Was I never meant to be for a quant career? I'm ready to hear it.

[orangepeach]

Here's the skinny : I'm on track to graduating from a non-target school with a 2.8 GPA in statistics and mathematics bachelors program this year. I've had no relevant internships.

The reason why I did so poorly is because, well, I find math and probability difficult. I wanted to pursue it anyway because I like mathematics.... I'm just not GREAT at it. I didn't exactly have a straightforward upbringing either which greatly affected my academics up until my late teens. I dropped out of high-school because of an early pregnancy that I ended up losing.

I wanted to do this rather than becoming an actuary is because I'm sort of averse to taking more exams. I really don't want to go stay in academics either, meaning I don't want to teach... I intend to pursue a masters in applied math or stats. My C++ isn't that great, but I intend to take the certificate program here to try and shape up for quant finance.

Would any bank or place hire someone with a GPA as low as mine? I really don't think I will kick ass during my graduate education either and I will likely score averagely or slightly below. Is this a job like many others where internship experience counts more than grades? How could I go about acquiring these internships? Or should I just call it quits and figure something else out instead?

 

[wkdwnstjdTprtm]

So you don't want to do A, B, C, dot dot dot, Z. What do you want to do? I hope you are not trolling

 

[orangepeach]

@wkdwnstjdTprtm I mostly don't want to teach or have to pass exams in order to progress... which feels a lot like school. I'm sure there are more careers out there. I just haven't heard of them. I'm wondering where else could people with financial engineering backgrounds could go. Surely most people are are aspiring to enter the field, but you all must have back-up plans in case this doesn't work out right? Where else have you guys considered?

 

[MRoss]

I will give you advice you don't want to hear; but I think it is what you need to hear.

2.8 from non target means you are not cut out for rigorous mathematics. Saying you enjoy mathematics "but you are not very good at it" basically means you enjoy analytic thinking and you like a good challenge...but I doubt you would like the stress of studying 8 hours a week for a single stochastic class only to get a D.

I suggest going into computer programming; and if you like finance, become an IT guy in a bank. Solid hours, and very interesting work if you like analytics but don't want to torment yourself with rigorous mathematics.

Get an MBA or a Masters in computer science from a city college and you should have no problem landing a nice back office job at a solid bank. From there you can advance your career however you see fit.

 

[TehRaio]

Agree with MRoss,
there are ways to leverage your analytical mind but not necessarily with more math education.
I had issues too as a ugrad and I dropped out of college, my grades were atrocious, but when I came back I started averaging around 3.4-3.5/4. It was for me a challenge because I wanted to know if, having removed many of the issues, and bad habits which prevented me from focusing on school, I could do reasonably well with physics and math.

One Caveat regarding a Msc in computer science: depending on your taste you may find yourself flabbergasted by the lack of depth in some of the theory courses in computer science. My department offered a course in numerical optimization, we kept implementing optimization and machine learning algorithms but not much time was spent trying to understand what was going on. I guess if you truly want to study Logistics regression you should study statistics instead...

Also you should consider a Masters in Applied statistics if you really want to further your math education, but you don't want to take break your skull with the more abstract courses. You will have all the statistics knowledge needed to be a data scientist, you would just need to learn the computing part which is much easier. If you can find a Msc in data science that could also work. There are many options, take your time, and talk to your professors.

I want to stress that if you feel you can't reasonably do much better than 2.8 then you shouldn't do a Msc in a quantitative discipline because the level expected is much higher, trust me. If you still want to try it, just take one or two graduate versions of courses in probability theory, or courses in which you did well as an ugrad, and see if you do well in them.