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If you're saying at a swank hotel, they'll have their own water filtration system (hopefully), otherwise boil and filter your drinking water. Be careful of what you eat and take some tablets for the almost inevitable "Delhi belly."

Well, that's a problem. Try to get into Baruch if you can -- arguably the best value for money. All the others are much more expensive -- Haas, CMU, Columbia, Princeton, MIT. And then it starts to shade off into second-tier with Cornell, Georgia Tech, UCLA, .... Remember what you're buying: 1)...

You will have to fund yourself. And the same advice that's been given umpteen times before on this forum: get admitted to one of the handful of leading programs or don't bother at all. Any number of second-tier programs will be happy to take your money and hand you a meretricious certificate.

That's my opinion. Look for computation-intensive programs. That's what'll get you a job.

Look at what they are offering by way of coding (programming) in C++ and reach your own conclusions.

I agree. But you have legions of the clueless posting here thinking a one-year qualification from one of these august institutions will magically transform their hitherto drab lives. Ain't gonna happen ....

I agree. Look at the one course they have on computational finance/C++: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/maths/courses/msc-financial/modules/optional/syllabuses-pdfs/financial_pdf_mathgf06 It's grossly inadequate, won't give anyone a competitive advantage. Not sure Imperial is that much better. In the...

While I'm on books, Hilpisch's recent 600-page Python for Finance is another must-have.

Quantitative Trading with R by Georgakopoulos. Came out last month. Sold out at Amazon (but read the reviews there). Do what you gotta do to acquire a copy.

There's the rub: the only thing an international (or even local) student has to go by is the online reviews. It's not just the MFE programs engaging in churning out fake reviews, it's also the law and MBA programs. All these are designed to make money for their departments/universities and so...

And I believe you. The problem is that the overwhelming majority of the "student reviews" written for these bullshit second-rate programs are fakes.

Your first assignment: go to a bookstore and see what they have to offer by way of Python. Put your assessments down here of the books (odds are I know the books).

Unless it's something top secret or you want to transfer a seven-figure sum to my numbered Lichtenstein account in gratitude for the morsels I've given you, keep it here. The same questions get asked over and over again by the legions of the clueless. Maybe they'll learn something from these posts.

I'll assume you have pre-calc under your belt. Start with Mendelson's Beginning Calculus (pub. Schaum's). Not expensive and will give you a calc foundation. And/or buy a copy of Mathematics for Physicists and Engineers, by Klaus Weltner, et al. This also starts with basics (in fact starts with...

And you have money for a few books? Online resources are a supplement but by themselves they don't take you far.

I'm not an oracle. And I was, I'd charge.

"Next to nothing" means "a little bit." What little bit do you know? And since it's scientific coding you'll want to be oriented towards, what math do you know? Have you already got your AP calculus out of the way? AP computer science?

It's up there. With regard to Imperial, I can't say. In general the British programs try to squeeze too much into too little time and the emphasis tends to be on theory rather than computing and coding. Also keep in mind that subsequent work placement in the UK will be very hard, maybe not...

There is no clear dividing line between top tier and second tier -- rather it shades away from top tier to second tier. Carnegie-Mellon, Baruch and Haas are undoubtedly in the top tier. Add on another four or five or six or seven programs that belong with them (opinions on the number vary...

Interesting article:

As far as I know, it's another second-tier program. That means it's chancy in today's tough job market. Buyer beware.

Interesting article on how the prestige of a PhD's university can affect hiring. I'm sure this applies, mutatis mutandis, to MFEs as well. Do not get an MFE from Dogdick U. http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005

Not a bad discussion (the first 12 minutes or so):

The billionaire villain of Richard Condon's novel, "Winter Kills," claims that "if a man knows how to read a balance sheet, what else does he need to know?" Most of the lefties I run into -- and I run into a fair number as my sympathies are inclined that way -- not only can't read a balance...

It's a recent conjecture of mine that those good at numbers and arithmetic tend to be capitalists while those poor at them tend to be lefties.

Arithmetical skills were the first quant skills:

I know. In fact I'm pretty sure most US math high school teachers today don't know to calculate roots either. Not sure how adept they are with log tables either.

