Hi, I am currently a freshman at Indiana University. I am a Kelley direct admit and is pursuing a double degree in Mathematics. However, though I’ve only spent the first several month in college, I feel the courses are not competitive at all and neither do the student. Moreover, I don’t know if business is the right major because I don’t feel learning anything from my business classes (that’s why I am learning math). I want to pursue a graduate study in Finance Engineering and be a quantitative trader.
I have been admitted to UIUC this summer and I can transfer there next spring but I don’t know if it is the right choice.
- It is true that I want to focus on Math and Computer Science in my undergraduate study, but I can also do well studying these two in IU with the business environment.
- Though most students don't study, I still made several good friends and I don't know if I want to start over again.
- I want to transfer to a more prestigious school (USC, UNC for example) next fall (or before junior year), I wonder if this transfer would affect my further transferring?
I really appreciate your response and suggestions.
I’m in CS at UIUC, so I an probably answer some of your questions.
If you are set on finance engineering / quant finance, then you should probably drop the business major and pursue pure math or physics (maybe CS, too). Research and graduate coursework are probably your best bet to get on the radar for trading companies.
To be honest, none of the schools you mention routinely send kids to trading firms. If you really want to do trading, you should probably look towards Harvard and MIT, as most trading firms (DE Shaw, Citadel, Jane Street, 2Sig, HRT, etc) recruit almost exclusively from these schools. UIUC isn’t bad though, we’ve sent a couple kids to trading firms (although this is a very rare thing and most of these candidates have outstanding math credentials (think USAMO)).
TLDR; Trading is hard to break into from a non-target, the bare minimum is to get really good at math/stats, and business major is not helpful for getting into this field
If you’re planning on transferring to USC/UNC in the future, I wouldn’t transfer now. I would do well at IU, so it can help you with the transfer. Also, for someone who is interested in going to a grad school, I wouldn’t say USC/UNC are more prestigious than IU/Kelley (or UIUC). If your goal is to get into a top grad school down the road, if anything, I would try to transfer to a smaller, private school…where you could not only get strong academics, but also the support.
Thank you for the comment. My plan is to get into a target graduate school since I don’t think I can get into any of IVY league right now lol.