[Jackfinance17]

Which university courses are best suited for investment banking and trading?

I heard from an insider that if you want to be sells and traders and hedge fund manager, then the best suited course will undoubtedly be Mathematics, because those jobs require a very decent core knowledge of mathematics, they also require first class degree.
However investment banking does not require as much maths as sells and trades or hedge funds, an Economics course from any top universities can get you into the industry, of course with hard working as well, and you can enter with minimum first or 2.1 degree.

He also explained to me that Mathematics will definitely be more competitive for sells and trades and also investment banking, it is also open to almost all the jobs in the financial industry, which will keep my option open. He also told me Maths grads can take on Economics easily after uni whereas Economics grads cannot do the same with Maths, which would disadvantage them.

He told me that the universities that I attended will not be very important, like firms wouldn't pay too much attention in whether you went to Oxbridge or St Andrews/LSE/York/Durham to do Maths, as long as you get a first then you will be able to be competitive in securing an interview.

I am not too sure how much of it is true, and I am quite surprised about those fact because I was thinking that I have to go top 5 unis and doing Economics to be competitive, now I am not too sure about whether to take on Economics or Mathematics for my university degree, I enjoyed both equally but I don't want to take joint degree. And should I do MMath or just normal Bsc/BA maths for such job? I was thinking about MMath since it has more maths in it.

Any ideas?

[Hackett]

1.) It's Sales not Sells.

2.) University>Degree

[Jackfinance17]

(Original post by Hackett)
1.) It's Sales not Sells.

2.) University>Degree

Haha that typo was hilarious

I agree with you as well, but I am confused. :/

[TomasK]

(Original post by Jackfinance17)
Haha that typo was hilarious

I agree with you as well, but I am confused. :/

Typo? Sure.

[Jackfinance17]

(Original post by TomasK)
Typo? Sure.

yep

Have you got any idea on my question other than reaffirming my typo?

[non]

(Original post by Jackfinance17)
yep

Have you got any idea on my question other than reaffirming my typo?

economics better for most positions apart from the very quanty positions which use lots of maths so for most economics because it gives you more knowledge about the markets.

[TomasK]

(Original post by Jackfinance17)
yep

Have you got any idea on my question other than reaffirming my typo?

Safe bet - top uni + maths inclined course, although I must say that most of the time uni name > course, because it is easy to explain why you love e.g. history and be able to relate to finance as well, but it may not be so easy explaining why didn't you go to Oxbridge (employers would mostly assume you just didn't make the cut). Not to mention that at a top university you get:
1) More career-orientated classmates (usually), hence better environment to perform to your full potential
2) Greater future network, which will come in handy at some point
3) Benefit from the university being a 'target' - companies coming to actively recruit from uni X (aka with the Cambridge, Oxford, LSE, UCL, Warwick or similar name employers would give your CV 30 seconds as opposed to 10 for people from other unis, thus potentially enabling more pain-free interview securing).

[KPCN]

I definitely think going to a target university (Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, LSE, UCL and Warwick) is important, for the reasons listed by TomasK.

In my opinion, it doesn't really matter whether you do Economics or Mathematics (I do think doing a few economics/finance modules is beneficial though because it does give you some initial knowledge).

I would probably lean towards applying for Mathematics because as far as I'm aware, it is less competitive than Economics which means if you have weak GCSEs, you can still get an offer from a target university. However, Maths does tend to have higher entry requirements (and for places like Cambridge and Warwick, you need to do well in STEP) and I would assume the degree content tends to be more difficult.

[Cazzington]

I've just finished my second year of uni and I'm studying joint honours Economics and Maths. If you don't want to do joint honours but want your career options to be a lot more open then you should study Maths. It's a harder degree and you can always do electives in Economics if your course allows it. If not then you can educate yourself about economics and finance outside of your course and show employers that you know about markets and the economy etc in interviews and on application forms. (and I recommend doing the Bloomberg BAT test when you're at uni. Google it )

When it comes to whether or not you need to go to a top university to get a good job, the answer is usually yes you do. The universities you listed are all 'top' unis. Employers target the top universities to find potential employees for graduate jobs.

http://www.highfliers.co.uk/download/GMReport12.pdf

Go to this link and near the bottom (table 4.4) it shows you the universities targeted by the largest number of employers in 2011 - 2012. This will give you a good indication of what universities employers regard as 'good'.

Pretty much what TomasK said was true. Also, on application forms the requirements will always be to get a minimum of a 2:1 and they often ask for a minimum of something like 280 UCAS points for your top 3 A levels. An investment bank I applied to asked for a minimum of 320 UCAS points for my top 3 A levels - so a minimum of ABB. So this kind of links in with the good university thing because it's assumed that if you have good A levels then you will go to the best uni for those grades.

Getting a 1st is important. Everyone gets a 2:1 so it's not that special. But yeah.. I recommend you do maths! From my experience, the economics side of my degree has virtually no maths in it (even though most uni's ask for A level maths in order to do economics) the hardest bit of maths we've done is rearranging equations and a bit of partial differentiation. An A at A level maths won't really prove you are great at maths but a 1st at degree level will!

On the contrary, when applying for graduate jobs and internships they will get you to do online aptitude tests which include a maths test. So if you really love economics then you can probably find a way to beat the maths grads and get an investment banking job. It's ridiculously competitive though so you're right to think ahead! (Looking at the above link, investment banking has a median starting salary of £45'000 so no wonder it's competitive!)

One last piece of advice, look up graduate jobs now. They will have a description of the type of person they are looking for and they will often specify what degree they expect you to have.

Sorry for the essay and good luck with everything!

[Boy_wonder_95]

Sorry to go a bit off topic here but would a Engineering Degree (Chemical) be suitable for Investment Banking?

[TheUltimateProof]

(Original post by Boy_wonder_95)
Sorry to go a bit off topic here but would a Engineering Degree (Chemical) be suitable for Investment Banking?

Yes people got into IB with such degrees.