<p>Financial Engineering is the method of using mathematical methods in order to predict the return on investments. The mathematics used are in the areas of partial differential equations, stochastic calculus, optimization, statistics (mainly martingales) and computational finance.</p>
<p>Im at Berkeley and am considering a simultaneous degree in Mech Eng and Bussiness Administration at Haas. Would this give a lot better chance of getting into a top consulting or finance firm and eventually a good MBA program. It would be a lot of work, but if I know it will help out a lot I'll do it. Otherwise I will just focus on Mech engineering and try my luck with that.</p>
<p>Nah, the most straightforward way would actually be for you to just get a degree from Haas.</p>
<p>I've been saying this on numerous threads - employers don't really care about double majors. I've seen plenty of double majors get beaten out for jobs by people who have just one major, but who interviewed well. In fact, some of them told me ruefully that they would have been better off taking the time they spent in getting that second major, and instead using it to practice their interview skills and speaking skills.</p>
<p>^^ What about improving blow-hair-drying skill and coordination (i.e., matching dress & ties & shoes) skill ? :p</p>
<p>
[quote]
better off taking the time they spent in getting that second major, and instead using it to practice their interview skills and speaking skills.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>who ever does that? lol...thats not a good reason NOT to double major.</p>
<p>if you want money, and think you have the drive, be an entrepreneur. cuz most people hate corporate america. as an entrepreneur, you get to do your own thing and make your own money. it might be risky and is not for everyone, but you will most likely be a lot happier in the end</p>
<p>I keep telling folks to not rack your brains for you graduate degree. There are not enough MS/MEng folks out there. I got an MS in Engineering with no specialty (closest being engineering management). I took a four statistics courses, a linear algebra course, 3 project management courses, a quality engineering course and a database course.</p>
<p>Clearly not the hardest MS Engineering degree in the world and I still have to remove my name from recruiters lists.</p>
<p>Well... yes... but I can tell you for sure that if I'd gotten my masters at UH like my prior internship boss wanted me to, and not at UIUC, which is the top grad program in my field, I wouldn't have been able to a) name my salary, or b) choose exactly which top company I wanted to work for. I'd still be doing traffic engineering, working for my prior internship boss... Not my first choice.</p>
<p>So... Getting a masters in general will probably set you up just fine for finding a top job at a good place, but you get a lot more choices and people are willing to go a little further to hire you if you've got a masters that you busted your hump for, if you're willing to bust your hump...</p>
<p>I think the influence of "top" companies depends on where you live.</p>
<p>Maybe the Silicon Valley companies care much more about universites and majors...like investment companies in NYC care about the B-School you attended...BUT...</p>
<p>In places like Washington DC, it's all about if you HAVE a degree and level of security clearance you hold. Once you prove yourself, you don't have to work for a "top" company directly...you just be an independent contractor for them and get the $80-$100/hour positions.</p>
<p>I think it strongly depends on what you really want to do and what kind of talent you have. If all you want to do is be an IT contractor, then I agree that it doesn't really where you get your degree. Note, there's nothing wrong with being a contractor - as I think that IT contractors are probably better off than the majority of CS grads out there. </p>
<p>However, if you ever aspire to be more than just a contractor, and you have the talent to do so, then you probably are better off going to a top school. Not so much so that you can get into a 'top' company, as that is only an ancillary benefit. No, I think the real benefit is that you will be able to do top networking and get access to top research projects. Take the 2 Google founders. Both of them are worth over $10 billion each. However, that would never have happened if they had never decided to go to Stanford, as that is where they got assigned to the Stanford research project that eventually became commercialized Google. In short, if they hadn't gone to Stanford, then somebody else would have founded Google, or maybe Google would never have been founded at all. The same could be said for Yahoo, Cisco, Netscape, Sun, HP, and many of the other leading computer companies, in which the founders basically met through their college connections. </p>
<p>Granted, the vast majority of people will never found a super-successful company. But there will always be a few, and their success will be meteoric. I can't imagine being worth even $10 million, much less $10 billion, but that's what the Google founders have now, and it would have never happened if they hadn't chosen Stanford.</p>
