Has anyone been successful in gaining an internship doing quant work during a PHd?I am going to start a PHd in October this year (see my topic 'solving finance pde's with wavelet methods' in the other forum). I feel some work experience over the summer would be very interesting and fantastic to put on CV. However I don't really know whom to contact in banks to gain this temporary position.I'm in the UK, I wonder if anyone managed to do this whilst doing PHd, any advice/comments appreciated.RET79

Ret79,This message is slightly side tracked, but I was thinking, with soo many PhD research topics, how did you decide "solving finance pdes with wavelet methods" is the one for you? Have you studied this area before e.g. during an MSc course/thesis?I am also considering a PhD in math finance, but with soo much out there, I find it hard to pin something down.King.

No, I have not studied this area before but have done an MSc in Financial maths where my strong point was pde's. It involves a lot of C++ which I desperately need to learn and apply in a financial context for interest as well as for my CV. Also I get a kick out of solving and writing faster programs getting faster solutions etc. so why not go and do a PHd in this. Someone told me that the actual topic was not THAT crucial as long as it was slightly relevant and I picked up good research and programming skills with a PHd that people will take seriously in 3 years. Not to mention other factors as well such as location, evironment which all go in my favour as you have to spend 3 years somewhere you will be happy in not lonely and unhappy as PHd could do that to you. I got funding too so it all looks quite good. Maybe some of my reasoning is not perfect but hell I am in a boring as f@ck job and I need to get out to do a PHd to set myself up for an interesting quant type job in the future, if I don't get it at least I should get a research assistant post or lecturing or something with a PHd so it's just a matter of getting on with something and just making the best of my situation as I see it right now.RET79