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Trader-Should I get a Quant Masters?

CheshireCat

Joined
1/1/19
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I am currently a jr.trader/assistant trader at a prop trading firm. I did my undergrad in engineering and understand statistics very well however, I do not know programming. As many know, the trading industry is changing and many traders need to know programming languages, especially to remain competitive. Although I'm not required to know any programming languages now (we have two traders who are advanced in computer science that do the programming for the desk), I don't know what the future will hold?

I am not able to spend a lot of money on a master's program. Does anyone have any advice? I have been considering learning programming languages and machine learning on the side as it may be more cost-effective but I don't know where to start? I don't know if getting a masters or learning it on my own would be more beneficial.
 
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As far as I can tell, most people going into a graduate program in financial engineering or mathematical finance already know how to code at least some (most I would say are probably already pretty proficient?). If you simply want to learn programming, you certainly wouldn't need to complete a master's degree. There are plenty of online self-paced courses (like the C++ one offered through QuantNet) that can get you started at a fraction of the cost of a graduate degree. My two cents!
 
I will highly recommend that the first thing you do is finding a coding course online for free. There are a lot of those and some of them are great. Look for instance at:
www.datacamp.com

Introduction to Python for Finance Course

Build Python skills for the finance industry in this four hour course. You will learn how to work with lists, arrays, data visualizations, and analysis.
www.datacamp.com www.datacamp.com

This has (almost) nothing to with finance but a great way to learn Python and coding in general. when you are done with this course then go on and find something more advanced. DataCamp have something similar for R as well. Python have gained extreme amount of popularity for the past years and definitely not a bad language to learn. Good alternatives for DataCamp are coursera.org and codeacademy.com.

coursera.org is a great alternatives for people wanting to learn without spending money on Master programs.
 
No, you don't need a quant finance degree at all. Just take a free/simple coding course or read books/blogs online.
 
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