When did you realize that you would like to be a quant?

[pinkjigglypuff]

Did you reach an epiphany while reading a book? Surfing the web? Watching a movie (ie Money Never Sleeps)? Talking to a career counselor or a quant family member? Love of math or science? Love of pushing yourself to the limit? Love of solving problems? Personality test ?

What made you pursue this career?

Was it the money?

I just want to know how people realized that they wanted to do this. I for one, didn't even know what quants were before college. I never knew this was even an option for me to strive for.

 

[Tsotne]

Love of some combination of subjects make you go to the direction that best fits the enthusiasm you are gaining when studding those subjects. For example, math and programming shrinks your wide range of choice to a little list. Depends on quant types too... if you are a risk lover you might be pushing towards trading...if you are more keen on searching for best strategies to fight against risk, then it brings you to the hedging derivatives, risk management, etc...

 

[IlyaKEightSix]

I always liked math, and well, growing up not exactly well off, I always did want to be in a financial field. For three years though, I thought that actuaries were the people that did this stuff. Glad I knew how wrong I was after one internship. After that, well, that's just about the time I actually showed up on quantnet =).

 

[Huan Dao]

For me, I always like physics since high school, participated in several regional physics competition for high school, got numerous prizes, participated in national competition twice, but didn't win ( the winners usually go on and get prizes in IPO ) . Major in physics during my first year at university, got Dean's list but then switch to EE because I dreaded the job prospect after graduate, only get to know about quant after graduated from university, now I'm trying to get my way to Baruch.

 

[bigbadwolf]

Watching a movie (ie Money Never Sleeps)?

Pretty lame stuff. A washed-up has-been Gordon Gekko. For me it was "Wall Street" -- the fancy suits, the glitter and glamor, the big deals, the insider trading, the private jet ....

Just kidding. My first exposure to the world of finance began with the novels of Paul Erdman -- "The Billion Dollar Killing" and "The Silver Bears" -- which he wrote while in Swiss prison awaiting trial when his bank collapsed. Other subsequent books were quite readable as well -- "The Crash of '79," "The Panic of '89." My basic finance and economics vocabulary came from those novels.

An informative obituary here (he died in 2007). And this excerpt:

Back in the States he worked, from 1959 to 1961, as an economist at the influential Stanford Research Institute at Menlo Park, California, before returning to Switzerland to set up, in 1965, a private bank, as the first American to do so. This was the Salik Bank, later the United California Bank, in Basel, which, in 1970, collapsed with all hands to the tune, reportedly, of over $40m.

Erdman, as bank president, was thrown into jail to await trial. He later remarked that at least in Swiss jails the food was good. As was the wine, which he was allowed to purchase by the prison authorities, several bottles of which he passed on to a new inmate, a Frenchman reputed to be "the finest safecracker in Europe". The Frenchman in return told him how to crack a safe using only the barest minimum of tools.

Paul Erdman was undoubtedly something of a buccaneer, but this by no means detracted from his extraordinary financial expertise, or his natural-born talent for making obscure and complex fiscal manoeuvrings intelligible, even gripping, to the layman.

Any other fans here? I'm not exactly holding my breath.