Quant with a Chemistry PhD?

So being a quant for an investment bank sounds interesting. I've heard they like Maths and Computer science PhDs so what chance do I stand if I was to get a PhD in a physical or computational area of Chemistry? I qualified for the British Math Olympiad which shows my apptitude for Math, I'm assuming this will help. I'm also very confident of meeting my offer for Warwick which I know investment banks like.

If the PhD involves computer programming then they'll be interested, if not then they won't. It's likely to be as simple as that. I don't mean to be mean and I might not have been that good at interviews but there did seem to be a definite bias toward Oxbridge/French grand Ecoles/Ivy League at some places. With a Warwick maths PhD (that was reasonably well related to the sort of maths they do in finance) it took me 9 months in 2011 to find a fairly mediocre quant risk job at a big investment bank. I didn't find it particularly interesting nor was the money so fantastic I couldn't leave either, hence 15 months later I moved onto pastures new and I don't have any regrets about doing so either.

Were you just looking for quant jobs in the Uk?

So being a quant for an investment bank sounds interesting. I've heard they like Maths and Computer science PhDs so what chance do I stand if I was to get a PhD in a physical or computational area of Chemistry? I qualified for the British Math Olympiad which shows my apptitude for Math, I'm assuming this will help. I'm also very confident of meeting my offer for Warwick which I know investment banks like.

Judging from your post it doesn't look like you have done much research. Quant jobs are hard to find and it is an extremely competitive field to break into. You need to do a lot of research into what they actually do and you need to try and network with people to get connections to quant traders/programmers. Your degree is fine as long as it is very quantitative and computational chemistry sounds good.

But don't do a PhD just so that you can get a quant job. A PhD requires a lot of commitment and passion for the subject. Tbh, I feel that people waste their talents by going into quant jobs instead of into scientific research. Life is not all about money. If money is what you are after, don't bother doing the PhD. Just apply for investment banking/trading internships and get a full time offer from there.

The US and Japan as well. Had a phone interview for GS in New York before I finished the PhD, didn't go brilliantly I have to confess.

Why didn't your interviews go very well?

That particular one because I wasn't having my most intelligent day and the interviewer sounded like an Ivy Leaguer who was trying to make a point of proving that someone from a "no-name" school wasn't up to the GS standard.

In general, I didn't have many problems at all with the maths side of interviews but realistically being a quant was a pragmatic financial decision (due to the awful job market in science) rather than something I'm passionate about, something I tried to hide but might have come across in some interviews. My other weakness in interviews is that I enjoy strength sports as a hobby (I'm 5'8" 19st and most of that is muscle) and most interviewers in investment banks are fairly closed minded individuals.

To be honest I didn't find working as a quant satisfying in any sense: intellectually (the products traded are way simpler than pre-2007), morally (the job is really just helping those with more wealth than they deserve become even more wealthy), socially (being surrounded by a narrow section of society whose main goal is money is not fun) or financially (the pay is a small fraction of what it was pre-2007 for a number of reasons).

Thanks for the detailed replies. I'm confused here because I thought Warwick is liked by banks, maybe your guy was just a dick. What were the Math questions like?

So being a quant for an investment bank sounds interesting. I've heard they like Maths and Computer science PhDs so what chance do I stand if I was to get a PhD in a physical or computational area of Chemistry? I qualified for the British Math Olympiad which shows my apptitude for Math, I'm assuming this will help. I'm also very confident of meeting my offer for Warwick which I know investment banks like.

Warwick is liked by banks to a point. In the US, I doubt anyone will have heard of Warwick: Oxford and Cambridge are the famous ones. Banking is elitist and a lot of the technical division directors especially the more prestigious ones will have a masters or PhD from Oxbridge or a Grand Ecole. Don't get me wrong I think Warwick is a great university and my supervisor won a Fields Medal and was in no way inferior to anyone at those universities but I get the impression that for a front office position Oxbridge and even Imperial are favoured whether that is logical or not.

To illustrate, I did an undergraduate masters at Warwick (4 year MMath) and got the top first (probably one of the highest overall marks in the last 20 years or so) as well as doing a PhD with an advisor who won a Fields Medal. I think I got 4 interviews in total including phone interviews and a couple of hedge fund interviews (one was scheduled at the same time as an interview at Citibank hence I couldn't even go and where I did decide to attend caused a massive strop on the other end of the phone: "no one turns down Brevan Howard"). So realistically a pretty lukewarm return.

Probably the most common topic are probability questions of various kinds. Evaluating integrals seemed to be another common one. I was asked to derive the Black Scholes a couple of times. Then there were more esoteric questions like measures on a sphere and whether I could divide a plane with any number of points on it with any number of points on one side of the line.

Your best return for time invested would probably concentrating on probability, game theory and financial maths.

Where did you end up, may I ask?

I left finance after 15 months, worked in engineering for 6. Did odd jobs mainly as a security guard and bouncer for a few years until I found out through a few chance events/friendships that medicine is really what I want to do. So I will start work as a healthcare assistant in the NHS in the next few weeks and am part way through an application cycle to graduate entry medicine.

I am one of those people who thinks life is too short to do something you hate and not to chase your dreams in life (especially when working pays so badly as it does nowadays). Therefore I won't be going back to maths or a corporate job (ever).

I am quite sad to hear that a person of your mathematical calibre is not in a profession which uses this skill or is not in a profession that rewards you for your intellect.

I know money is not everything and the richest guy in the world is not the cleverest and conversely the richest is not the cleverest but it ought to have some correlation.

Regardless (and I am sticking my neck out now), I would say you are not an ex-public schoolboy / don't have the contacts for finance. From my own experience, I have seen and worked with many mediocre candidates in top jobs (though never technical), being paid somewhere in the region of £0.25M a year, holding managerial positions. Admittedly to do one of those jobs, one need to have (not nice) people skills,

Whilst I don't want to put you off the medical profession, I also have friends, who at 18 wanted to save lives (and the world for that matter) only to be disillusioned after 5 years medical training and 70+ hour weeks working as a junior doctor.

Add to that, being a surgeon (as opposed to physician) has a lot to do with fitting in and unfortunately, politics plays a major part.

If you had sought advice before turning your back on finance, I would have suggested you try (finance) abroad. You may find the working conditions, including prospects, colleagues, work / life balance, would have suited you more.

Nevertheless, I wish you success in your chosen profession.

I left finance after 15 months, worked in engineering for 6. Did odd jobs mainly as a security guard and bouncer for a few years until I found out through a few chance events/friendships that medicine is really what I want to do. So I will start work as a healthcare assistant in the NHS in the next few weeks and am part way through an application cycle to graduate entry medicine.

I am one of those people who thinks life is too short to do something you hate and not to chase your dreams in life (especially when working pays so badly as it does nowadays). Therefore I won't be going back to maths or a corporate job (ever).

my brother had a former bb analyst in his medical year group at kcl, I hope it works out for you