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Young person seeking advise

Jjbusiness

Joined
4/25/10
Messages
1
Points
11
Hello,
This is my first time posting here and am seeking advice from experienced knowledgeable people of the Quant world.
I am very out of place here due to the fact that I am a freshman in college, but I have a question that I think only professionals as yourselves could answer.
I am extremely interested in the wall street and business world and always have been and my college, James Madison University, has a QuantF major. Now my question is, if I plan to go to graduates school, should I major in QuantF or maybe double major in math in comp sci or another combination?
Thank you very much in advanced for helping a very inexperienced young person as myself.
 
Welcome to the forum!

First, here are a few links to threads dealing with a similar question to your own that you might find useful:
https://www.quantnet.com/threads/undergraduate-advice.3781/
https://www.quantnet.com/threads/which-undergrad-major-to-take.3850/
https://www.quantnet.com/threads/undergraduate-study.3854/
https://www.quantnet.com/threads/how-to-prepare-for-financial-engineering-programs-part-1.9964/

I wouldn't major in QuantF because (1) it pigeon holes you into a very narrow skill set, and (2) with an undergrad in quant fin why get a MFE?

Looking at JMU, I would recommend double majoring in statistics and computer science because the statistics program covers more of the required courses to get into a MFE right now. Also minoring in finance or economics would be useful.

Taking a few extra courses in finance would be good, for example FIN 250 (Principles of Quant Fin), FIN 396 (Mathematical Fin), FIN 405 (Securities Pricing), FIN 450 (Financial Risk Management), and/or FIN 475 (Fin Modeling and Risk Analysis)

I also said economics could be useful, so for example courses like ECON 331 and 332 (Intermediate Micro and Macro Theory) and ECON 385 Econometrics.

Other combinations? It is important to cover enough math/statistics, get some programming experience, and basic exposure to finance. Another possible combination would have engineering instead of computer science above, but this should be based on your interests. Another possibility could be physics/math.
 
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