MSc BSc in Maths Stats Physics or Comp Sci: Quant job

I was just browsing through jobsite and found this:

http://www.jobsite.co.uk/job/junior-java-quant-developer-946717434?src=search&tmpl=lin

I'm a student, so I'm not looking for a full-time job until after I graduate, but out of curiosity, where it states in the link, "Candidates MUST have:
- MSc BSc in Maths stats Physics or Comp Sci", does this usually mean candidates must have both MSc and BSc?

Or does it mean candidates must have at least a BSc, though an MSc would also be good?

Reply 1

SonnyZH

6

Majority of the people who work in risk at my fund have at least a Masters (without counting those with PhDs); so I'd guess it's the minimum you need.

Reply 2

Swayum

18

Quant roles you definitely need an MSc and even that isn't really enough for like 65% of the roles.

Reply 3

Schaeler

OP

Original post by SonnyZH

Majority of the people who work in risk at my fund have at least a Masters (without counting those with PhDs); so I'd guess it's the minimum you need.

Original post by Swayum

Quant roles you definitely need an MSc and even that isn't really enough for like 65% of the roles.

Thanks very much.

As it states, "MSc BSc in Maths stats Physics or Comp Sci", would most quant roles be strict in the MSc being in one of these four subjects?

I will have a Physics BSc.

I'm considering the following MSc courses (in no particular order);

1. Process Engineering MSc
2. Quantitative Finance and Trading MSc
3. Photonics MSc (branch of Physics)
4. Plasma Physics MSc

5. Mathematical Modelling and Scientific Computing (5 & 6 similar)
6. Simulation Science MSc

7. Data Science and Analytics MSc (7 & 8 similar and are something akin to operations research)
8. Business Analytics MSc

9. Software Development MSc (conversion course)

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 4

SonnyZH

6

Original post by Schaeler

Thanks very much.

As it states, "MSc BSc in Maths stats Physics or Comp Sci", would most quant roles be strict in the MSc being in one of these four subjects?

I will have a Physics BSc.

I'm considering the following MSc courses (in no particular order);

1. Process Engineering MSc
2. Quantitative Finance and Trading MSc
3. Photonics MSc (branch of Physics)
4. Plasma Physics MSc

5. Mathematical Modelling and Scientific Computing (5 & 6 similar)
6. Simulation Science MSc

7. Data Science and Analytics MSc (7 & 8 similar and are something akin to operations research)
8. Business Analytics MSc

9. Software Development MSc (conversion course)

What do you want to do? If you're interested in quant funds, take a look at Renaissance Technologies, Simons' Medallion fund has been killing it for the past decade, first guys he hired were specialists in speech recognition from IBM.

Reply 5

Schaeler

OP

Original post by SonnyZH

What do you want to do?.

It'll be a while before I graduate, so not completely sure as yet.

But, if I narrow my list down further, I'll most likely choose my MSc from

2. Quantitative Finance and Trading MSc
3. Photonics MSc (branch of Physics)
4. Plasma Physics MSc

5. Mathematical Modelling and Scientific Computing (5 & 6 similar)
6. Simulation Science MSc

7. Data Science and Analytics MSc (7 & 8 similar and are something akin to operations research)
8. Business Analytics MSc

There's some overlap in some of these subjects, especially 5,6,7 & 8.

But if someone wanted to work in a quant role, are they mostly only looking for someone with an MSc/PhD in Mathematics, Statistics, Physics, Comi Sci, or would all of these MSc options be equally as sought after?

Reply 6

SonnyZH

6

Original post by Schaeler

It'll be a while before I graduate, so not completely sure as yet.

But, if I narrow my list down further, I'll most likely choose my MSc from

2. Quantitative Finance and Trading MSc
3. Photonics MSc (branch of Physics)
4. Plasma Physics MSc

5. Mathematical Modelling and Scientific Computing (5 & 6 similar)
6. Simulation Science MSc

7. Data Science and Analytics MSc (7 & 8 similar and are something akin to operations research)
8. Business Analytics MSc

There's some overlap in some of these subjects, especially 5,6,7 & 8.

But if someone wanted to work in a quant role, are they mostly only looking for someone with an MSc/PhD in Mathematics, Statistics, Physics, Comi Sci, or would all of these MSc options be equally as sought after?

Honestly, don't bother with the Quant Finance & Trading MSc. You can't really learn it unless you're working plus why bother studying it if you're going to be working in the industry? Might as well expand your horizon and learn something else that interests you. Bring me in 2 candidates with the same experience, one with Trading MSc and the other with Plasma Physics and I sure as well will want to talk to the physics guy 100% times over the Trading one.

Maths, Physics, CompS, and variations are all fine as long as they are relevant to the role applied. Majority will have PhDs anyway.

Reply 7

Swayum

18

Generally, people prefer courses where you've learnt advanced statistical techniques (think Markov Chain Monte Carlo, financial series forecasting, machine learning, etc) and computer science (think algorithms, design patterns, Linux knowledge, parallel processing, etc). I wouldn't say there's any point doing a Physics related Masters if you're not going to follow up with a PhD - I've rarely heard of anyone in the industry with just a Physics MSc, where as Physics PhDs are very common (the difference being that you use pretty advanced stats in Physics PhDs where as you wouldn't necessarily use it an an MSc, the PhD gives you the practical experience of handling real data).

