Prospective application

[Harshil]

Hi everyone.
I am Harshil.
A recent post-graduate with MBA in Finance.(CFA Level 1 cleared)
I have been placed at a Proprietary Trading Firm as a Derivatives Trader in India. I don't have any programming experience nor do I have any math background.
I am thinking of gaining 3-4 years of work experience and then applying for MFE programs across USA in elite institutes. Till then, I would hopefully complete my CFA level 2 and level 3 successfully.
I was thinking of going for CQF for gaining all the pre-requisite experience for math and programming.
Please advice me on my prospects and any further courses/credit courses that I can do to strengthen my profile.

 

[noether-skolem]

I'd recommend covering the maths and programming background you're lacking now. 3-4 years of work experience won't compensate for lack of formal education in linear algebra, stochastic calculus etc (even if you do pick these knowledge on the job, it'd be hard to convince the admission officers that you indeed have learned them). Depending on your work, you may be able to cover the programming background requirement, but that'll depend on how much you're coding on a daily basis.

CFA isn't very relevant for prop trading, if anything some prop shops explicitly say that they don't require any finance knowledge on the job listings.

 

[Harshil]

How should I cover those backgrounds? Any specifics you would like to share. Most of the programs ask for credit courses and I don't know how to obtain credit courses without going back to university in India especially.

 

[noether-skolem]

I suggest that you reach out to some current/past MFE students from India at the school that you aim to get into and ask them about it. Unfortunately I can't advise you on this matter (I had applied maths degree so I've satisfied most of the requirements).

 

[Harshil]

Any recommendations with respect to programming courses?

 

[noether-skolem]

The Quantnet C++ is highly rated by those who have completed it (I'm enrolled but not even halfway in so I can't give a proper review). Based on what I've seen in coding tests for job applications, I'd recommend getting familiar with data structures and algorithm complexity (more efficient implementations are sometimes required to pass the tests).

Oh and learn python (Quantnet has a course on that too, but it's relatively new). It's the most commonly required language from job descriptions, unless you're aiming for a specific firm, then you should look up what they use there.

 

[siladm]

This should help in terms of resources for math courses.

You’ll struggle mightily in the CQF if your math is rusty or you don’t know at least one programming language well.

 

[Daniel Duffy]

For the record, I am the originator of the Datasim ODE/PDE course.

Online Courses :: Datasim

www.datasim.nl