There's a bit of a discussion that's been taking place on someone's FB page regarding the British government's intention to use children's mastery of the multiplication table as a criterion to judge the academic success of any given school. In the course of the discussion a truly surprising...

If you're comfortable with C++, try Herb Schildt's "C#: The Complete Reference," published by McGraw-Hill. I also recommend Skeet's "C# in Depth." Neither of these books is for those who don't already know how to code.

And Varoufakis got the job: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/27/greek-pm-alexis-tsipras-economist-yanis-varoufakis

Mostly I agree. Now the party will gently and gradually let down the people who voted for it. Austerity is no solution -- but I don't see what alternative Syriza is going to suggest. Probably there will be some small concessions from Germany. Syriza will make some attempt to reduce the...

I doubt Syriza will do much of anything radical. The following article sums up my sentiments: http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/01/27/pers-j27.html There will be some modest and token "reforms."

I'll have to order a copy for myself. Definitely looks worth reading.

The site -- Left Eye on Books -- is down (maybe forever) but a copy of the review can be found here: http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2012/07/12/the-global-minotaur-a-great-transformation-for-our-times-review-by-boris-stremlin-for-left-eye-on-books/

Global Minotaur is $14.

Yes indeed. The next few days, the next few weeks, are going to very interesting for the EU. Will Greece stay in the EMU or will it go? If it stays, what concessions will the Germans (er, the other EMU members) make? By the way, the link to the book review does not work any more.

No, I don't think so. I don't think any of these universities are going to let you get an MFE through the back door, so to speak. The MFE program is a cash cow for them. The master's you get en route to a PhD is usually after you've completed the oral exam, which involves defending an expository...

My list wasn't comprehensive. I'm not competent to talk about some of the second-tier programs -- it goes without saying that there are many good ones (in terms of content and teaching). Another complicating feature is that different programs emphasise different things and some of them may not...

Well, there's the rub: How to make an evaluation when the reviews are mostly fake? If you go with ranking programs like Carnegie-Mellon, Princeton, Berkeley, Baruch, you'll be okay (though with the exception of Baruch, they cost an arm and a leg). Once you venture outside the top 8 or 10...

A number of programs are equally shitty (if not more so). It's just that people don't bother writing reviews. And a lot of the reviews one does see are obviously concocted, not authentic.

It makes sense that the math finance option would be easier than the pure math option -- and that's precisely the reason why it wouldn't be the best choice. Opt for the pure math, and cut your teeth on the toughest courses you can handle. This will be your foundation. Breeze through the calc...

Difficult to reconcile these two statements.

But what does it mean to "network?" Suck up to people and hope to ingratiate oneself with them? Grin manically when one has nothing to say? I've always found the American use of this word -- as a verb and in a social context -- as problematic and mystifying. When you have a genuine circle of...

I have patented a secret elixir that guarantees success in the quant world and also guarantees everlasting youth. For a fee -- *evil laughter* -- I am prepared to sell it in small vials.

I didn't say that, only that age of 27 (or 30 or even 33) will not be a drawback.

The age (27) won't be an issue. Stop worrying about it -- there are enough other things to be anxious and fretful about.

Yes, of course. You want to show that a fin.eng. program/ Baruch MFE will (plausibly) further a process of learning and achievement that began years earlier.

Silicon Valley does. http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/07/15/twitter_sued_for_age_discrimination_it_s_not_uncommon_in_silicon_valley.html And even better: http://anewdomain.net/2014/12/11/dont-hire-anyone-30-ageism-silicon-valley/

Effective Modern C++, by Scott Meyers.

"How deep are we in the hole?" This from the chief financial officer. "Just north of two trillion dollars." Another silence and then the CFO turned to the man behind the big desk. "We'll have to get Washington to cover us. That's going to hurt." "More than you know. I talked to the people in...

After the dot-com bubble got punctured in 2001, there was a need for some other bubble -- the eviscerated economy of the US has become dependent on asset bubbles over the last few decades -- and the likeliest candidate was the property market. For the property bubble to continue after a certain...

That is the fervent hope of every intern, and for which they're willing to put in inhuman hours and swallow countless humiliations.

