Im a sophomore pursuing a CS degree from my university and I have always been torn by the Finance vs Tech issue when it comes to career opportunities.
How hard(or easy) is it to earn a computer science degree during your undergrad, and then possibly transition to the finance industry? I didnt want to be totally out of the loop so I recently just declared a finance minor along with my CS major.
Any thoughts on this? is doing CS and Finance simultaneously manageable?
Regarding my skill set, I am not the best coder, it may take time for me to figure it out( eventually), but I was hoping that by struggling through and finishing this degree, I would be prepared to tackle any industry(i.e finance) since it seems that CS is one of the harder degrees( at least from reading forums on here and google). I have always been fascinated by the people in crisp sharp suits who look like they own the world tho, and the banking/finance industry as a whole has always piqued my interests.
CS and Finance aren’t really linked academically. Getting a degree in each will require a much different set of classes. You probably need to pick one / both, probably one. Finishing a CS degree with no intention of using it seems a bit silly. Just because it is hard doesn’t mean that you will get the degree automatically for anything easier. You still need to take the classes, which can be expensive. So don’t waste your time with CS if you don’t plan to use it.
It sounds to me like you should switch majors to finance or something else. Having the CS classes you have probably gets you a minor and will look great on your resume. It’ll probably help you get career options in the areas where financial expertise overlap with programming (automatic trading algorithms, etc).
All this said, it seems like you don’t really know that you like finance either: you like the lifestyle, not the profession. Why did you choose CS to begin with? Is there something that drew you there?
I think you’re at an important crossroads. In a good position with the CS start, but I think a major change may be in order. Try posting this on college life with some personal info about your thoughts on majors, your interests, and your skills.
As someone who majored in CS and spent some time working in Finance, I can say that the transition is pretty easy. The truth is, most jobs related to finance/economics these days involve A LOT of programming. Even if you aren’t the best coder, you’ll be better than everyone else there. You might find some of your economics/finance knowledge lacking, but you can pick that up as you go. It’s easier to learn than programming anyway. Take a few low-level economics courses and one or two finance courses and you’ll be fine. Also, take a lot of math courses.
Most finance companies actively recruit CS majors, so you shouldn’t have much of a problem. I’d even go so far as to say it’s easier to get a job in finance majoring in CS than majoring in finance.
I agree with Adamah. I have a CS degree and used to work on Wall Street and a few finance companies in San Francisco. Financial companies are so technology-based these days that they’re much more interested in people with technology degrees than finance and business degrees.
And the work for a tech person in these companies can be pretty interesting. My work on Wall Street doing fixed income modeling and analytics was some of the most fascinating work I’ve ever done.