<p>what should u major in?
what school?</p>
<p>just curious, cuz i'm browsing around and this forum is so confusing</p>
<p>i heard that pure math is good</p>
<p>out of undergrad, you should probably work in pure math, and/or computer science. However, the majority of people that hedge funds hire have PhDs in more scientific stuff (that tends to correlate to financial stuff) like physics, computational chemistry, and stuff like that.</p>
<p>ur not gonna get recruited right out of undergrad to work hedge funds or at least its rare. u need work experience in a financial sector (i.e. ibanking is great start if you go to a good school) and possibly an mba. as far as major, it depends on where you go. if you go to harvard u can major in english and still possibly to ibanking. otherwise do business/finance if u have a b-school (if u go to a school that has undergrad b-school, but major in something else it will be hard to compete with business kids for jobs). if you go to a top 20 school that doesnt have undergrad business, something with economics, or mathematical economic analysis or math might even be good.</p>
<p>so sayyy i get into MIT, should I do pure math or finance (Sloan)?
but if i do pure math...i'm not like an IMO-type math-person. is that what they're looking for?
lol i kno smoeone who was recruited from undergrad, and he was an economics major at harvard.
if u do pure math and don't end up going into business what can i do with my math degree........</p>
<p>it also varies with the position you want. if you want a manager, you should have experience in the financial market before heading that route. otherwise, some positions are not so hard to attain. </p>
<p>also, do you want to work for a local firm or a big firm like citadel. going to a top rank school is also good, but not the only route. knowing the industry and math is important.</p>
<p>lol the guy i knew made $80,000 over ONE SUMMER doing hedgefunds. and he was only a harvard freshman->sophmore</p>
<p>from the sound of your post, you don't seem to know much about the industry.</p>
<p>do you even know what hedge funds are?</p>
<p>they involve high risk and a lot of spare change. how did your friend make that much? did he work for them or put $ in them?</p>
<p>"80,000 over ONE SUMMER doing hedgefunds."</p>
<p>Pure BS....what do you mean "doing hedge funds"....in fact no one here really has any idea what they are talking about except westsidewolf1989. </p>
<p>your not going to get a job at a hedge fund unless you come from a top school and have experience in the financial sector. Most, if not all tend to have experience in investment banking.Hence, the reason that job is so sought after. (skill set and exit opps)</p>
<p>Major...only matters if you come from a school that is not a target (targets include ivys and other top 20 schools) however it is not uncommon to see people who dont come from top 20 schools who also work and are successful in the field. </p>
<p>School...the easiest route would be to come from a top 20 school. </p>
<p>A hedge fund is a private investment fund charging a performance fee and typically open to only a limited number of investors, e.x., in the U.S., hedge funds are largely open to accredited investors only. Hedge Funds influence the public securities and private investment markets.Hedge Funds are not currently subject to any direct regulation by the SEC, unlike mutual funds, pension funds, and insurance companies. Therefore, hedge funds follow complex investment strategies. </p>
<p>People that work at hedge funds work in a particular strategy within the fund (they are not hedge fund managers...managers refer to the partners) ex...distressed, PE, RIETS, PIPES, Arbitrage, event driven, short selling, entering into futures, swaps and other derivative contracts and leverage blah blah etc (you get the point)</p>
<p>"do you even know what hedge funds are?"
nope</p>
<p>lol no he worked for them</p>
<p>this forum is not confusing unless you read the 100+ topics that focus around "i want to make a million, i want to do ib/hedge funds and i dont know what it is"</p>
<p>Why dont you kids focus on what you do LIKE and get your undergraduate degrees and then look for a job you all ENJOY doing. People who do IB and hedge funds and other high stress business jobs, in most cases do it b/c that is where their career took them, not b/c one day in middle school they saw the words INVESTMENT BANKING and thought it would be "cool"</p>
<p>Are you all going to torture yourselfs by majoring in undergrad math or econ, when your talents and passions lie in art or biology?<br>
A lot of you seem to chase money not careers.</p>
<p>lol
but i have talents in math / econ. (i think..hope)
and i honestly think a stressful job would be fun
ok maybe not fun but at least stimulating
i wouldn't mind doing something liike this really even if it's not as profitable
i was just wondering. lol.</p>
<p>
[quote]
lol
but i have talents in math / econ. (i think..hope)
and i honestly think a stressful job would be fun
ok maybe not fun but at least stimulating
i wouldn't mind doing something liike this really even if it's not as profitable
i was just wondering. lol.