The hell with those "requirements." Concentrate on getting your free first-class technical education in Denmark. Then look around. If you know your stuff, you will get job offers. Don't be seduced by the siren song of these bullshit ads.

They are. The program seems designed to fool people into thinking they'll have a real chance at getting into a ranking quant program afterwards. In reality, not a snowball's chance in hell (and the program will probably cost an arm and a leg).

Then in that case intermediate microeconomics and a principles of finance course are a waste of time. You need math, math, and more math. Along with some intensive coding. Even given aptitude you'll need a couple of years, maybe more.

I suspect you're aiming for finance, rather than quant finance. If the former, there's hope. If the latter, prospects are bleak.

For non-measure-theoretic probability, 3rd edition of Tijm's Understanding Probability. For a gentle intro to measure-theoretic probability, Capinski and Zastawniak's Probability through Problems.

Not directly but it will enhance your maturity in applied math and show you further applications of Hilbert spaces. The geometry and topology courses are for pure math people. Make sure you use a good book for the integral equations course -- say the one by Debnath and Mikusinski on Hilbert spaces.

What specifically is your math and coding background? I'm inclined to be sceptical when you write things like this: It's possible an OR or finance degree might be more appropriate for you than one of the quant programs you've listed (e.g., the computational finance program at Carnegie-Mellon)...

The only part I disagree with.

Bought it about ten years back. A fine book. I like his discussion of the Lebesgue integral.

But why is that? The ones having difficulty with the subject -- are they the same ones who in decades past had problems with Euclidean geometry in high school (i.e., the formal structure of definition-lemma-theorem-corollary)? Or is it something about the definition of the reals -- the l.u.b...

If you got A's in courses like complex analysis and abstract algebra you probably don't need to bother. Concur with C S.

It's all self-teachable. If you attend a formal course you still usually teach yourself -- it's not as if you're getting personalised one-on-one attention, and the lectures can often be dull, uninspired, or even indecipherable. Often the only advantage of a formal course is that it imposes the...

Some real analysis would be useful. Think of real analysis as calc but based on properties of the real numbers rather than geometric or physical intuition. A course in numerical analysis would also come in handy. Otherwise I can´t see anything lacking.

Recent talk by Wark: http://dismagazine.com/disillusioned/discussion-disillusioned/70983/mckenzie-wark-digital-labor-and-the-anthropocene/

Bear in mind, though, that this is the neolib Economist which always seeks to put a gloss on sordid neolib reality. If you're the best of the best in your field (particularly finance), then you will probably find more opportunity in the winner-take-all-and-the-devil-take-the-hindmost USA and UK...

Christ Jesus, this thread really has gone down the toilet. I'm not "demeaning" the country. What an asinine comment. I'm pointing out the crucial importance of family connections to get ahead in the USA -- which are arguably more important than in Europe. This runs counter to the myth of the...

He does his homework. "W" is worth watching because of the way he depicts the importance of family connections.

To be done properly, it's covered in measured steps. The first step is a basic course in real analysis -- and there are enough good elementary texts around that one can teach oneself (e.g., Ross's Elementary Analysis or Howie's Real Analysis). These books just work in R (real numbers), using the...

You mean linear algebra, not abstract algebra. Though the methods and ways of thinking of linear algebra percolate throughout abstract algebra (e.g., homological algebra, group characters and representation theory generally, module theory, etc.)

I'm an ardent reader of the Archdruid's blog. Both his latest post and his previous one have focused on parasitic intermediaries and what happens to them in an era of irreversible civilisational decline. An excerpt from his latest:

Ah, so you have a copy? I wasn't sure anyone here had heard of it. I've bought three copies of it over the years -- that's how valuable I consider it to be.

Ask UCB to delay admission for a year. You don't have enough time to prepare (and I'm surprised UCB admitted you with such a threadbare math background). There's no fast way from calc 1 to PDEs. You need calc 2 and calc 3 as well, and then a course on ODEs which emphasises the use of linear...

Not the same London. This was a time when even Kensington was not part of London, and there used to be highwaymen between Knightsbridge and Kensington. And the city was English in a way that it has long ceased to be.

