Help me beef my resume for an undergrad finance position.

[samson]

Currently doing an undergrad in mathematical finance, I have 6 coop terms and I am on the first one doing data mining for the government. This job is easy and relaxed, so I will take the opportunity to learn a few things to try and land something finance related in the fall coop term.

I currently know PHP and am doing Perl/R programming, so I will be well versed in those + skills in a unix environment by the end of the term. I am wondering what areas I should focus? I looked around and am finding C++, VB.NET, Excell, Access, and Oracle/MS SQL/DB2 skills to be in demand for quant (I know C++ is a must).

is there a hirearchy somewhere of what quants should have ordered in importance?

also, what is a good book to start on C++? I took a high school course on it but am a little rusty, I am thinking of The C++ Programming Language but am wondering if there are any that is quant specific? (that don't require heavy calculus knowledge since im only a first year student lol).

 

[zeppellin]

I think you pretty much asked the same question that I posted a few minutes after you!

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Different shops use different tools, languages so don't try to stretch yourself too thin. Focus on a core programming language and do it well. If you are tech savvy, you probably should be able to pick up on other tools, languages.

As for the books, there is an extensive list under my signature. Get the Joshi book. It seems to be a good book that gives you some idea on what financial modeling in C++ is about

 

[raywin]

It is really easy to learn a language but it hard to master one. You need experience! That is why most company wants you have related working experience not academic experience. The best way to study is not reading one book but reading others codes.

 

[samson]

true. I will probably end up studying Excell and VB just as they are not very complex to get a good background in and almost every business uses them, and then C++ and check out if there are some open source finance projects and study their code.