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Unsure on what university to do my undergrad degree at

JamesZA

Joined
4/14/23
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So in a few weeks I have to decide whether or not I accept my offers for American universities and I am still unsure whether I want to stay in Sydney or go to America. My main concern with America is the likeliness that I will get hired for a quant job over there or back home in Australia with a degree from a school like Michigan State University.

I've been accepted into Arizona State University and Michigan State University both for an undeclared business major. But I am aware US universities are flexible and I could switch.

I saw a previous post on the sub reddit r/quant that listed the top feeder universities in each country for quant roles at the top companies like Citadel, Optiver, Jane Street, etc. I observed that the main feeders in the USA were ivy league universities and couldn't see MSU on the list. However the top 2 feeders in Australia are UNSW and U Sydney, which both generate around 200.

My main reason for wanting to go to America for university is to experience a different uni life then what I would experience here in Sydney, however I also don't want it to hinder my ability to get a job in the quant trading field.

I would also like to know what undergrad degrees are the best to set me up for the quant field. I did the IB in highschool and achieved the highest bands in physics, maths and economics. I'm most interested in economics and computer science but would be willing to do engineering (electrical or mechanical)

I also see a lot of quants that have a masters degree and was wondering if the masters would be more important that my undergrad degree.
 
Hi James,

Looks like your Australia options are higher ranked worldwide than your US options. And I imagine the cost is significantly less to stay in Australia than go to school in the US. So those are two dimensions that may point to staying in your home country.

On the quant side-- I would advise taking a course in econ, CS, and engineering in your first year of undergrad. Explore what interests you. It may be that quant finance isn't what you end up choosing as a career (I completely changed my major after my first year of college and am currently pivoting from research to quant finance). I didn't even really know much about the quant finance field until after college, and now will be attending CMU MSCF from a non-Ivy US school. Point is, do what interest you and it'll all work out.

If you're set on quant finance, it seems like a really good path would be to stay in AUS and double major (math or stats) & (econ or finance), minor in CS. But again, explore a bit your first year! Good luck with the decision.
 
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If you're already this focused you will be fine.

I went to Michigan State and can DM if you have questions. But my honest opinion is you will definitely be at a disadvantage, how could you not be when competing with applicants from top schools. If you're really serious you should considering trying to transfer to UofM after freshman/sophomore year. I know a few people who did that.

If you attend a non-target school the masters degree is more important. MSU is doing some cool things in their computational math, science & engineering program. I did Economics + CMSE which I think is a good route.

Get close to a 4.0, recruit and network intensely for internships, get into a top 10 masters program and you'll be in good shape.
 
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