Start with C.Wright Mills' The Power Elite. Or go back even further and start with Ferdinand Lundberg's America's Sixty Families. Or if you prefer movies (as your reading may not be your strong suit), try recent films like Oliver Stone's W. The frat boys run the USA. Connections matter.

What are you talking about?

Ain't no secret that the country itself is a big frat party. In fact the Archdruid wrote on this very topic a few weeks back. Just a sec, see if I can dredge it up ... ah, here we are: http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2014/09/dark-age-america-senility-of-elites.html

Granted, this is the NY Post so I can't attest to the veracity of this story.

Agree with you but financial modeling (including Monte Carlo and econometrics) -- and forecasting in general -- is based on tacit assumptions that the future will in some sense be like the past. In finance, there's a built-in bias to doing this. A chunk of the problem is that there's no working...

http://nypost.com/2014/10/29/investor-husband-pushed-me-into-sex-for-biz-deal-estranged-wife/

In Shakespeare's time, place like Stepney and Bethnal were hamlets outside London. At around the same time, or maybe a century later, Hackney was a fashionable suburb for the landed set. Even by the late 19th century places like Shepherd's Bush and Notting Hill were sparsely populated suburbs.

Cogent article on what makes London such a vibrant and fantastic place. http://quarterly.demos.co.uk/article/issue-4/london-all-that-glisters/

Glengarry Glen Ross is a classic.

There's probably something to this and it's not confined to finance. The use of high-powered mathematics obscures insight into fundamental processes wherever it's used. The math serves as crack cocaine that addles the mind but lends the appearance of power. Go back to Newton's Principia. He is...

The quants served as window dressing, probably still do. Their job is to come up with justifications for decisions made at board level, or for policy decisions non-quant executives would like to make ("See? Our team of PhDs came up with this."). Also, another interesting subject for discussion...

Systemic risk seems to be an "emergent property" of rapidly increasing financial markets, and one which is difficult to quantify. Only with 20/20 hindsight does it appear inevitable.

On a more general note, there's this chasm between those trained in the exact sciences and those who aren't. Between those who have assimilated the nuances of, say, real analysis (power series, convergence tests, radius of convergence, etc.) and those jocks who never got beyond business calculus...

You would need a sea change in US management culture for this to occur. At the top end, the managers are generalists who are good at talking, good at holding meetings, and good at Powerpoint presentations. It's a culture where there's no insistence on attention to detail and being precise. That...

How many of the top bosses even understand something as simple as the exponential function (aka compounding)? For instance, the number of ebola-infected people is doubling every three weeks. How long before everyone is infected? Granted, this kind of extrapolation may not be valid -- but where...

You're probably right but then this leads to the kind of blow-up that occurred during 2007-2008, where the top bosses were essentially clueless about systemic risk. Maybe still are. The lack of technical background is endemic to top US government officials and corporate bosses.

What was he asking about? Some delicate and abstruse results in stochastic calculus that went beyond what Shreve talks about? And you with a PhD in pure math? He was a fucking idiot.

Maybe not in stochastic. An algebraist or topologist or geometer won't know anything about stochastic. Presumably Once-Set indicated not only his PhD but also his area of expertise in his resume.

Many years. The interviewer was either an imbecile and/or should have exclusively been interviewing people with PhDs in stochastic calculus. The MFE is not designed to engender this kind of in-depth stochastic expertise (it's also an open question to me about how applicable this stochastic...

No good reason why it can't be done in HS. The linear algebra that's needed can be developed alongside it. And once you see linear algebra being used in ODEs (linear independence of solutions, Wronskian, etc.), you start to understand why linear algebra is more than just matrix theory.

You might fall between two stools. Not to discourage you, but the following is the problem. Many of the people going for the better MFE programs have a strong math background and usually at least adequate coding background. Even if you get admitted to a leading MFE program, the average will be...

Well, seriously depleting one's funds for sure. People need to ask themselves why they want to do an MFE. Often it's just because of ambition as an MFE is seen as a ticket to highly paid employment, rather than because of any enduring interest in math or coding. This is a recipe for disaster, in...