<p>engineering majors usually have the highest average salaries out of undergrad (usually in the 50000-60000 range), but the main career path to get six figures straight out of college is in i-banking. That is, if you're willing to work 100 hrs a week. Engineering can help you get into this job be demonstrating your analytical skills, or it can harm you. They base hiring largely on prestige of undergraduate institution and GPA. And engineering majors have notoriously low GPAs.</p>
<p>
[quote]
They base hiring largely on prestige of undergraduate institution and GPA. And engineering majors have notoriously low GPAs.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Actually, I would say that they base hiring most of all on networking. This is true throughout the working world - by far the best way to get hired in any industry is to know somebody on the inside. </p>
<p>I also would assert that the importance of GPA varies from school to school. At some schools, notably at MIT, it barely matters what your GPA is, as long as you're passing. At other schools, especially most no-name schools, it's extremely difficult to get an interview even if you have a perfect GPA.</p>
<p>I cold-called on all my resume send-outs and got five great offers with top firms, so while knowing someone on the inside may help, I'd say that having a strong resume and then following it up with strong interview skills is just as beneficial as having an inside contact.</p>
<p>If one can make it to the interview, I'd say that GPA largely becomes irrelevant.</p>
<p>For only an engineering degree,</p>
<p>I know that a PetroE + Masters yields some borderline/over 6 figure salaries.</p>
<p>Then again, an Engineerign Degree + J.D/MBA/M.D/Ph.D will usually net the same result.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I cold-called on all my resume send-outs and got five great offers with top firms, so while knowing someone on the inside may help, I'd say that having a strong resume and then following it up with strong interview skills is just as beneficial as having an inside contact.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It's hard for me to see how anything can beat a good network. That is why people in business say that it's not what you know, it's WHO you know. Specifically, many jobs out there are effectively available ONLY to insider contacts. This is particularly true of startups. Almost every single employee of Microsoft back in the early days was a personal high school or college friend of either Bill Gates or Paul Allen, or friends of friends. Steve Ballmer was hired to be the business leader (and eventually became CEO) of Microsoft because he happened to be Gates's old poker-playing buddy at Harvard. All of these early employees who stuck with the company are worth millions now, and some of them (i.e. Ballmer) are worth billions. Almost all of Google's employees in the early days were members of Brin's and Page's social group. </p>
<p>You also have the prospect of the 'fast-track promotion'. While the regular hiring process may land you the standard entry-level job, knowing the right contact can instantly land you into a senior position. I know a company where all of the newly minted engineers were hired into senior-level positions, except for one, who was being groomed to be CTO. Why? Turns out it was because that guy's father and the founder and CEO of the company are old friends, going back to when they used to play football together at Cal, and so the son is basically an old family friend.</p>
<p>I agree with you, that in business, it's who-you-know as opposed to what-you-know, but in terms of just getting a good entry-level job in engineering, as a technician and not as a professional schmoozer, then the strengths of your resume, technical interview skills, and typical interview skills are the factors that are most crucial. Sure, it'd help to know people with the company, but it's not going to get you the job for sure, and they're not going to advance you to be a VP before you've gotten a few years' experience.</p>
<p>It's possible to be a 22-year-old CEO. It's not possible to be a 22-year-old project manager of a multi-million-dollar engineering project.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It's possible to be a 22-year-old CEO. It's not possible to be a 22-year-old project manager of a multi-million-dollar engineering project.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Really? Interesting you would say that because I was just IM'ing one of my old friends from the old days. Without getting into too many details, let's just say that his father owns a rather large chemical company in a foreign country, and hence, he (the son) was studying to get a ChemE degree in the US with one express reason - to prepare himself for one day taking over his father's company. When he graduated, he immediately went home to take a job in a high managerial position in his father's company. I don't know the exact term they use over there, as they tend to manage companies differently than the US does, but I would say that, in effect, he was a 22-year-old project manager of a huge engineering project that easily ran in the millions (probably in the hundreds of millions), and he basically got that job because of his inside contacts (basically, his dad). </p>
