<p>Hey guys,</p>
<p>I want to work in finance/ibanking/Wall Street; I wish to get a good paying finance career. The question is if I should take the math major or the ORFE major at Princeton? I heard that the best jobs go to people with advanced math knowledge, but at the same time I am afraid that the math major won't give me enough finance background. Does anyone know how often Princeton math majors get hired by top firms such as Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, etc...?</p>
<p>Math is much more difficult, that’s for sure. But it is true that a good number of people get hired out of math to wall street.</p>
<p>Though of course, ORFE is practically designed for that career, so why wouldn’t you choose it?</p>
<p>Unless you actually enjoy pure mathematics (Analysis, Topology, Differential Geometry, Galois Theory, that sort of stuff) I would be wary of trying to do math just to settle for a career in finance. Your math peers would look down upon you for going into finance, whereas your orfe peers would be going with you. Math majors are respected and awed by everyone else and orfe majors are called tools.</p>
<p>Be aware also that both majors are considered fairly difficult (math moreso than orfe, of course, but orfe is still pretty hard), so don’t put all your eggs in one basket just yet.</p>
<p>how about a Math major, with a Certificate in Finance?</p>
<p>[Undergraduate</a> Certificate - Bendheim Center for Finance - Princeton University](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/bcf/undergraduate/]Undergraduate”>http://www.princeton.edu/bcf/undergraduate/)</p>
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<p>I don’t think this is the case. I’m a math major, and a lot of students in my department go into finance. It’s not something that’s looked down upon at all. As JohnAdams12 said, you can get plenty of exposure to finance as a math major by taking classes in the ECO and ORF departments. One thing to bear in mind is that ORF majors tend to work in all areas of finance (investment banking, mergers and acquisitions, sales and trading, etc.) while math majors almost exclusively go into trading. And math majors are generally more successful at getting the most competitive trading and quant jobs. I’d like to echo what others have said – if you don’t really like pure math, don’t be a math major. It’s significantly more difficult than ORF, and you can get a good job in finance with either major.</p>
<p>how easy is it for engineering kids (ELE, MAE) kids to go into finance? what about with a finance certificate?</p>
<p>Weasel, quick question. I had a discussion with a Princeton student on this topic a few months ago:</p>
<p>How does the current major in Math at Princeton compare to the ChE major in terms of dificulty?</p>
<p>and how about the Physics major?</p>
<p>thanks in advance for your reply on this matter.</p>
<p>CHE, PHY, and MAT are all challenging majors, but I’d say that MAT and PHY are a good bit harder than CHE. I say this based on my own experience as a math major and the experiences of several friends who are CHE majors. The concepts presented in advanced math and physics classes tend to be more difficult, and this in turn draws in the smarter students. The comparison between MAT and PHY is much more difficult to make. Both departments have very challenging courses, and there are brilliant students in each department. One thing I can say is that the number of PHY majors of merely average ability (by Princeton standards) seems to be higher than the number of merely average MAT majors. But this observation is based on a pretty small sample size (i.e., my friends), so take it with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>The Math department is also about twice as large as the physics department, for whatever conclusion you can draw from that.</p>
<p>what are the reputations of ELE or MAE?</p>
<p>USNews Undergraduate Engineering Specialty Rankings for Schools offering a PhD:</p>
<p>Undergraduate Engineering Specialties: Aerospace/Aeronautical/Astronautical
1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA
2 Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA
3 University of Michigan–Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI
4 Purdue University–West Lafayette West Lafayette, IN
5 California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA
6 University of Maryland–College Park College Park, MD
7 University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL
8 Stanford University Stanford, CA
9 University of Texas–Austin Austin, TX
10 Virginia Tech Blacksburg, VA
11 Princeton University Princeton, NJ
12 Texas A&M University–College Station College Station, TX
13 Cornell University Ithaca, NY
13 Pennsylvania State University–University Park University Park, PA
15 University of Washington Seattle, WA
16 University of Colorado–Boulder Boulder, CO
17 University of California–Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA
18 Iowa State University Ames, IA
18 North Carolina State University–Raleigh Raleigh, NC</p>
<p>===============</p>
<p>Undergraduate Engineering Specialties: Electrical/Electronic/Communications
1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA
2 Stanford University Stanford, CA
2 University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL
4 University of California–Berkeley Berkeley, CA
5 Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA
6 University of Michigan–Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI
7 California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA
8 Cornell University Ithaca, NY
9 Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA
10 Purdue University–West Lafayette West Lafayette, IN
11 University of Texas–Austin Austin, TX
12 Princeton University Princeton, NJ
13 University of Wisconsin–Madison Madison, WI
14 Virginia Tech Blacksburg, VA
15 Texas A&M University–College Station College Station, TX