People generally want someone who knows how to deal with big data sets, find patterns/be able to analyse it and do it all in a computer program that works very efficiently.

As such, I think a really good MSc course in the UK for a quant role would be http://www.csml.ucl.ac.uk/courses/msc_csml/, which would also open doors in fields outside of finance.

But I wouldn't do a Masters simply to break into the quant field.

The problem is that even if you get interviews with a Physics MSc or something, the interviews are just very tough to get through. For example, I was recently interviewed for a Morgan Stanley quant position where I got through the stats/finance interview, but I was absolutely destroyed in the C++ interview even though I've used it a lot in my Masters and done a whole course on C++ before my Masters. I've also had Goldman Sachs, BBVA, National Bank of Canada and J.P. Morgan interviews but I'm not very hopeful.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 8

Schaeler

OP

Original post by SonnyZH

Honestly, don't bother with the Quant Finance & Trading MSc. You can't really learn it unless you're working plus why bother studying it if you're going to be working in the industry? Might as well expand your horizon and learn something else that interests you. Bring me in 2 candidates with the same experience, one with Trading MSc and the other with Plasma Physics and I sure as well will want to talk to the physics guy 100% times over the Trading one.

Thank you for this.

Original post by Swayum

Generally, people prefer courses where you've learnt advanced statistical techniques (think Markov Chain Monte Carlo, financial series forecasting, machine learning, etc) and computer science (think algorithms, design patterns, Linux knowledge, parallel processing, etc). I wouldn't say there's any point doing a Physics related Masters if you're not going to follow up with a PhD - I've rarely heard of anyone in the industry with just a Physics MSc, where as Physics PhDs are very common (the difference being that you use pretty advanced stats in Physics PhDs where as you wouldn't necessarily use it an an MSc, the PhD gives you the practical experience of handling real data).

People generally want someone who knows how to deal with big data sets, find patterns/be able to analyse it and do it all in a computer program that works very efficiently.

As such, I think a really good MSc course in the UK for a quant role would be http://www.csml.ucl.ac.uk/courses/msc_csml/, which would also open doors in fields outside of finance.

But I wouldn't do a Masters simply to break into the quant field.

Thank you for the link.

Would you guys have an opinion on the course linked-to below in terms of wanting to work in Finance later on? Maybe not necessarily a quant position.

http://www.ucd.ie/simulationscience/msc/modules.html

Reply 9

oldie_2013

7

Original post by Schaeler

I was just browsing through jobsite and found this:

http://www.jobsite.co.uk/job/junior-java-quant-developer-946717434?src=search&tmpl=lin

I'm a student, so I'm not looking for a full-time job until after I graduate, but out of curiosity, where it states in the link, "Candidates MUST have:
- MSc BSc in Maths stats Physics or Comp Sci", does this usually mean candidates must have both MSc and BSc?

Or does it mean candidates must have at least a BSc, though an MSc would also be good?

I doubt it personally. Recruitment consultants (they will have written the ad) can be a bit trigger happy on requirements. If you have the skills and experience required then that is much more important than having a potentially unrelated academic masters qualification.

Reply 10

An.OtherQuant

1

I think you should do the MSc that interests you the most. I see minimal value in picking one that you think an employer wants to see as ultimately, it will be dependent on recruiter/desk.

For example, from your list (at phd level), everything else equivalent, I would have probably wanted to interview the process engineer first whereas my colleagues would have probably taken photonics/plasma physicists.

Swayum

.

Interested to know what standard of C++ you listed on your CV to get you a grilling. Much better to under sell experience than over sell it.

Reply 11

Swayum

18

Original post by An.OtherQuant

Interested to know what standard of C++ you listed on your CV to get you a grilling. Much better to under sell experience than over sell it.

Didn't state a level, when asked on the phone how much I know, I stated that I took a beginner's course in it and used it for my MSc project (which I described was to do with pricing American options) - I agree it's always best to under promise and over deliver.

But I guess they must have been looking for someone in the development side of things as opposed to desk strategy. My J.P. Morgan C++ questions were a lot simpler, the MS one was on stuff like traversing binary trees, hash tables, complexity of algorithms, parallel processing and so on, which I've learnt quite a bit of now actually through the STL library, but no where near the standard I guess they'd like. I just explained to him at the end of my interview that I'm not a Computer Science grad, but I could learn this stuff quickly if given the chance. He said "don't worry, it's not about your level of knowledge" but rejected me a few hours later :confused:

- he didn't ask me a single non-C++ question in the entire interview, not even a "tell me about yourself".

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 12

An.OtherQuant

1

Ah that makes some sense. Based on that, it sounds like they just wanted a language to interview you with, rather than actually test you on C++. It is sometimes easier to get people to work with a language rather than write pseudo code.

Good luck with your other applications!

MSc BSc in Maths Stats Physics or Comp Sci: Quant job

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