[/quote]
You don't know what "this" is. You don't know what a hedge fund is, you don't know what working in finance is like. Someone who spends 15 minutes on Investopedia has a greater understanding of the markets than you do. You don't know if you have talents in economics because you've never been in a rigorous economics program.</p>
<p>Go to the best school possible (best as defined by a combination of atmosphere/community, price, prestige and departmental quality) and figure out what you like there. You, and 99% of this board, will never end up working in finance because by the time you're done with your first internship you'll realize it's not for you.</p>
<p>
[quote]
You, and 99% of this board, will never end up working in finance because by the time you're done with your first internship you'll realize it's not for you.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>and you know this because...?</p>
<p>just because i don't know what hedgefunds are. or what finance is. doesn't mean that i would never like it or that i might not want to go into such a field. i was trying to get more information, how the hell else would i know what i want to try?</p>
<p>
[quote]
and you know this because...?</p>
<p>just because i don't know what hedgefunds are. or what finance is. doesn't mean that i would never like it or that i might not want to go into such a field. i was trying to get more information, how the hell else would i know what i want to try?
[/quote]
I know this because it's the same as being a day trader in the mid-90s or being a real estate investor 5 years ago. You heard about investment banking somewhere, hedge funds and prop shops have only become real public powerhouses in the last decade. When you've got 15 year olds who don't know what a P/E ratio is talking about becoming an investment banker you've got to figure it's an industry at critical mass. This is the most popular thing today, and it's especially the most popular thing in the financial industry, but it probably won't be by the time you graduate.</p>
<p>Why would you ask about finance on a forum for people entering college, primarily populated by high school students? There's nothing wrong with asking questions, but if you want real responses you need to learn where to ask questions.</p>
<p>if you are not smart enough to research online what hedge funds by yourself you wont make it far in the industry, either that or you will be one of those unsuccessful business people that does not end up getting promoted or getting the big raise or bonus. you will be eaten by corporate politics and will get burned or burn out.</p>
<p>who said this place was my sole source of information? i just felt that it was harmless to ask a few questions, since some of you guys seemed to have actually done some work. now everyone seemed to think that i've decided this is the only thing i would want to do when i get into college just cuz i asked what school could you go to if you want to go into this area of business. as you've noticed, i'm a junior high school. do u really think the people who ask questions on these forums actually take ur advice into consideration when they are, say, selecting a major or a college? most of them are just interested in what other CCers might say; it'll be sad if someone actually made decisions on the opinions of random people online.</p>
<p>aannd as you've deduced, i know nothing about ibanking/hedgefunds, etc. i've heard about it from a friend in college who wants to go into such a field, nothing more. do you really think that, knowing nothing about this area of business, i have already decided that it's what i'm going to do? no, maybe that's why i started this thread--to learn more about what people have done. and perhaps, if i'm further interested, i would go look up more about hedge funds and finance and banking. the original point of my thread was to find out what major managing hedge funds could fall under to see if i'd be interested in going that route. (like if it was a math route, I might want to do it since i like math, but don't know what jobs i could get with a math degree)</p>
<p>I WAS JUST INTERESTED IN WAT U GUYS DID. i didn't say anything about salaries, or about choosing a career yet, since i won't be doing that for another 740548 years. i didn't say that i was seriously choosing a career in finance, don't jump to that conclusion just cuz everyone else wants to make money.</p>
<p>
......lol.</p>
<p>
[quote]
the original point of my thread was to find out what major managing hedge funds could fall under
[/quote]
Well, I don't know a school that has a major that ends with you getting a post graduate degree in maths or economics, years of work experience, employees, capital, clients and an up market, so I'd imagine you can't major in anything in specific to magically manage a hedge fund.</p>
<p>This is all a highly theoretical discussion, because one look at the debt markets would let you know that it's probably 50/50 that we're heading towards a catastrophic collapse in the financial industry that will put the industrialized world into decade long depression. Seeing as a hedge fund generally makes money when they... make money, you might want to build a time machine and go back 10 years and start it then. I'll give you a couple hundred bucks and maybe you can short some tech stocks for me. Whadda ya say?</p>
<p>Listen, go to school, get into something kind of "quanty" if you like that kind of stuff, and try and get involved with everything else you like. If you like something and you're even slightly entrepreneurial and you follow that path you have a better chance of making a tremendous amount of money than the people who prepare for college by considering what they're going to be doing 15 years after they're out. Math, Physics, Computer Science (because it really is just applied mathematics), Economics if the school is good, whatever. Find something you like, dive head first into it and figure out the industry later.</p>
<p>Okay, I'm not going to make myself sound dumb like alot of poeople have. I have a simple question, can someone explain hedge funds to me, in English. Im only a freshman in high school, and I hear alot about if and want to get an idea of what it is.</p>
<p>
HAHA like me =)</p>
<p>
Essentially (and this is a tremendously basic explanation) a hedge fund is like an autonomous mutual fund. While plenty of mutual funds are 'offered' by banks or brokerages, a hedge fund is private in that it cannot release a large amount of data about itself, and it's free of most regulation. It charges a management ("performance") fee like mutual funds, but unlike mutual funds it's only open to accredited investors ( Accredited</a> investor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ), which is why it can't release too much data publicly- and why they're normally seen as secretive.</p>
<p>Since they avoid a lot of the normal regulation they can pretty much do whatever they want so long as it's in the contract governing the fund. Hedge funds used to be funds that heavily hedged their bets to offer absolute returns, but it's inaccurate today because the majority of the big'uns don't really hedge.</p>