New Quantnet members say hi

[Rodney Chabuda]

Hey everyone. My name is Rodney and im starting college next year in south africa. im zimbabwean. your community is quite kul and i hop you will all help me out with wateva questions i have. i would like to be a quant. im going to be doing a degree in Economic Science majoring in Actuarial Science and Mathematical Statistics. its a 3yr degree so it will be very tight everything cramped up in 3yrs rather than the normal 4yrs. to those who already made it, my curriculum however doesnt have comp sci courses so i want to ask how imperative it is for me to do comp sci courses at undergrad level? can i do it at masters level from scratch? should i also try doing it part time outside of my curriculum?

 

[dstefan]

I understand why you would not "rate profiles"[really no one likes to infringe upon adcoms rights], but what about something of the nature of "help me make the cut" or "what should I do to improve my academic profile". I frankly believe that such posts("suggestions, what do I do to make my profile stronger") are very important and give direction to your application. I'm sure when you were outside you really did want to know how your profile could be made stronger, so why not help others now? Okay I'm trying to sugarcoat but the point is that the above statement stinks of hypocrisy!

The ``rate profile" and ``how to improve" posts are very different in nature. The first type basically asks for either encouragement and a weak promise for admission, while the second one, if phrased properly, asks for advice.

Most people here are in no way qualified to give a meaningful answer to the first type of post, therefore we discourage it.

As for the second one, if it is not disguising a ``rate profile" post, and is meaningful, it might elicit responses, depending on how busy people are.

Of course, not using strong words like ``stinks" and ``hypocrisy" might be a good idea

 

[dstefan]

Hey everyone. My name is Rodney and im starting college next year in south africa. im zimbabwean. your community is quite kul and i hop you will all help me out with wateva questions i have. i would like to be a quant. im going to be doing a degree in Economic Science majoring in Actuarial Science and Mathematical Statistics. its a 3yr degree so it will be very tight everything cramped up in 3yrs rather than the normal 4yrs. to those who already made it, my curriculum however doesnt have comp sci courses so i want to ask how imperative it is for me to do comp sci courses at undergrad level? can i do it at masters level from scratch? should i also try doing it part time outside of my curriculum?

Welcome!

For the Baruch MFE program, in particular, you would need at least one semester of C++ to be admitted. This may not be the case for other programs. Taking a class outside the curriculum could work.

Good luck!

 

[Rodney Chabuda]

thanx for the info. but is my line of curriculum good enough (ie Actuarial science and Mathematical statistics) or maybe another line of curriculum is better (like majoring in Computational Maths and Mathematical Stats). my other questioon is on MATLAB. how powerful is it. can it be used as a substitute for C++ for me to do FE in the future. MATLAB vs C++.

Welcome!

For the Baruch MFE program, in particular, you would need at least one semester of C++ to be admitted. This may not be the case for other programs. Taking a class outside the curriculum could work.

Good luck!

 

[Eric Procs]

By the way I was ironic when I wrote "is it time for "rate my profile" post, which is the way newbies "introduce" themselves on some other forums such as global-derivatives'.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Eric,
No need to feel apologetic. We provide help whenever we can.
Funny you mentioned about posts on GD and how the very first post is "Rate my profile/chance"
New members here seem to take the time to familiarize themselves with the community and come up with more specified questions.

 

[odunayo]

Hello, my name is Odunayo, an IT auditor interested in switching to financial engineering. I posted a thread on the forum but it appears it hasnt generated enough interest. pls i need your advice. thanks

 

[Hao Lam]

Hello everyone, I'm Hao from Madison, which is in WI, not NYC.
Just want to say 'hi'.

