- Joined
- 6/6/08
- Messages
- 1,194
- Points
- 58
I seem to have come to a rut.
My university seems utterly clueless as to what to do with financial engineering students, and even with alumni help, I still can't find any finance job, let alone some form of junior quant job.
Here's where I stand:
Over the course of my undergraduate education, I've completed quite a good portion of Lehigh University's MFE program (called analytical finance here), with the big gap being stochastic calculus (which I've waited for two years for and then got kicked out from sitting in due to logistical reasons).
My cumulative GPA is 3.23, major is 3.43, and my GREs are 770 Q (88%), 590 V (78%), and 5 analytical writing.
To my plus side is the fact that I've consistently challenged myself and know what I want to do and probably have several professors that would write me a very good to outright excellent recommendation.
I also know that Emanuel Derman stated in interviews that he believes a successful FE would have a quantitative undergraduate degree, a couple of years work experience, and then a master's degree. But in this environment, try as I may, and work with career services as I may, I keep getting flattened into walls.
I've tried alumni at Goldman Sachs (who are in the best shape of the big financial houses), I've tried posting in my university's alumni group on LinkedIn (which was how I got my last phone interview which I got rejected from just Thursday despite the alumni I spoke with being completely sold on me), and now I tried applying cold turkey to Susquehana and TwoSigma. (fat chance).
I'm really running out of ideas here. On Baruch's stat radar, it seems I'm bottom of the barrel on the acceptance scale (non 800 GRE quant, mediocre GPA), if not an outright reject given the consistent improvements in applicant quality and the current economic situation.
So what exactly is someone graduating in spring 2009 supposed to do? Any help of course is greatly appreciated.
My university seems utterly clueless as to what to do with financial engineering students, and even with alumni help, I still can't find any finance job, let alone some form of junior quant job.
Here's where I stand:
Over the course of my undergraduate education, I've completed quite a good portion of Lehigh University's MFE program (called analytical finance here), with the big gap being stochastic calculus (which I've waited for two years for and then got kicked out from sitting in due to logistical reasons).
My cumulative GPA is 3.23, major is 3.43, and my GREs are 770 Q (88%), 590 V (78%), and 5 analytical writing.
To my plus side is the fact that I've consistently challenged myself and know what I want to do and probably have several professors that would write me a very good to outright excellent recommendation.
I also know that Emanuel Derman stated in interviews that he believes a successful FE would have a quantitative undergraduate degree, a couple of years work experience, and then a master's degree. But in this environment, try as I may, and work with career services as I may, I keep getting flattened into walls.
I've tried alumni at Goldman Sachs (who are in the best shape of the big financial houses), I've tried posting in my university's alumni group on LinkedIn (which was how I got my last phone interview which I got rejected from just Thursday despite the alumni I spoke with being completely sold on me), and now I tried applying cold turkey to Susquehana and TwoSigma. (fat chance).
I'm really running out of ideas here. On Baruch's stat radar, it seems I'm bottom of the barrel on the acceptance scale (non 800 GRE quant, mediocre GPA), if not an outright reject given the consistent improvements in applicant quality and the current economic situation.
So what exactly is someone graduating in spring 2009 supposed to do? Any help of course is greatly appreciated.