Need Career Advice for Quant Job

[Resselle]

Hi guys,
I am sophomore at a non target, majoring in Finance and MS in Financial Big Data (It's a integrated program). After graduation, I want to work at a hedge fund so considering my academic paths I think I want to end up in some Quant Fund.

So I want to ask if you guys can share me some tips on how to become one (e.g. Internships, networking?, etc.). Do I need to take the standard path of working in IB before breaking in the Quant Fund ? My Big Data program is not super math heavy so do you think that is a negative sign for me ?

Also, I see a post from Peter Wagner saying that Algo Trading jobs are declining and thus are more competitive. Though I am decent at Math, I'm not the type with International Olympiad Math awards, so do you think I need to reavaluate my career path?

For this summer, I will intern at a investment banking position (not in US BB). Is it relevant to the career path I aspire to?
Hope someone will help me with these. Thank you

 

[Marco Sant]

It is not only on the "title", but mainly on what you will do. Quant funds in general probably have declining numbers of opportunities (but for interns you could find several, as nobody wants to pay for permanent jobs but are open to underpay young starters) but it also depends on the job.
If you want to be a quant or algo trader, probably having more maths or computer science is better, but you can also build your knowledge by yourself. If you want to be a portfolio analyst, an investment analyst or a risk analyst, this could be enough, but probably not in a Quant Fund.
I would say that everything is useful and nothing is enough, but if you push yourself and try to learn the more you can, you could probably succeed in obtaining a job in quant funds! Just don't stop learning and use your spare time to improve coding and programming (related to finance if possible)!