<p>{As it turns out, he didn't like it, so he decided to get his MBA and now he's an investment banker in London, but that's another story for another time.}</p>
<p>
[quote]
but in terms of just getting a good entry-level job in engineering, as a technician and not as a professional schmoozer, then the strengths of your resume, technical interview skills, and typical interview skills are the factors that are most crucial.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The main difference is that if your inside connections are good, you won't even NEED a resume. You won't need interview skills because there will be no interview. The company will already know whether they want to hire you or not based on the strength of your connection, and so they won't need to interview you and they won't need to see your resume.</p>
<p>For example, when Microsoft wanted to hire a guy who knew how to write good floating point routines, they hired Monte Davidoff. Why him? Simple. Because he and Bill Gates knew each other as students at Harvard, and Gates knew that Davidoff was a darn fine programmer. He didn't have to see Davidoff's resume. He didn't have to hold an interview. He already knew that Davidoff was 'the man'. Nor was Microsoft unusual in this respect. Almost all tech startups obtain most of their initial staff through friends and classmates of the founders. Very few startups do traditional hiring, as they don't have time, and most of them don't even have a real HR department. What actually happens is that they just end up hiring all their friends, and friends of friends. Hence, if you don't have that inside connection, then you have little chance of being one of the early employees of a tech startup, and being early is where you want to be, because that's where the money is made through stock options or other equity compensation. The early employees of Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, Google, Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, Dell, etc. who stuck with the company are all fabulously wealthy from their stock options. You're not going to become wealthy by joining Microsoft now. The point is, no inside connection means no chance of joining a startup early, and that means no chance of becoming super-rich. </p>
<p>Nor is this story specific only to startups. Even in large companies, a lot of hiring is done via contacts. Let's face it. If CEO Steve Ballmer or Bill Gates decided that aibarr, or me, or anybody else was a person that Microsoft ought to give an entry-level job, and he pushed for it, we would get the offer. The company might give you a perfunctory interview, but presuming that you're not a complete buffoon, you're going to get the offer. No HR staffer is going to defy the wishes of the current CEO or the former CEO (who still owns 10% of the company and who has more money than God). All it would take is one phone call. One call from Ballmer or Gates to HR saying that the company should make an offer to person X. And it's done. That's it. That's all it takes. </p>
<p>That's the kind of political power you can access if you have the right inside contact. It doesn't even have to be Gates or Ballmer. It can be somebody else inside the company who is less powerful (but still powerful). If anybody in the company who has hiring power decides that he/she wants you, then you're going to get an offer.</p>
<p>Now, don't get me wrong. I am not saying that resume-writing skills or interview skills are unimportant. Far from it. They are extremely important. My point is, networking is also important. Networking is something that I see engineers often neglect to their future chagrin. The truth is, even if we're talking about engineering jobs, you can be the best candidate from a technical standpoint, and still lose out on a job to a guy who isn't as good as you are technically, but who has better connections. I've seen it happen, and it's sad. A lot of engineering students want to believe that if they are good, then companies will realize this and hire them just because they're good. But that's not always true. Networking is a job skill just like any other job skill, and is arguably the most important skill of all in terms of actually landing jobs.</p>
<p>Wow Sakky, you seem to know a whole lot of people in a whole lot of places. It's obvious that you've got a pretty decent network. ;)</p>
<p>Are there any good specific things to do to help build up your network and improve networking skills besides some of the things people mention all the time (going to a top school, meeting lots of people, internships, etc.)? What should those engineering students with bad networking skills have done to fix that?</p>
<p>Party with the business kids.</p>