 

[muagrawal]

Hi

hi everyone,

I am Mukul Agrawal. I am working as a software engineer in India. I completed my B.Tech degree in Industrial engg from IIT Roorkee in 2006. I am applying for FE programs for Fall 2008.
Just wanted to say hi to everyone

 

[zhangmoumou]

hello everyone i'm zhangxx from shufe ,shanghai ,china.
nice to see everyone here .
i'm planning to apply for a mfe degree in 2009 fall.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

A big hearty welcome to all of our new members. I hope you can make this community an active one by participating, not by merely lurking

 

[Bonita Squires]

Hello, from Bonita

Hello there all,
I am a physics graduate student at the UW Madison campus and am very interested in a quantitative analysis. I am not graduating for a couple of years and am interested in finding an internship. I am hoping to obtain work experience that will be complimented with additional coursework before I graduate. I am currently a dissertator, but have ample time to take an additional course each semester and during the summer. I am really excited to find the gaps in my knowledge and start gaining some directly applicable experience. Thanks so much for this sight. I can't wait to see what advice everyone has!
Cheers,
Bonita Squires

 

[srramaraj]

Hi everyone,

I am Ramaraj from India. Working in a Mutual Fund. Would like to learn quant techniques and use them in my day to day investment activity. I am also an ardent programmer mostly on Oracle database with PB & VB.

 

[Yuriy]

Hello there all,
I am a physics graduate student at the UW Madison campus and am very interested in a quantitative analysis. I am not graduating for a couple of years and am interested in finding an internship. I am hoping to obtain work experience that will be complimented with additional coursework before I graduate. I am currently a dissertator, but have ample time to take an additional course each semester and during the summer. I am really excited to find the gaps in my knowledge and start gaining some directly applicable experience. Thanks so much for this sight. I can't wait to see what advice everyone has!
Cheers,
Bonita Squires

Physics and Nuclear Engineering? Awesome!
How serious are you about getting a job in finance? physics majors are ones of the most successful on Wall Street.

 

[Anton Slepnev]

Hi there!

My name is Anton, I am a PhD student at MIPT, Moscow, Russia, with specialization in applied maths.
Interested in statistics, probability, stochastic processes, mathematical modeling, IT (of course).

I am working for an asset management company as a senior developer, developing a front-office system.

Greetings to all of You, hope I will have good discussions here!

 

[lindsay]

I'm posting here so the welcome message at the top will hopefully go away. I'm in Maths/FE at York in Toronto, finishing April 08.

 

[Aravind]

Hi guys,
I introduce myself as Aravind and I wanted to say Hi to all of you guys!

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Hi to all the new members.
Glad to see you all here. We are getting close to 1500 members really soon.
Some of you guys are throwing me off with your use of real names and screennames. Most people here uses first name as username. (I know. We are different from the rest of the forum space).

To request a username change, please post here Username change request thread - QuantNetwork - Financial Engineering Forum

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Hey all, brief intro...

Was in the Baruch program but for a second -- unfortunately, work and family has me tied down and unable to commit to the program's demands. Still, I've been continuously studying math/quantitative finance on my own for several years now, and continue to follow what's going on in the field... it's in my blood.

Wish I could be there with you guys!


--eli

Nice to finally meet you today, Eli
The program is just getting more demanding time/effort/braincell wise
Definitely keep us in the loop despite all the craziness called work/life that going on with you.

 

[John H]

Hello everyone,

Nice to see you here Rodney. I'm also from Zimbabwe initially, although I have lived in Sweden all my life.

Usually I only lurk around on public web forums, without writing much, but Quantnet's friendly atmosphere inspired me to at least say hello.

I'm 25 years old, and work full time as a test engineer for a major Swedish tech company. During 2008 I intend to wrap up my BSc in mathematics. As I also happen to have most of the credits needed for a bachelor of economics, I'm leaning towards having that finished during 2009, or thereabout.

My plan is to work for perhaps 3 years, learning more about [mathematical] finance on my spare time, and then apply to a couple of foreign MFE programs when I've got more work experience, my degrees finished, and enough money saved.

Quant wise my current projects include a portfolio management application in Excel, and reading Energy Risk: Valuing and Managing Energy Derivatives. Power modelling seems to be an exciting field for the coming decade.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!