<p>I'm trying to determine where my most interest is: in finance or engineering. My skill in math and science first pointed me toward the engineering field (mech/aero). However, I've been putting in a lot of thought and the idea of finance and quantitative analytics has started to appeal to me. I think I am a bit more strong and comfortable in math than I am in science, and I love to deal with numbers. How can I figure out which I am more interested in? There are aspects of a potential career in engineering and finance that I really like and some that I don't, so how can I determine what best fits me?</p>
<p>Since I posted this thread earlier in the day, I’ve been thinking about potentially double-majoring in Physics and Finance as an undergraduate. By doing that, I would adequately prepare myself to head to graduate school for both engineering or quantitative finance, giving me more time and flexibility to figure out what I want to do. What do you guys think?</p>
<p>The financial sector has many areas. Lots of ‘quants’ are STEM PhDs not finance majors.</p>
<p>“Finance majors learn the principles, concepts, and tools essential to financial decision making through accounting, finance, economics, management, and other quantitative courses.”
[url=<a href=“http://www.k-state.edu/acic/majorin/finance.html]Source[/url”>Finance]Source[/url</a>]</p>
<p>By double majoring in Finance and physics, you would be disqualifying yourself from many normal post-undergraduate finance opportunities because your GPA will suffer relative to your colleagues only majoring in finance.</p>
<p>“By double majoring in Finance and physics, you would be disqualifying yourself from many normal post-undergraduate finance opportunities because your GPA will suffer relative to your colleagues only majoring in finance.”</p>
<p>Good point, but those who are only majoring in finance wouldn’t have the appealing quantitative background that someone who also has a degree in Physics would have, right?</p>
<p>The financial sector has many areas. Lots of ‘quants’ are STEM PhDs not finance majors."</p>
<p>So you’re saying that majoring in Finance wouldn’t be necessary at all to get into the quant analysis field if I were to major in physics or engineering?</p>
<p>I think that most of the quants out there are PhDs in Finance, but firms definitely go scout out talent at top engineering schools for students looking to make more money than they would in engineering. I don’t know about Physics, but maybe if you follow noimagination’s advice you can find out more info on that matter.</p>
<p>In my experience, firms wouldn’t care about your physics experience. I had a 3.9 gpa in finance and was hired by a bank. My roommate has a significantly lower gpa in engineering, but thought that he’d be able to break in too because engineering ranks higher on the non-existent difficulty meter that recruiters supposedly have. </p>
<p>His quantitative knowledge his greater than mine, but my corporate finance knowledge is greater than his. So I’ll ask you the same question I asked him. Why should an investment bank care that you know trig when there are other candidates who actually know how to do a DCF?</p>
<p>EDIT: I’m not talking about the quant roles. This is for the FO jobs.</p>
<p>At the financial positions I’ve interned/worked at nobody had a physics or engineering background. All where a mix of economics, finance, accounting, marketing, etc. I have a close friend with a phd in physics and masters in mathematics who went back to school in his early 30s to meet his CPA requirements.</p>
<p>Not saying engineering skills don’t apply well to finance. They probably do. Still though, if you know you want to go into finance then just study it. Not everyone you interview with is going to grasp the connection.</p>
<p>Things are different with software engineering majors I must say… I think anyone and everyone hires them because there isn’t a business out there today that doesn’t need people with a dual knowledge of business and programming.</p>