The old lethal combination (so often seen on this forum) of boundless ambition and limited math and coding background.

There's no comparison. Other than Klebaner I also recommend Wiersema's Brownian Motion Calculus.

Good to know where much of the tuition money that UChicago MFE students pay ends up at: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/09/higher-educations-aristocrats/ This Zimmer fellow looks like a pretty dodgy character.

The Archdruid's latest: http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2014/09/dark-age-america-senility-of-elites.html

If you mean skimming in the sense that you might go through a Dan Brown or Tom Clancy novel while sitting in a US airport lounge while listening to TSA risk level announcements and the blare of Fox and CNN, then no. You either know these subjects and have some skill at them -- or you don't. And...

Then what are you doing on this forum?

You don't know what you're talking about. The book is a text, not a research monograph. And there's no claim of predicting the next crash. What is your point?

You're quite right. They have PhDs from Harvard, Princeton, Oxford. They wear expensive suits. They speak with grave voices. They change their razor blade every day. Stick with them; they know what they're talking about.

It's not possible. These analysts really are in the dark. All these economics (US, China, and India) are going to face insoluble problems and savage contractions in real terms. We're already at the plateau of peak oil. And peak everything else. The Archdruid has a good blog post on the scenario...

Real analysis should be done before topology. Topology shows how ideas in real analysis can be generalised to broader contexts. When studying metric and topological spaces it's always useful to have the theorems and ideas of real analysis in one's mind as one sees more general theorems and proofs.

No.

BS fits neatly into the neoliberal worldview of the last 30 years: that markets are like physical systems and have an underlying rationale of their own, which can be described mathematically. It therefore legitimised the explosive growth of derivative trading which had hitherto been seen as...

USA's future will probably be along the lines sketched in the following blog post: http://odinsravensnest.blogspot.com/2014_06_01_archive.html

Looks like a worthwhile movie. I'll probably watch it this evening. A review by Peter Frase:

The English physique is better designed for rugby than soccer. And a diet of chips, sausages, beer, and chocolate doesn't help either. My wife was commenting that the English players just don't look lithe. The Central and South American players do look lithe.

Not a great book, in my opinion. Too terse, too theoretical. Trying to condense a 2-year course into ten months can only be detrimental -- not enough time to think and to digest. I've seen this frequently in English universities. Even the best don't have time to digest -- so they think they...

But we must never forget the Maradona incident.

It gets subjective. MIT, okay. Columbia, okay (I guess), UCLA, ... dunno. UChicago, I admit to a negative bias. Sound out other people, dig around, ask questions -- I'm no final authority.

It would be impolitic of me to say. But if you have to get an MFE, stick with the tried-and-tested programs : CMU, Baruch, Columbia, Berkeley, etc. And a bit of history: most of the DDE MFE programs started getting set up around ten or twelve years ago. It was akin to the California Gold Rush...

For the benefit of the OP, a real MFE, not the shitty ones being hustled by the likes of Dogdick University.

Yoga by itself is probably not enough. You need some cardio-vascular (like running, swimming, or cycling) and some muscle-toning exercises as well (e.g., through weight training).

Yeah, it was a crock. A beautiful subject but almost no-one uses it.

People here mostly don't have any. Playing musical chairs for the limited number of jobs takes everything out of them. And if they get the jobs, the long hours and work pressure get them. Welcome to neoliberal turbo-charged capitalism. Have you read the books? Watching the series doesn't count.

Accurate in a trite and unhelpful sense.

A pile of horse manure in that it isn't saying a single new thing, has not a single new insight.

Right. There's a good article out by Tom Frank today that explains the logic: http://www.salon.com/2014/06/08/colleges_are_full_of_it_behind_the_three_decade_scheme_to_raise_tuition_bankrupt_generations_and_hypnotize_the_media/

A good piece on the U of Chicago. I post it without comment. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/06/higher-eds-for-profit-future/

Can't argue with this logic. You've persuaded me.

In some cases it can actually be an impediment as the habits of thought you've acquired (and which are now part of your nature) are very different to those you need in the other area. The habits of thought you acquire in class field theory or automorphic forms are not going to help you in any...

