How I became a quant | Q&A on academic background, salary, work life balance

Hi everyone. Thanks for watching my previous video 'A Day in The Life of a Quant'. Here is the Q&A video for going through all the questions you've left in the comment section of my previous video. Hope to shed some lights on your path to becoming quants.

If you have topics that you'd like me to cover, please leave a comment in the comment area.

00:00 Intro
01:15 Pathway to quant
03:10 Is phd a must?
04:30 Non-MFE background
05:12 How to get a job?
06:45 To be close to work or not to be?
07:40 Where I got my MFE degree
08:13 Salary
09:30 Work life balance
10:20 Commute to work

[pengyipeng]

first time to see a female quant share video on youtube! really inspiring!

[joshuas]

Thank you so much for this video! You‘re content is great, I‘ve seen the „a day in the life of a quant“ at first - very well done. Please keep going! 👏🏻

[kristinn]

There’s nothing legally preventing you from sharing your salary. By federal law, employers cannot prohibit employees from disclosing their salary.

[feynmankac]

Watching your video from France ! thank you ! Can't wait to see your video about how to polish resume and more about the interview process in general :)

[yasukara]

I'm also an young quant woman (live in Japan), so this video was very helpful for me.
I made mind to keep studying English and FE dreaming to be like you someday...😂
if possible, i wanna chatting with

[christopherwang]

Awesome! Thank you for answering in such a detailed fashion!
regards, - future quant

[sarahabraham]

Please put out a video on how to pick the right financial engineering program 🙌🏻Thanks for this video!

[nithyasris]

Thank you for the insight! Would love a follow up video on choosing the right financial engineering program.

[frederickkgagane]

Thank you for the video. It was very informative. Keep on doing more videos.

[jharoldmontoyavillalta]

Thanks for this! How to polish your resume! Please!

[esthergnamitche]

Thank you for this video. Very helpful and insightful !

[carriepan]

Thank you so much for making this video! I am a senior student currently preparing to apply for MFE programs, and CMU is also one of my dream school 🥲I would love to hear your advice on how to polish a quant resume, select a Master's program, and just general advice on becoming a quant! Sending a lot of support here~

[JorgeHernandez-kobb]

Hi!
Watching your video from Spain. I wonder whether its too old/compettitive for someone who is 35 to have their first quant job? My background is in math and have been developer for over 4 years now.
Keep up the good work! :)

[wiiagzia]

hello小姐姐，澳本UNSW actuarial science/finance, 英硕LSE quantitative method in risk management能转行quant吗?

[rich_in_paradise]

Hi, I'm not going to say you should share your salary, that's totally up to you. But you should know that in the state of California, it's illegal for employers to prevent employees from disclosing their salary (or retalitate against them for doing so).

[emile.h]

Thanks for your sharing.I’m a viewer from Taiwan, also working in financial industry.Don’t know whether there is any videos about applying US school and experience of studying abroad haha
Anyway, it’s a great video👏👏

[Abhijeet-lktd]

First of all thanks to you for such a informative video on quant. Which laptop do quant prefer, is it mac/windows/linux ?

[shreyachakraborti]

after getting job, do you dedicate time to study? did u do any certifications? which books or online courses do you recommend for quant?

[majidjangani]

I want to apply for a master degree on computational finance or FE . Can you please advice me on how to choose the right one to become quant trader? And also it would be great if you talk on the specific topics in statistic, probability and math that as a quant trader need to work on.

[teknotrader]

Thank you for the video, it was really clear and gave an answer to a lot of my questions.
I have just one question: I'm currently building a track record of my trading strategies, a portfolio of softwares that I made and I'm studying economics at university; I'm thinking to start studying "data science" as next degree (I'm really passionate about machine learning).
Once I'll complete the journey, do you think that this things could bring me to a quant job, or should I do something more/different in order to get a job in that field?

Thank you so much!