Wasted time, bad decisions, bad GPA

[ThisINAM]

Hi guys/girls,

I am in a bit of a situation here.

I am already 22 years old, will be 23 when I am finished. Currently finishing my degree Economics, in my fourth year with 1 course and thesis left. My university is ranked top 20 in europe and top 50 world wide, isnt known for Economics or anything.

I can still fit in some other courses to improve my GPA (3.2), quite easily to a 3.5+ by following a few extra courses before finishing my degree. Lack of direction, working on poker and health issues are the cause of this. It makes me really sad as I know I am amble to, brainwize, to just get 4.0 GPA with a degree such as economics.

I dont have any finance related internships. In the country where I am from this is not uncommon, but then when I look at the international competition, everyone seems to have internships.

I took a year off after high school to play poker profesionally and also spent a lot of time on poker during my studies. In the end I managed to save 150 000 USD after taxes. Which gives me some relieve of being able to pursue more education financially wise.

I want to go into the real world, I am burned out from poker and the opportunity costs of continue playing are immense.

I know I wont get into top universities with a 3.5GPA, let alone a 3.2GPA, + no internships. One may argue to playing poker is something unique though.

Anyway, sorry for the ridicusly long post, I am just totally lost what I want to do with my life.

I had the idea of getting a pre-master in Econometrics and then later on a master in Econometrics. I will be almost 24 when I finish my pre-master, and almost 25 when I finish my master. I have several possibilities for a master in Econometrics (top 10 europe):

Econometrics and mathmatical economics
Operations research and management
Quantitative Finance and Actuarial Science

Another option would be to finish this year and do a
Masters in finance and investments (ranked 25th worldwide)
or
Masters in international management (ranked 7th world wide)

I would like to get into finance in New York or London. Preferable as a quant, hence the econometrics.

Which path is less likely to fail... or all they all?

 

[bigbadwolf]

Which path is less likely to fail... or all they all?

Econometrics will bore you insane. I presume you've studied the math theory of poker -- books like The Mathematics of Poker. If you have, build on it and look at books like The Doctrine of Chances and Knowing the Odds and see how you can apply it to finance (which is gambling on a larger scale).

 

[ThisINAM]

Poker is evolving a lot, especially more recently. A slightly losing player nowadays, could have been one of the biggest winners 5 years ago. When I started out, most of the players played based on intiution, and some logic. As time went by more and more people started playing mathmatically and game theoricallywise more optimal. For example currently a hot topic in the poker world is GTO, game theory optimal, which is trying to play a strategy that is unbeatable (at best an opponent can expect to breakeven against such as strategy). This includes playing mixed strategies, by for example 70% of the time doing Awith X, and 30% of the time doing B with X, in order to be not exploited by an opponent and playing a balance ''range'' of hands. Of course versus a weak opponent people still play an exploitable strategy, since the weaker player wont come close to exploiting it, which will be more profitable. Software such as Piosolver.com is used to calculate these ranges, and frequencies.

Thank you for replying btw . Your advice that you mentioned, is stuff like that recognized by firms hiring you? (If you understand what I mean).

 

[bigbadwolf]

Your advice that you mentioned, is stuff like that recognized by firms hiring you? (If you understand what I mean).

If you're smart enough to make that money playing poker, you're smart enough to not want to be an office drone -- which is essentially what many MFE graduates end up being. Look for something different. Something of your own, something off the beaten track.

 

[ThisINAM]

What do you mean by that sorry, something completely else, you advice to not get into finance at all?

Thanks

 

[bigbadwolf]

What do you mean by that sorry, something completely else, you advice to not get into finance at all?

Get into finance -- if that is your interest -- on your own terms. You possibly have an entrepreneurial streak; in that case the MFE may not be the best option for you.

 

[ThisINAM]

Thank you. I think you are right. I just have these streaks of thoughts of wanting to de MFE and then later on I want to do something else.