I have the first edition of Stroustrup. I recommend the book. If it's supposedly "too difficult for beginners," it depends on what kind of beginners they are. Stroustrup writes for intelligent people who want to be coders. I also recommend his 1994 book on the design and evolution of C++. And...

Not ideal (though I have a copy myself). Deitel's books follow the same template, regardless of language. No real insight there.

Which book? It makes a helluva difference.

You white supremacist.

There's no "deep mechanics." The game keeps changing and so the tools used keep changing. You'd be better off with statistics, numerical analysis (including some PDEs), and optimisation. Mixed with coding (C/C++/R/Python/Matlab). What's "cool" about finance?

I haven't lived in England for close to 20 years now so I'm not competent to advise you. I suspect that with a degree in stats/finance you will have a lot of competition for the jobs you might think of applying for. With regard to coding, there are courses but I think every expert coder is...

1) Look for a job. 2) Start the long and arduous process of learning to code (C/C++/Python/Matlab), along with some numerical analysis. On a side note, math is overrated in finance, and Imperial is overrated (though Cambridge really is in a class of its own).

In the usual predator-prey models, they're treated as renewable. Something that isn't the case for, say, fossil fuel.

I'm quoting from the top of my head but I think around 4bn humans live on or below $2 a day. The "wealth increase" is mostly fictitious capital in the West (something today's lefties can't seem to understand). The physical basis of our civilisation is increasingly parlous. There seem to be two...

My sentiments exactly. Or it could be done in Matlab. A number of alternative scenarios are the parameters are varied. This beats Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Societies.

This paper looks interesting. It seems to be based on a generalisation of the Volterra predator-prey model (but I haven't yet grokked it in fullness). http://www.sesync.org/sites/default/files/resources/motesharrei-rivas-kalnay.pdf

From a quant perspective, comp sci would be more relevant unless it's HFT you want to focus on, and there comp eng might be more the thing. In either case, you want to build solid coding skills. If comp sci, you want to also take the algo and data structures course/s. If comp eng, assembly...

Your decision has to be based on the likelihood of the pitchforks and Molotov cocktails coming out. Since 2008, all bets have been off: capitalism has been on life support, a dead man walking.

Won't happen. The rhetoric shifts pronto but not the action and decisions. The Lewis book is already passe. These days it's the Piketty book everyone is discussing so Obama will soon start talking about "inequality" -- but rest assured he won't do anything. And doesn't matter whether it's Dems...

It's subjective. CMU, for example, is a top quant program. Baruch is also (in my opinion). I'd add Princeton, MIT, Columbia, Berkeley. After that it starts to shade off. Many an argument could be had on whether a particular program is first-rate or not. One criterion for quality is placement and...

It's probably a more complex picture. For the best organisations looking for the best students, the visa problem doesn't get factored in -- just a minor nuisance. But as you move down the scale (the not-so-great organisations looking to hire), then it becomes more of an issue.

The UIUC program is one of the overpriced second-tier programs CasanovaJ referred to in another thread. What you pay for in a top-ranking program is not just stronger courses taught by better profs, but also proximity to the action and industry contacts. Urbana Champaign doesn't have that...

If I were a young person (regardless of passport -- Chinese, US, whatever), I'd try to get admitted to a European university. They're either free or near-free (Germany has recently abolished its modest student fees, which only lasted a few years). The pox on the US brand names -- they're too...

Sponsoring a foreigner is a hassle in terms of time and money, it implies a commitment, and it's dicey in that the sponsored employee might not work out. So why do it? For a Princeton or Berkeley graduate, the bet is safer as the student has already been vetted by a selective program. See it...

Without the shadow of a doubt. Skill at language and socialising counts. Skill at translating technical ideas, technical results, and computer code into idiomatic explanations counts. In addition my conviction is that (relatively) poor language skill among foreign students is an impediment to...

That's what I would do as an employer.

I agree. Which rather begs the question: Why are foreign students enrolling in these grossly overpriced crud programs? The post-2008 world is different and quant careers have become even more like careers for MBAs and JDs: winner-take-all for those from the leading programs and dicey and...