15 University of California–Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA
17 University of California–San Diego La Jolla, CA
17 University of Maryland–College Park College Park, MD
19 Duke University Durham, NC
19 Rice University Houston, TX</p>
<p>====================</p>
<p>Undergraduate engineering specialties: Mechanical
1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA
2 University of California–Berkeley Berkeley, CA
3 University of Michigan–Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI
4 Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA
4 Stanford University Stanford, CA
6 University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL
7 Purdue University–West Lafayette West Lafayette, IN
8 California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA
9 Cornell University Ithaca, NY
10 University of Texas–Austin Austin, TX
11 Pennsylvania State University–University Park University Park, PA
12 Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA
13 University of Wisconsin–Madison Madison, WI
14 Princeton University Princeton, NJ
14 Texas A&M University–College Station College Station, TX
14 Virginia Tech Blacksburg, VA
17 Northwestern University Evanston, IL
18 University of Minnesota–Twin Cities Minneapolis, MN
19 University of California–Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA
20 Lehigh University Bethlehem, PA
20 University of California–San Diego La Jolla, CA
20 University of Maryland–College Park College Park, MD</p>
<p>right, thanks for those. i’m not particularly concerned about princeton’s rankings in that respect though. what are engineering majors’ reputations within princeton, with other students?</p>
<p>Basically:</p>
<p>If you’re an engineer - “Engineers are awesome! And we work soooo hard.”</p>
<p>If you’re humanities/social science - “I’m glad I’m not an engineer! But they need to get off their high horses. Being a humanities major is hard too!”</p>
<p>If you’re natural sciences/math - “Yeah engineers are pretty cool. They aren’t any smarter or more hardworking, and they aren’t less either. Now back to lab/problem sets.”</p>
<p>This all assumes you aren’t ORFE. Then people think you’re a tool (regardless of how true this is).</p>
<p>The tool issue is not really serious. It’s more of a tongue-in-cheek thing for the most part. </p>
<p>And those perceptions are really spot-on.</p>
<p>The ORF website has the job placement from previous years. Unless you are masochistic and love pure math, there is no reason whatsoever to pick math over ORF.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure where you’re getting that number. By my count, there are 65 members of the physics faculty and 64 members of the math faculty (some of these are joint appointments). The classes of 2010 and 2011 have a combined total of 72 math majors and 64 physics majors.</p>
<p>[Physics</a> Department, Princeton University - Faculty](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/physics/people/faculty/]Physics”>Faculty | Department of Physics)
[Physics</a> Department, Princeton University - Seniors](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/physics/people/seniors/]Physics”>http://www.princeton.edu/physics/people/seniors/)
[Physics</a> Department, Princeton University - Juniors](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/physics/people/juniors/]Physics”>http://www.princeton.edu/physics/people/juniors/)
[Mathematics</a> Department - Princeton University - Directory Page](<a href=“http://www.math.princeton.edu/directory/]Mathematics”>People | Math)</p>
<p>Thanks for your help. I am wondering if math majors are pigeonholed into trading jobs (can’t get positions which lead to VP and managerial jobs)? I heard that trading jobs means repetitive work with little promotion, so basically traders are just the slaves of the financial industry? How true is this?</p>
<p>I am wondering what definition of “tool” is being used here: are ORFE people “jerks” or are they “being used by others”? :)</p>
<p>I know this is slightly off-topic, but are Econ majors who follow the “math track” competitive for jobs both in finance and other aspects of business? And is it true that the more math, the better?</p>
<p>Competitive relative to whom? Are you asking if math track will give you a leg up on other econ majors? As far as math goes, all the banks want to see that you can think quantitatively, but extensive coursework is only really important if you want to work at a quantitative trading shop like Jane St.</p>
<p>Does anyone have any thoughts about the applied math track in relation to this matter? Would it make any difference? </p>
<p>Also, any thoughts on computer science vs. orfe in terms of jobs? can a CS guy be competitive for the wall street jobs? any particular courses that you’d recommend taking? </p>
<p>Also, it seems like some of you are math majors…could you provide any insight on any math courses that you’ve enjoyed in particular? I don’t mean to hijack the thread, so if you want to pm me instead that’s cool.</p>
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<p>It depends on the firm. To some extent, that was true in the (relatively distant) past, although there were always organizations where traders ruled (e.g., Salomon Bros., read Liar’s Poker). In recent years, trading has been the source of most profits, and when that’s the case traders call the shots. Plus, there are plenty of firms that are really build around trading, where it’s impossible to advance in the hierarchy or to get top compensation without trading experience.</p>
<p>tophopeful, yep it is very tough not being promoted to a managerial position in trading when they are being paid $5-$20 million per year, which is an amount that a fair share of the better traders make on Wall Street.</p>
<p>time to find that non-trading job where promotions to managerial jobs occur quickly</p>
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