Looking for honest career and life advice

[Mustafak]

Hi everyone, I hope you are doing well

I need some meaningful advice in my career, things have been going like @#$% since COVID for me, and I am out of ideas. I am from Mexico FYI.

My experience to now:

I graduated from engineering in February 2020, I also got a graduate diploma in Finance by 2019. My plan was to enter anything related with Finance and then to study a master degree in Quant Finance (Yeah I have been wishing to jump into Quant since 2018), I graduated and any position I applied in Q1 2020 was frozen due the COVID, I was looking for jobs for 3 months and I was able only to get into a local startup a Software Engineer (I have a degree also that is some kind of equivalent to an Associate Degree in Software Development), then I got into a bigger startup and this startup merged into another that was even bigger, the team was small but international and I was promoted to team leader.

Well all this fell, by end of 2022, I was working on contract basis, and due numbers the company decided to switch all the Software Developers to project based, so they would spend less and they wanted to focus on developing many feautres but more on maintenance. Well the last project I had was by August 2023, and yeah I started looking for jobs since my contract switched but I wasn't any lucky, and to be honest to today I havent been able to find any relevant job in anything. My career is broken, I have been more that 1 year without any job, my BSc is not in CS or Systems, and the market is super competitive everywhere.

My tries to get into QF:

Well, now about QF, I always was excited about trading, sice HS, but I never thought that there was some kind of degree focused in strong maths with finance, FYI in Mexicvo there is not such a degree like Quantitative Finance or Financial Engineering, the closes is actuary, but I didn't know about it either. I knew about QF in mid-university while reading about financial markets. My plan by then (when I was 20 YO) was to get a Fulbright Scholarship for studying the master in the US I tried in 2021, and 2023, and I was completely unlucky, and even worse I had lost all my job and identity and I was passing through a strong depression.

My next plan was to study in Europe, since I cannot afford to pay US,UK,CA tuition, and applied in ETH, and I just got my rejection letter past week, I know that QF is more maths based, but I feel f#$%^&! frustrated after all this time, I applied to more universities but my first option was ETH I feel like if I studied art and wanted to jump to physics, but my degree is still in engineering, and I don't why getting accepted it feels so impossible.

What makes me feel the worst is that I am already 28, I will be 29 by June, and I am not even close to finance not to mention QF as it was my goal, I am unemployed, I feel old, I don't wanna be chasing master programs all my life, is really getting into a program that hard with my background? Because I cannot even get a job after years of experience. What mekes me the more sad is that my original idea was to be graduated of the master degree by 26, if by miracle I am aditted in a school this year I will finish by 31. I really hate my situation

Please I need your advice, because I cannot more with this, I don't even know if I want to continue more on this, I feel like I studied for nothing, worked for nothing and I am not doomed to work on low paying jobs forever.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

My heart breaks for you. You have my sympathy.
Life is tough and so many have been upended by Covid.
If it makes you feel any better, your situation is not as bad as other, even if you feel like this.
You are not too old by any mean. I started my MFE at 30, around the same as many in my cohort.
QF is more popular now than it was 30 years ago so you see many young people enter it now. It doesn't mean there is no place for someone older.
You applied to ETH because of the low fee, I assume. It also comes with a low acceptance rate which is part of the course.
Just need to be more realistic and find your niche. There must be something you can offer.
Work with a career coach, refresh your resume, tailor your job search. Reach out to @MRoss to see if he has any advice for you.
You only need one good thing to happen to turn things around.
Hang in there.

 

[Mustafak]

My heart breaks for you. You have my sympathy.
Life is tough and so many have been upended by Covid.
If it makes you feel any better, your situation is not as bad as other, even if you feel like this.
You are not too old by any mean. I started my MFE at 30, around the same as many in my cohort.
QF is more popular now than it was 30 years ago so you see many young people enter it now. It doesn't mean there is no place for someone older.
You applied to ETH because of the low fee, I assume. It also comes with a low acceptance rate which is part of the course.
Just need to be more realistic and find your niche. There must be something you can offer.
Work with a career coach, refresh your resume, tailor your job search. Reach out to @MRoss to see if he has any advice for you.
You only need one good thing to happen to turn things around.
Hang in there.

Hi Andy, thank you for your reply.

Well, yeah maybe I am not that old, I just feel tired of been chasing this, and only getting rejections.

Well I chose ETH because it has affordable tuition and it is still a top school that could help me advance internationally. But the main reason it is because I got EU citizenship 2 years ago, so even to be able to work while studying sounds good if it is a top school in EU. On the other hand if I was admitted into a mid-tier university I know that jumping to any other country would be substantially harder, that's why I feel like this. Maybe it is a whim, but I am afraid of getting the degree in a mid-tier university in EU and then finding myself struggling to find a position after all this time, because let's be honest, this degree is demanded mostly by US and UK.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

let's be honest, this degree is demanded mostly by US and UK.

Many graduates of mid-tier programs are not able to find work in the US and UK. There are 1000 applicants applying for 1 position that everyone wants to get.
It stands to reason that if one wants to increase his chance, he should broaden the scope and target roles that are less glamorous but still in demand.

 

[Mustafak]

Many graduates of mid-tier programs are not able to find work in the US and UK. There are 1000 applicants applying for 1 position that everyone wants to get.
It stands to reason that if one wants to increase his chance, he should broaden the scope and target roles that are less glamorous but still in demand.

I understand, but your advice is not to get into QF so? I mean if I study in let's say Germany, I know it it will be really hard to jump to UK.

I wanna study this? yeah, but studying a degree is useless unless it provides some advantage, like having experience as a Quant in any institution. Otherwise I find a degree useless.