True. Again, true. Ah, that's what we're discussing: the mirage of a new life. The Americans are also buying a mirage ("Start a new career as a corporate lawyer at $150,000 a year" from some third-tier toilet law school) but we're just discussing whether an MFE program is worth the price tag...

You make a good point with regard to US students but the point with regard to foreign students still holds: Why would a Chinese or Indian student fork out, say, $60,000 if not for a crack at the US job market and a work visa? This money is not trivial for them. I'm convinced that in many cases...

If FE programs were denied foreign students, most would fold. There's a little tacit agreement involved: We (the FE program) charge stratospheric fees; in return you get a marketable credential that might get you employment and a concomitant work visa for the USA. Take out this tacit agreement...

By working in finance, you trade in the opportunity to pursue your dreams now for the ever-receding mirage that you will be able to pursue them later.

I'm not competent to advise you in this.

City is a good school for finance and business. Don't know about their placement stats or their fin math.

Okay, then teach lots of Python. Or teach lots of Ruby. Or lots of Scheme. I just don't see a case for Java at all. It was introduced to dumb down CS curricula further -- i.e., to allow those students too stupid to learn C++ to squeeze through. Other than the choice of Java, one has to question...

Have you tried Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon and Broken Angels?

There's no fun reading it -- it's too close to reality.

The best I've found over the years is an appendix in a book by Horngren on management accounting that tersely reviewed financial accounting ideas and principles. The problem is that financial accounting texts are like calc texts -- way too voluminous, can't see the wood for the trees, and...

Not just inflation. One of my mates -- a semi-skilled Welsh painter -- was recalling how you could walk out of a job in the morning and have another by the afternoon. A whole style of life came to an abrupt end in the '70s. Granted, the jobs weren't much of anything -- "factory fodder" -- but...

First time I heard of it but I'll put it on my to-read list. Somewhere in his essays I think Martin Amis argues that until 1973 it was possible to live on a few quid a week. The kind of life you see captured in the film, Withnail and I. The music right at the end of the film evokes memories of...

It's fiction. As such it's neoliberalism + cyberpunk.

Once upon a time it was (forty or fifty years ago). Not in today's neoliberal age, where the consequences of faulty decisions are high, the fees are up in the stratosphere, and there may be no second chances. This isn't the world of Animal House.

No. I looked at the first few pages on Amazon and some of the reviews and that was enough. Not technical enough. Still, in some senses it captures the zeitgeist.

A review of Robert Harris's The Fear Index, written by the Nitzan and Bichler.

Your decision is correct. Probably. The fact that you applied means you have been tempted by this alternative. That you want to reject the offer means second thoughts and you want reassurance. So for what it's worth: 1) Age and stamina are factors. 2) The future of some of quant finance looks...

Ask the prof though I strongly suspect there is. It could well be in Matlab (e.g., using Brandimarte's book). Or it could be in C++ (using Capinskii and Zastawniak's book).

No. I'm asking for your reasons for proposing it.

Why?

If you clear the qualifying exams you won't have to take the first year courses. But there's more to a PhD than just doing it in the shortest possible time. British PhDs often have meagre backgrounds, which doesn't serve them well later on.

There was an article some years ago that the average CalTech student is a genius.

Given current and likely future conditions (not too salubrious), I'd opt for full-ride U of Portland. It won't be the best education, won't be the best profs, the best students, but you can pick and choose courses in math, coding, stats, and algorithms to make something worthwhile. I would most...

As a math student you know that the solution to a thorny problem often involves stepping back and looking at it in a different light. Do the same here: step back a number of paces and look at the US and British economic systems as a whole. Keep in mind that the financial engineering profession...

I know people who have done Oxford DPhils in math. It is shorter -- but it's less structured. You just have to work on a problem, produce a dissertation, defend it, and you're done. If you already have a very strong background, you should go for it. But choose an adviser with care (belaboring...

Max Keiser discusses HFT in the first half, mentioning Michael Lewis's book:

There's no "long run" any more. Not just in finance but also with regard to planning a career. There are technical reasons for this -- the financial system has morphed into a "dead man walking," existing simultaneously with a moribund economic system that is going through the motions like a...

No. Stick with Portland. If it was 20k in debt for CalTech, it would be different.

