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Starting Quant Career Advice

R M

Joined
7/17/12
Messages
3
Points
11
Hello, I just joined the forum today. I am a software developer in a proprietary trading firm and want to be a quant. I have a degree in Computer Engineering. I am 39 and out of touch with any math for quite some time. If someone can please suggest what I need to study (starting from the very basics) and how to proceed I would really appreciate it.

Thanks a lot in advance.
 
Hi,
Are you looking to self-train or get admissions into a Quant Program to be a Quant?
 
R M said:
Hello, I just joined the forum today. I am a software developer in a proprietary trading firm and want to be a quant. I have a degree in Computer Engineering. I am 39 and out of touch with any math for quite some time. If someone can please suggest what I need to study (starting from the very basics) and how to proceed I would really appreciate it.

Thanks a lot in advance.
Click to expand...

this link may be useful.

https://www.quantnet.com/threads/ma...uants-mfe-financial-engineering-students.535/
 
The link to the list of books/free guide that Jayanthan posted above is where you should start.
Read books, participate on online quant communities like this one, join an open source project like Quantlib, etc
It will not happen overnight so it will take time navigating around the field and decide where to focus your time and energy.
 
R M said:
Thanks for your reply. I am looking to self-train. I am kind of lost as to where to start :)
Click to expand...

Well, to be honest I found the Quantnet link above a little too extensive to wrap my head around. I suppose starting from Calculus and Statistics itself is a good idea to warm up and make sure you are familiar with all the little tricks. Then diff eq and familiarizing yourself with linear algebra. And most importantly, probably getting familiar with proofs is important to deal with very rigorous concepts you will come across as a Quant; you will need to study academic papers on Math-finance. Principles of Mathematical Analysis by Rudin is probably the best way to go about it. Though, if you are out of touch completely, would love to recommend "Understanding Analysis" by Abbott since its short and very well written.
Since I am familiar with only Rutger's admission process... I'm posting a link to their degree requirements website which lists the courses they teach and the syllabus too with which books the instructor uses. I guess in the end, once you can handle the math, looking into textbooks Quant courses teach would be the way to go.
And lastly, there are farrr more experienced members hanging around Quantnet than me so do ask around :) Hope this helps.

http://www.finmath.rutgers.edu/index.php?d=academics&p=degreeprogram
 
Maybe these books would be helpful for self-learning:

Statistics and Data Analysis for Financial Engineering

Financial Engineering and Computation: Principles, Mathematics, Algorithms

If by basics, you meant you also need to review calculus and math in general, these books are helpful for self-learning:

Calculus: Early Transcendentals

Advanced Engineering Mathematics, Fourth Edition

Elementary Linear Algebra (2nd Edition)

Linear Algebra

Introductory Functional Analysis with Applications

Introduction to Probability Models, Tenth Edition

A lot of the Financial Engineering language contains basic notation from Measure Theoretic Probability. It can be gained from the Shreve book (Volume II), or several other sources. But the Volume II, of the Shreve Book on Andy's book list is probably an immediately relevant (to finance) place to get that grounding.

Stochastic Calculus for Finance II: Continuous-Time Models
 
It's exciting to learn about QuantLib. I knew there would be something out there that would allow me to extend my C++ skills after the certificate. It's always good to have something you can actually point to that demonstrates your skills.
 
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