<t>You shouldn't be intimidated by the naysayers, as many people have made this kind of switch, including in this market. A lot of people become quants because they don't have your kind of credentials and can't get a good academic job, although for some reason they never list that sort of thing as a...

<t>Yes it is possible, I personally know a pure mathematician, tenure-track at a research university, who just started a new career in finance a couple of months ago. But you should definitely learn about finance and programming in advance, especially the latter. Also it took him a while to find a j...

<t>It's 2/285 like what's his name said. Each of the 32 top players has a 1/96 chance of being paired with a given non-top-32 player, since they're all equally likely. So conversely, each non-top-32 player has a 1/96 chance of being paired with a given top 32 player. Adding over all 32, there's a 1/...

<t>He was the head quant at Goldman for a while. He wrote a book about his life "my life as a quant" or something. I actually didn't like it because he seemed to feel like a failure for not making it in academia and spent a lot of time on this. Despite being one of the top quants in the world for hi...

hmm, maybe it's one of those USA vs England things. In the US, a CV only refers to the academic-type resume with lists of degrees, talks, publications, etc. If you send that for a nonacademic job here, it's like carrying a "I live in an ivory tower" sign and you won't get interviews.

<t>Cziffie,Not to suggest you're clueless, but you got to send a resume not a CV. Make a real effort to make yourself marketable. If you don't know how, go find some job listings and make your resume fit their desires. Once y ou've done that, make a nice generic cover letter which you can fine-tune ...

<t>Shrooman,Financial engineers are way better paid. Actuarial pay is closely tied to their exam performance and it takes years to get a high salary. Actuaries start in the $40's typically and gradually go up as they do their 9 or so exams. Once you finish the exams after like 10 yrs you can get 120...

<t>I actually do have a decent research position in academia available if I want, but it's in a pretty remote location and the pay is not all that great so I was curious if I could "have my cake and eat it too". And to the idiot who said I didn't want to get my hands in the mud, I'm willing to do ju...

<t>I'm a PhD in math with some industry experience, but not in finance. I've learned a lot of mathematical finance and I find it to be very interesting stuff, and I would love to live in NYC and make a lot of money. The only problem is I really am not into programming at all. I do have some on the j...

<t>It is crucial for most quant jobs to have a firm understanding of stochastic differential equations and its relationship with finance. A PhD in math or physics has had to develop understanding of advanced and highly mathematical topics and thus is considerably more likely than a random master's g...

<t>Duffie's book is far more theoretical than what you'll need in an interview or on the job. Hull's book is pretty good, especially for someone with a good math background. Chriss (sp) also has a book, which is less math-based but which some people like. As for the culture etc, I wouldn't know neve...

<t>I'm in an angry mood, so I'm posting to the angriest discussion I can find on the internet at the moment. Look, the Arabs are very tribal. All those Palestinians or whatever you want to call them that moved out of modern-day Israel in 1948, that went to Syria, or Lebanon, or Iraq, and even the on...

I think this guy is going headlong into the "perish" category.So is it wrong that I find such papers so amusing?

<t>Hell I don't spend 1/3 of my life with academics. I'm basically self-employed in my mind. I teach a few classes, occasionally run into my colleagues or attend a reception... eventually I'll have to do committee meetings. But I certainly don't have to spend 40 hrs/week associating with mathematici...

<t>From someone who has considered leaving the ivory tower but has decided against it for now..1) Why should it bother me if my colleagues are socially challenged? The interaction one has with one's colleagues is not all that personal. When it's mainly math who cares how good they are with women? If...