The first should be 1/11 and the second 1/6.

The book will sell well, probably make it on to the NYT bestseller list. But it won't have anything we don't already know. It's been written for the lay public. HFT is a parasitical activity -- but then so is most of finance.

The last two posts are interesting and important and about office politics. Know who your friends are, know who your enemies are and always keep your enemies closer to you than your friends (Vito Corleone). With respect to an idea or project, win over the people on your side first and in...

Harvard also expects math grad students to get their doctorates after four years, with some exceptions taking five (assuming they finish). Maybe the same for Princeton. But outside the ranking universities I think it's the exception rather than the norm. These elite programs are attracting the...

Written by Charles Hugh Smith:

I preferred the other fellow (G.B. Shaw). Of course both of them were writing in the heyday of empire, when (British) English had a self-assurance it has long since lost. The language today is used to camouflage a sordid reality.

The net result is that the English can't even communicate among themselves as everything is couched in euphemism and obfuscation and politeness trumps honesty. I'll take the Dutch or the Germans or the Swedes any day.

One other thing: I found Kate Fox's book, Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behavior, to be quite useful.

It works both ways in England. It's rude to interrupt because English people have something to say and then go quiet. Americans continue droning on interminably (and usually to no purpose), and are utterly oblivious to body language that indicates you want to say something. So unless you...

Get a small notebook and put down five new words and expressions every day. Use them. Subscribe to London Review of Books. Read it. And remember there's no one English. British English differs from American English and the English spoken in England varies by class and region.

Ah, based in London. A whole different kettle of fish. Fluent command of English is only a small component -- there's cultural context and nuanced facial expressions and body language. Accent is important as well -- "received pronunciation" (aka "home counties whine").

Americans in general are not patient and attentive listeners. It's all, "Me, me, me, I, I, I, shut the f*ck up, me, me, me." There's no way of "grabbing their attention," and if there is, it'll be with something that doesn't matter. The attention span and alert and thoughtful listening aren't...

You can in theory. In reality the frontiers of research in mainstream math have moved forward so at least a year or two of advanced courses beyond the math degree (BSc/MSc) is needed. The lack of such a foundation is what scuppers the prospects of many British doctoral students.

The Americans specialise later (i.e., they waste years in "distribution requirements" in their undergrad degrees and even if they know what they're going to major in, they tend to start at a more basic level, with courses such as college algebra and calc 1 and 2). Secondly, the PhD program is a...

On Rense, which is a news aggregator. Most of what is posted there is tripe (or worse) but there's the occasional nugget. I'm looking for this kind of thing anyway (call it "confirmation bias") as it's my conviction that the dollar is living on borrowed time.

Riveting listening. http://beforeitsnews.com/economy/2014/03/jim-willie-currency-reset-split-dollar-yuan-convertibility-very-soon-2608186.html

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/03/which-college-and-which-major-will-make-you-richest/359628/

Excellent stuff, using Indian mythology (Yama, Mara, Agni, Vishnu).

If you're determined to do this, you could do worse than starting with Weir's Lebesgue Integration and Measure, as soon as you've completed a couple of semesters of undergrad real analysis.

The ratio of interesting and deep results to definitions is close to zero. In contrast, areas like complex analysis, differential geometry, algebraic topology, and number theory have healthy ratios. I don't know if it's difficult for an econ major to pick up measure theory but it will be deadly...

Good point. Stick to the basic and transparent stuff and leave the abstruse and abstract material for the suckers.

Read the book. Don't take my word for it. For instance, the use of Black-Scholes: it wasn't used by traders to determine the price of an option using some historically-derived estimate of volatility; rather, it was stood on its head and the price used to determine "implied volatility." Options...

There has yet to be a discussion of the real role and significance of abstract math (measure theory, stochastic calculus) in the post-2008 world. Prior to 2008, the tacit consensus was that this abstract math was modelling real aspects of the finance of an advanced free-market economy. After...

Jacod & Protter is a terse grad-level introduction to measure-theoretic probability for students who already have a strong undergrad degree in math -- specifically a couple of courses in real analysis and ease and familiarity with the staccato style of presentation...