<p>Hey guys,</p>
<p>I'm at U Penn (will be studying there next year) and I've been considering Economics as my prospective major for a long time.</p>
<p>Of late, though, I've heard many say that cracking a great job in finance/consulting/I-Banking requires top level QUANTITATIVE skills, which are not generally found in Economics undergraduate majors.</p>
<p>Should I major in Economics, or Engineering, or Computer Science? Also thinking about applied mathematics, but I'm not sure. I want to equip myself with the skills that employers (firms such as Goldman, McKinsey, Bain, boutique firms, etc) will find attractive, and I want to get my foot in the door.</p>
<p>I do plan to get my MBA later (hopefully from a very solid grad B-school).</p>
<p>What's the route I should take (generally speaking)?</p>
<p>HAHAHAHA consulting and banking require no quant skills whatsoever. Have you researched what being an investment banking / PE analyst requires? It requires a great eye for typos, the ability to input numbers into Excel, the ability to get yelled at and not get angry, and the ability to deal with three different people giving contradictory corrections to your work to you.</p>
<p>Consulting is even softer. You need to be good at mental math for case interviews (not sure if real consultants have to do mental math in the field, or if they get to use calculators) and using models and generally having soft skills.</p>
<p>Study whatever you want. Econ is probably more than sufficient to be an analyst.</p>
<p>Yes,true, but I’ve heard the big money lies in quant for the future? e.g. financial engineering?</p>
<p>Finance is not a sustainable field because of various reasons that I don’t really want to get into via an online forum. You’d really only be using quant skills at an algorithmic hedge fund. If that’s where you want to go, get a Ph.D in CS or math. That’s what hedge funds are looking to hire, and it’ll leave you with quantitative skills that aren’t just “Excel modeling” when **** hits the fan.</p>