[bigbadwolf]

BBW, you are right but I don't agree with the chess analogy. If you are well prepared physically, you can handle the game.

One game, yes. But the old suffer in lengthy tournaments and matches -- which is why they frequently withdraw in the middle of tournaments. A serious game of five hours will lead to a loss of about a pound of body weight. In the 1985 world championship, Karpov lost about 25 pounds of weight, and Kasparov wasn't in much better shape. These days players train like athletes: aerobic conditioning, weight training, nutrition, adequate sleep. But the young maintain a strong edge. The old simply lack the reservoirs of energy to draw on. I would expect the same in quant work.

 

[bigbadwolf]

Point: There is no correlation between age and performance / success. Performance and success are defined in terms of whatever is most meaningful to the specific individual.

If you're defining performance completely subjectively, then of course there's no correlation. But if you're defining it in terms of competition with indefatigable, sharp-as-a-whip young studs, then there is a negative correlation between age and performance.

 

[xoxqun]

Here is the complete definition as noted earlier:

Point: There is no correlation between age and performance / success. Performance and success are defined in terms of whatever is most meaningful to the specific individual. It could be a benchmark of health, wealth, wisdom, their combination, or anything else: competitively measured, appreciated in terms of self fulfillment, or a combination of both. For some billionaires whom I heard recount their stories: as they flourished more, it was just a matter of 'keeping score.'

BTW, one of the billionaires noted in the last statement is past his 60s. He is in Forbes 100 and often quoted in financial press and business papers and he still seems indefatigable, sharp-as-a-whip young stud as he was at 14 when he started his first enterprise. He is known for his same 'take no prisoners' attitude, although in later years he maintains a clean shaved head. BTW, by the same rationale of inverse correlation between investment prowess and age over 50, both Warren Buffet and James Simmons should have been retired 10-20 years ago. Yet, their best times in terms of setting the world level benchmarks as investment gurus happened in the recent year, when they were past 60s and 70s.

If you're defining performance completely subjectively, then of course there's no correlation. But if you're defining it in terms of competition with indefatigable, sharp-as-a-whip young studs, then there is a negative correlation between age and performance.

 

[samiam]

Point: There is no correlation between age and performance / success. Performance and success are defined in terms of whatever is most meaningful to the specific individual. It could be a benchmark of health, wealth, wisdom, their combination, or anything else: competitively measured, appreciated in terms of self fulfillment, or a combination of both. For some billionaires whom I heard recount their stories: as they flourished more, it was just a matter of 'keeping score.'

Here is a verbal analysis of the above list. Some achieved high level of performance and sudden success at a younger age, Tiger Woods starting playing golf at 3. Some started from scratch in their 40s and achieved success over the next 10-20 years. Bloomberg lost everything and started on his success story when he was around 40. Simmons was an academic until around he was 40 and launched RenTech. Lee Iacocca was fired when he was 54 by Ford, before he took Chrysler to its helm and turned it into Ford's archrival. In contrast, some had best performance as they grew past 20s and 30s, and into 40s: they are the best at their sport in 60s and 40s while beating competitors in their 20s and 30s. Ergo, there is no correlation between age and performance or success. Some achieve success young and later loose it all: those are not in the above list. We are familiar with examples from the recent events in the corporate USA and the Wall Street: how the Big-8 in Accounting is now Big-4 and how the Big-5 in investment banking will be recounted after the dust settles from the current storm.

Many can and do perform at a higher level even as they age past 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and few even past 80s and 90s. They seem to embody what some notable person said about excellence: Excellence is a habit. Some may call such individuals 'lucky' or 'outliers,' and perhaps some of them are. Many wait for a lifetime to stretch themselves to the next level, to a higher level of performance and success. Others just drift, sadly, waiting to start exerting themselves to perform and succeed at a higher level tomorrow or next week which sometimes never comes.

The reference to political leadership needs some qualification: the specific hint was to individuals such as the young Ivy League graduates in their 20s and 30s who occupy senior positions of power in national governments such as in Colombia. There are and were other national government leaders, including women in their 60s and 70s, who were leading countries considered among the world's leading economies today. Some of them were known for sleeping four hours a night while heading countries with billions or hundreds of millions of denizens.

Success is directly correlated to the amount of hunger you have to drive your success.

In that respect, age should not have any bearing unless you are simply too old to perform the basic physical necessities of corporate success like working for 12 hours a day 5 days a week.

Some people achieve success earlier in life and maintain their levels or slowly fade out as the hunger is no longer there when they had nothing.

Others jog early on and after not getting all that they want, they start quickening their pace as they approach their 40's and beyond.

Quants and any other professions working as salarymen in companies should have no problem doing this as long as they can stand on their own two feet because they need to rely on their attitude, their desire, and their mental faculties to drive their desire to accomplish much more than their bodies.

If you can get up in the morning and drive to work you should be fine. The body deteriorates much faster in terms of strength and agility than the mind. Unless we are athletes, we will rely on our minds and not our bodies, although it is true that healthy body=healthy mind.

Ones desire to succeed, and once he has a goal and sets his mind to achieving, will simply spark the mind which will produce the adrenaline and energy needed to offset the normal effects of aging such as tiring more easily than when younger. Hunger will help you think better. Anyone is capable of doing pretty great things as long as the desire is there.

 

[samiam]

By the time I will be done with school with and looking to find a job as a quant, I will be 37. I have worries that companies will try to pass me over for people 10 years younger than me. And I do have market experience.

At 57, with no prior experience in markets or computer programming, although you will have no problems working for yourself as a quant, I would see a problem convincing heads of research/trading/risk mgmt to employ you when they would probably be around 20 years younger than you.

There is basic ability and there is BS and bureaucracy in the corporate world.

These hedge funds and banks are not some 2-bit insurance companies that would hire 50 something year olds to become IT guys or network administrators.

I think the BS and bureaucracy that applies to a lot of "cutting edge" banks and funds probably do so at the risk of meritocracy or pure ability. They might appreciate your skills and talent, but they might just not want to give orders to a father figure and likewise believe you would not want to take orders from them. The question of fit comes along and fit is not always commensurate with ability.

 

[JamesHH]

A serious game of five hours will lead to a loss of about a pound of body weight. In the 1985 world championship, Karpov lost about 25 pounds of weight, and Kasparov wasn't in much better shape.

One pound of body weight from the exertion of playing chess?

Amphetamine use sounds like a more plausible explanation.

 

[bigbadwolf]

One pound of body weight from the exertion of playing chess?

Amphetamine use sounds like a more plausible explanation.

Won't work. There may be new designer drugs around that may enhance intellectual performance but I don't know about them. Caffeine (via coffee) is usually the strongest drug a tournament player will employ -- and even that will exact a toll in due course. Today's players train like athletes and typically don't smoke or drink. During the course of a game, one's heart rate and blood pressure go up. Needless to say, I am talking of serious rated games against strong players and not five-minute chess in Washington Square Park.