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Quant application - atheist disadvantage??

FEnzo

C++ Certificate with Distinction
Joined
10/17/10
Messages
74
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268
I am in the process of finalizing my resume for Columbia. In the extra curricular section, I am not sure as to whether I should include my participation in a local secular student association.
What do you guys think?
Will my lack of belief put me in an unfavorable position?
Or am I just over thinking this?
Let me know what you think! THX!
 
My MFE program has atheists, agnostics, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists (I think... I never cared enough to clarify). And our group is very small... I would imagine an even greater spread with larger groups.

In a truly professional setting, noone really cares about your religion beyond and intellectual curiosity about its customs. I should hope all MFEs are like that.

I wouldn't say not to put your religion on your application, but rather that your application should reflect you as an individual. If your faith is an important enough part of you that you would include it as part of a character profile for something where it really isn't relevant, then go for it. It probably won't hurt; it probably won't help.
 
As Anthony says, it is an asymmetric expectation of payoffs and not in your favour.

That of course is not a good thing, but my job is it tell it like it is, not as it should be, it only takes one religious nut in admissions to screw up your application.

Alexei's point about the diversity of this line of work is important. A professional can work well with any type of person and one thing that would upset the world view of the Occupy Wall Street people is that in our line of work there is more diversity than in most others except professional sport and for the same reason: people are the main asset and anyone who hires less than the best he can find risks being screwed over by those who do hire the best.

That's not to say that discirimination doesn't exist but that it weakens you and risks occasional legal crap.

As for soccer, there is a discipline in all applications that you should be ready to answer questions on every single word on your CV. In a previous job I had a team and wanted to hire a new body whose role was working with traders, but there was serious resistance to increasing costs.
New guy turns up for interview and the CEO of our division insists on interviewing him, given that he hadn't a clue about what my team did at a detailed level they chatted about soccer and he did well enough to get hired. Luckily for he also could do the the job, else I'd have had a fight over which one to hire.
 
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