What to do with a Maths degree from Oxbridge

Well what interests you?

Do you have one?

maths and investment. ideally want to move into a hedge fund but how does one go about that

im in the middle of one. Financial Maths interests me a lot...i hope to do a phd in it. Tbh i am actually interested in banking, but I want to do a masters first and actually do high level maths in my investment banking career.

But all the summer internships lead to graduate offers after 3 years BA. What can i do if i want to do high level maths first

You definitely don't want to do Investment Banking then..

Quant finance and algorithmic trading seem more suited for you. Look into proprietary trading firm, HFT firms and quant hedge funds.

Quants are usually in risk or some type of financial engineering dept within IB

Be an algo

I'm not particularly knowledgeable on this. I know that it is possible either to move from IB to HF or go straight in to HF (and it's understandable you'd want to do the latter if you pursued a quantitative PhD before entering the industry), but to tell you much more I'd have to research online. So that's what I suggest you do - there's a lot of information out there.

See I have researched online for a while now. And it seems a quant is a good plan after phd, though extremely competitive. But what confuses me is what do people refer to when they say quant! It seems to cover an umbrella term of areas, and I am still unsure as to what the route I should be taking to get there (outside of my studies)


Most importantly, what is the route I need to take to get there. Say I get my MMath at Cam then phD in Maths, what should I be doing alongside this. So for the guys who will become analysts theyre all getting internships/SWs right from the 1st year of their degrees. What am I supposed to be doing in this time - whats the intended route for a quant. Any internships/springweeks viable for someone in my position

I have met one 'quant' who works at Goldman - did a physics PhD before going to work at a particle accelerator, then moved to IB. I think he worked in equities, handling their risk book. He wasn't particularly thrilled by the pay, though - he wasn't progressing upwards as quickly as he'd hoped he would. He told me that the base of the pyramid has become much wider in IBs of late.

So for a quant you dont need any IB experience during your undergrad or even PhD? The best plan is for you to just focus on math, and can selfstudy the relevant financial workings of the division in the IBs?

Im guessing he's Middle Office, would you happen to know roughly what ballpark his pay was in (& after how many years experience)

As far as I can tell from my limited exposure to the field (which I can't stress enough), numerical skills are king when it comes to quant roles. You're not really employed for your soft skills in these kinds of positions.

This guy had been working at Goldman for about five years. Not sure of his pay, but he mentioned that an associate he knew an MC law firm out-earned him considerably.

If I were you, I'd try to attend a finance careers fair at Oxford and speak to some professionals on what you can do to become more employable as a quant. I think that scoring as highly as possible on your degree and learning about the workings of finance in your own time would be a good start.

Ok many thanks for the help. Talking to some experience people at a careers fair sounds like a good idea...might be a bit of a trek to get down to Oxford though

But you dont think I need to bother with spring weeks/summer internships and instead focus on getting my maths as possibly good as it can be?

Sorry, misread the thread title as Oxford. The comment about the MMath now makes more sense...

I wouldn't be so bold as to discourage you from doing IB internships - others will be better qualified to comment on that, and I'm not sure there would be a downside to doing some?