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Life after a quant degree?

kichuxj

kichuxj

Joined
7/27/10
Messages
45
Points
18
I am creating this thread to get a glimpse of the life after getting a quant degree. Few questions I would like to ask is...

Which field are you working in?
How many hours are you working per week?
Do you think if this was the right career choice for you?

Most of the international students like me have no idea of the life after getting a quant degree. I sure dont want to wake up one day after 10 years and look back at this time and say that was a wrong career choice. So I request all of you who are in the industry to reply to this post.
 
You must find this attachment useful. But till then, you must make clear which quant degree. There is not a single degree stating you are a quant.
 

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Tsotne said:
You must find this attachment useful. But till then, you must make clear which quant degree. There is not a single degree stating you are a quant.
Click to expand...
By quant degree I meant mfe, math finance or computation finance.
 
kichuxj said:
Most of the international students like me have no idea of the life after getting a quant degree. I sure dont want to wake up one day after 10 years and look back at this time and say that was a wrong career choice. So I request all of you who are in the industry to reply to this post.
Click to expand...
Make no mistake. Many of these students will hate their life shortly after working. They will find that the jobs are not glamorous, the pay is not in line with the Wall Street average salary you keep reading about on newspaper.
The folks that have no understanding of the industry and heap of unrealistic expectation would be most disappointed.

As I look around, most of my friends are still in the finance industry with the same firm. The kick is that you will most likely have to stick to this industry because visa restriction and there aren't many industries where you can get comparable salary unless you can take a huge cut.

Lot of people join the industry and few people make it to the top. That doesn't seem to stop the number of people joining the line.
 
kichuxj said:
Most of the international students like me have no idea of the life after getting a quant degree. I sure dont want to wake up one day after 10 years and look back at this time and say that was a wrong career choice. So I request all of you who are in the industry to reply to this post.
Click to expand...

How do you define right or wrong choice? How do you measure it?
 
alain said:
How do you define right or wrong choice? How do you measure it?
Click to expand...
Alain the definition of right or wrong is personal, there are no absolute measures for it. I know a lot of indian students who are applying for this course just because it pays u well. Any IITian with a 9 point gpa and good profile can easily make it into one of the top notch programs. Even though they do well and end up with good jobs after a while they go to do an MBA and switch career again (by switch i mean move to a managerial position). Once the MBA is over whats the need of a quant degree?? Rather than taking the long way they can continue to work in India for a some more time and do an MBA later.
 
Andy Nguyen said:
Make no mistake. Many of these students will hate their life shortly after working. They will find that the jobs are not glamorous, the pay is not in line with the Wall Street average salary you keep reading about on newspaper.
The folks that have no understanding of the industry and heap of unrealistic expectation would be most disappointed.

As I look around, most of my friends are still in the finance industry with the same firm. The kick is that you will most likely have to stick to this industry because visa restriction and there aren't many industries where you can get comparable salary unless you can take a huge cut.

Lot of people join the industry and few people make it to the top. That doesn't seem to stop the number of people joining the line.
Click to expand...

Preach !
 
Andy Nguyen said:
Make no mistake. Many of these students will hate their life shortly after working. They will find that the jobs are not glamorous, the pay is not in line with the Wall Street average salary you keep reading about on newspaper.
The folks that have no understanding of the industry and heap of unrealistic expectation would be most disappointed.

As I look around, most of my friends are still in the finance industry with the same firm. The kick is that you will most likely have to stick to this industry because visa restriction and there aren't many industries where you can get comparable salary unless you can take a huge cut.

Lot of people join the industry and few people make it to the top. That doesn't seem to stop the number of people joining the line.
Click to expand...
Andy can u give some idea of the no of hours people work as an analyst..
 
I will take 60 any week. I used to do 80-95 in IB. 60 is heaven. 70 I can live with.
 
Here is the extract from Mark Joshi article "On becoming a quant"

13. Hours

How hard does a quant work? This varies a lot. At RBS we got in
between 8.30 and 9 and went home around 6pm. The pressure varied.
Some of the American banks expect much longer hours. Wall St tends
to be more demanding than the City. In London 5 to 6 weeks holidays
is standard. In the US 2 to 3 is standard.
 
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