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Quick question about programming languages

TheMaster

Joined
8/13/12
Messages
21
Points
13
I'm dedicating this next year to studying programming before I start my Ph.D. studies. Are these programming languages sufficient enough to be a competitive applicant for internships?

1. C++ (self-study)
2. Visual Basic (1 community college course + self-study)
3. Python (2 courses in community college)
4. Excel VBA (self-study)
5. SQL (self-study + microsoft certification sql server 2012)

I plan on taking C++ through the baruch program or going off some books on the master reading list. In addition, I plan on taking the microsoft certification for SQL.
 
Instead of VB.NET (I presume that's what you mean by Visual Basic, there's no point in learning VB6 nowadays) I think I'd recommend C# -- esp. since you're already planning to have VBA covered. A good final project (presumably one of many) might be to test if you can put these skills together -- e.g., XLL (or one many of, usually friendlier, wrappers, like XLW) to test your Excel with C++ -- and also VSTO (Excel-DNA might also be a good -- possibly better -- alternative) to test your Excel with C# dev skills.
 
Polter said:
Instead of VB.NET (I presume that's what you mean by Visual Basic, there's no point in learning VB6 nowadays) I think I'd recommend C# -- esp. since you're already planning to have VBA covered. A good final project (presumably one of many) might be to test if you can put these skills together -- e.g., XLL (or one many of, usually friendlier, wrappers, like XLW) to test your Excel with C++ -- and also VSTO (Excel-DNA might also be a good -- possibly better -- alternative) to test your Excel with C# dev skills.
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=( there was a c# class available but I didn't register for it because I didn't see it listed in many quantitative analyst job ads. As for VB, its VB 2010. I read a post on here about a quantitative risk modeler who used visual basic so that's why I took it.
 
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