<p>do i need a math/stats major to go into sales and trading? or is a business degree from haas good enough?</p>
<p>I think there is S&T and quant trading. I think Haas is enough for S&T but quant trading requires heavy math/stats/programming, like PhD route.</p>
<p>Haas offers a [Master</a> of Financial Engineering](<a href=“http://mfe.berkeley.edu/index.html]Master”>Master of Financial Engineering Program | Berkeley Haas) program that is apparently aimed at quantitative finance.</p>
<p>im asking about trading out of undergrad</p>
<p>so ur saying only phds do quant trading? not undergrads even in math?</p>
<p>dont alot of engineers go to prop trading? they dont really have high level math but just freakin smart</p>
<p>Most of the “original” quants who developed the methods were physics PhD and professors. The MFE programs were created after the quant era started for people who don’t want to do a PhD but want to develop the skills to do it. But, I don’t think it’s possible to do quant trading straight out of undergrad. </p>
<p>With that being said, not all hedge funds, portfolio managers, and S&T even use quant trading. Quant trading is a relatively new thing, but fundamental analysis has been around for a long time and you don’t need high level math for that.</p>
<p>I recently made a woman who was hired into a Wall Street sales/trading position right after completing an undergrad major in history. </p>
<p>Granted, it should be said that she completed that major at Princeton.</p>
<p>But that’s in S&T and not quantitative trading, right? Sooo like demoz said they’re 2 different things I believe.</p>
<p>Well, I did say that it was an S&T (sales & trading) position. The OP seems to be asking about positions available right after undergrad, and I agree with demoz that most quant positions are not available to those right out of undergrad.</p>
<p>I know people who have gotten internships/jobs in quant from Cal… so I wouldn’t say it’s impossible :P</p>
<p>Undergrads aren’t smart enough for quant positions.</p>
<p>^^ my interviewer from the blackrock financial modeling group told me the head of the group only has a bachelors.</p>
<p>^^ I have quant 2nd round interviews…</p>
<p>Are u guys sure it’s quantitative finance and not something closer to private equity/hedge fund? Quantitative finance uses stuff like C+ programming, linear algebra, PDE, ODE, and others. Financial modeling is also not the same as quantitative finance.</p>
<p>yes these guys are all quants with physics and applied math phds. Try modeling swaption prices. Looks pretty quantitative to me. One of my interview questions was how would u value a bond with an embedded call option.</p>
<p>Oooh, that’s really cool then. What major/classes do they look for a person to take? I’m assuming just a business major is not enough?</p>
<p>These were all OCR interviews so when i peeked at the signup sheets everyone was basically double majoring in a combination of the following :Econ/Haas + Math/Stats/EECS/CS. I’m an Applied Math (Mathematical finance cluster) and Econ double major. you’d probably want some good programming skills and a good finance class like Econ 136 or IEOR 221 to prepare you (UGBA 103 is not enough).</p>
<p>That’s true. Everyone I know was CS/Stats/Business double/minor… so business undergrad is okay as long as you have some other background too :P</p>
<p>is it fun?</p>
<ul>
<li>@ jetforce
what other fun “off the menu” clusters are there in applied math? slashhh// what classes did you dish up to make your 3-course cluster?</li>
</ul>
<p>I’m pretty interested in quant finance stuff and so would you guys say that a student who only majored in CS is enough? I intend on taking a fair number of econ courses including the 101 series / 136 and maybe econometrics as well as math (after I judge how difficult upper div math is). </p>
<p>What courses would you recommend in the Econ/Math department?</p>
<p>My mathematical finance cluster consists of: IEOR 221, IEOR 263a, and Math 126</p>
<p>Good classes to take:
Econ 141(this is the hardest class i’ve taken at berkeley)
Stat 153
Stochastic Processes:Stat 150/IEOR 161/IEOR 263/Stat 204
CS 61b
Econ 104
IEOR 221/222/223
Econ 136
Econ 138</p>
<p>I’ve taken UGBA 131,132,Econ 136, and IEOR 221 for my finance coursework.
Econ 136 pretty much covered all the material in UGBA 103,131, and 133 in a single class so it was a waste of time for me to take UGBA 131. In fact, UGBA 133 uses the same book as Econ 136.</p>