 

[Yike Lu]

Why haven't you tried just applying to places or getting in touch with a recruiter to do so? This can be for internships. See what's out there and see what you're missing skill-wise before deciding to commit to an Masters. You simply don't have enough information to evaluate what how employable you are.

Also I agree with bigbadwolf, you are more likely to get traction with smaller shops, Chicago in particular.

 

[ThisINAM]

Thanks so much for replying.

I dont know why I have not. My life was so much focused around poker over the past years, I didnt have motivation for anything else. But now I feel differently, I want to get to the next step. And have some catching up to do, get in touch with recruiters for example.

I will do some search for Chigaco.

 

[Berk Torun]

Actually you have the perfect story and background for a non-quant hedge fund. Answering "What is the greatest risk you have taken?" during interview would be very funny in your case.

 

[ThisINAM]

Actually you have the perfect story and background for a non-quant hedge fund. Answering "What is the greatest risk you have taken?" during interview would be very funny in your case.

Thanks for replying. Do you by any chance have a suggestion which one ? I have taken quite some (sometimes stupid) risks haha.

 

[Berk Torun]

Thanks for replying. Do you by any chance have a suggestion which one ? I have taken quite some (sometimes stupid) risks haha.

Unfortunately most of these firms do not have careers websites. Though most of them have contact e-mails. Very prominent ones I know of are Pershing Square, Greenlight, Third Point. Some of them even have very bizarre recruitment styles. Bill Ackman of Pershing Square Capital Management hired a guy as intern he met on tennis court :D
Also worth mentioning, David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital Management is known for being a good poker player.

By the way your GPA is fine. But if you still want to become a quant and think your cv does not look that good, you might prove yourself in WorldQuant challenge.
WorldQuant Challenge - 2015

 

[ThisINAM]

Thanks a lot!!!

Funny story haha, can not imagine how that went down.

Thanks for the advice, really !

 

[PepeQuant]

omg...you have a very interesting background...Your GPA is not low. A GPA of 3.5 is not low for schools like Columbia MFE. And with a big plus on your background, I think you should give a shot to top tiers programs.

 

[F.Fontana]

You might find my story interesting since I was in your almost same situation in April 2013: five digits monthly income from poker, last semester in a Bachelor's Degree in Economics and Finance with a bad GPA in a non-renown italian university, no internship, bad english proficiency, and a strong will to do all my best in order to become a (possibly quant) trader.
After a ton of hours spent deciding what to do with my life, I decided to pursue a Master's Degree instead of becoming a qualitative trader. Essentially, the reason is that if I had pursued the technical analysis route, I guess that I would have found myself in the same situation that I were when I quitted poker. I applied in top3 Master's Degree in Italy in quantitative finance and got accepted only in the ranked 3rd. I spent an enormous amount of time of self study and my poker background impressed the small hedge fund manager that offered me an internship as machine learning researcher in Switzerland. Now I'm enrolled in the MSc Computational Finance in UCL.

Since you have listed very different masters, I'll assume that you don't have a clear clue about your ambitions. As bigbadwolf suggests, forget econometrics. Furthermore, don't be afraid of your age since the other options could be worse. Being a quant means nothing. You could take a look at quantstart.com since there are information that could clarify your doubts. You should highlight your poker career in your CV since it might impress some recruiter that might decide to bet on you despite your weak academic background for a quant role (it has worked for me in getting the research internship).

I would add that if you basically want to crunch numbers, in my opinion you must decide for one of the following two approaches:
-Data driven: Machine Learning / Computational Statistics / Computational Finance (with machine learning modules available).
-Model driven: MFE / Mathematical Finance / Quantitative Finance.
Personally, I find more sexy to extract patterns from data rather than solving PDE, but it depends on your taste.

If you prefer to seek for a job as the others wise guys have suggested, I would add that you might would avoid to get stuck in power point and spreadsheet role since you don't have a quantitative background.