<p>Sac:</p>
<p>My nephew is one of those kids flooding Columbia’s Career Center !!!</p>
<p>He has also received benefits (internships) of being located in NYC. There is a lot to be said for that.</p>
<p>
Exactly. This is not where my son works but this is a good example of what the quants do and what their qualifications need to be: <a href=“http://newhire.jpmorganchase.com/mba-programs/phd-opportunities/[/url]”>http://newhire.jpmorganchase.com/mba-programs/phd-opportunities/</a></p>
<p>My son found that most potential employers outside the financial industry didn’t know what to do with a FM graduate. They knew what to do with econ majors, MBA’s, CS degrees…</p>
<p>Monydad – I find your advice very interesting and informative. What’s your nephew’s major and what year is he in, may I ask? </p>
<p>My kid called yesterday to say a hedge fund manager told him to get back in touch after he’d taken a course in accounting. This is opposite the advice we’ve been giving him, which is similar to yours – not to specialize yet. Especially since he really doesn’t know what he wants to do. (He’s only a sophomore, but at the moment is planning to declare a math-econ major and probably also complete a concentration in physics.)</p>
<p>Often, as fields get better established, they start requiring credentials that they didn’t early on, when people come in from all sorts of different backgrounds. Do you think that’s what’s happening in finance?</p>
<p>dstark —By the way, perhaps coincidentally, UCSB has one of the top physics departments in the country.</p>
<p>1Down2toGo – Thanks for that link. I think it reinforces the idea that these kids have time, as long as they pick up the quantitative skills. Your son is obviously outstanding. Good luck with the 2toGo.</p>
<p>sac: He’s an upperclassman, with some kind of major oriented towards an eventual business career.</p>
<p>The hedge fund likely wants some accounting background because their internship opportunity involves inputting financial data into spreadsheets.</p>
<p>Personally I don’t regard taking an accounting course as unduly specializing, or as a big infringement on one’s liberal arts education. Actually I think a liberal education should include some exposure to business as one aspect. (maybe that’s why no liberal arts college is soliciting my input on curricular development…). An accounting course is good to have, for a lot of people not just finance specialists, IMO.</p>
<p>It is possible that the phenomenon you’re describing is happening in the area of financial engineering, but the accounting course requirement of this one fund for a particular temp job is not a really strong proof of any such trend.</p>
<p>As for finance generally, at the upper levels I doubt that the requirements have changed very much, though that’s certainly possible.<br>
IMO.</p>
<p>Just do either: Economics, Math, or Computer science for undergraduate, and then go into a financial engineering masters program. You’d be better off doing that than going straight into Fin. Engineering ugrad.</p>
<p>In a number of Econ departments of good schools, they offer courses, financial and managerial accounting, that are pointedly not allowed for credit toward an econ. major. Whether or not they have their heads screwed on backwards, I would consider taking the accounting courses somewhere else, perhaps at CC during the summer while working, rather than bump heads with them (or detract from their idea of a liberal arts education).</p>
<p>One of the reasons that my daughter is looking at fin math is she looked at the math requirements at Michigan and decided that the fin math major was easier than other types of math and more to her liking.</p>
<p>She could be wrong. :)</p>
<p>I have told her to look at stats which comes easy to her or econ. But who listens to her dad. :)</p>
<p>Econ is very interesting if you are of that bent…according to my son who so far had his head in the clouds…but is growing up gradually.</p>
<p>You are right about ‘who listens to dad’. If you tell them one thing, it will turn into the other.</p>
<p>@Monydad…Could u please tell about course offered by university of washington’s maths department on ‘computational finance’. The course was introduced in 2011 but the maths department is really reputed…</p>
<p>You should start a new thread…this thread is over 6 years old… ;)</p>