No College but lots of Book Reading?

[Brian Scherms]

That changes my mind. I never thought about grad school and beyond being the actual learning environments. Both of my parents are elementary school teachers and I wasn't brought up around anybody that had above a Bachelors degree.

Thanks man. I actually may consider school as an option now. Oh and by transfer over I should have said that my idea of "not getting a formal education" doesn't transfer over nicely from programming to quant work.

 

[Daniel Duffy]

Also, I think you seriously overestimate your ability to learn graduate level math on your own. Getting an A- without studying in calc 1 is nothing to brag about.

To be blunt, calculus is what you do when your are 16/17 years of age. And not part of an undergrad maths degree, in university.

 

[tfors]

Another option for you might be to join a broker like "Bright Trading". You pay and you are in, no credentials needed. Obviously no salary.

 

[Brian Scherms]

Im not going to a great University @Daniel Duffy and @tfors that sounds perfect

 

[IntoDarkness]

well, i went to irvine valley college first, even worse school

 

[ygmwy]

Another option for you might be to join a broker like "Bright Trading". You pay and you are in, no credentials needed. Obviously no salary.

Woah woah woah, that is horrible advice. You could end up losing a lot of money. They don't give you serious training, and they lever you up. Plus, they make money off of every trade you make, regardless of whether you make money. That my friend, is a SCAM! It only works if you already know how to trade, and just need leverage. Also, what is the difference between that and hiring your own broker? Nothing! They make you think they are hiring you, and they give you a fancy office and a fancy desk, but in actuality, you are hiring them to be your broker. What's worse is that you could lose a lot of money doing this, and then have to owe them a lot. With no trading experience, that's incredibly dangerous. If the firm makes money even when you lose, then that is a serious conflict of interest.

If that's not enough, I have a friend who did something similar. It was a company called "Wall Street Trading." It was on Wall Street, and had a fancy office and gave you a fancy desk, and you thought you were a real trader. But there was no difference than you sitting up at home and opening up an etrade account, or hiring a broker. What's more, he quit within 3 months and ended up owing them around $20K! What's up with that? Sure, there were people in the office who did make money, but that's because they were professionals that just needed leverage and didn't want to share their earnings with a company. That is not you @Brian Scherms. I strongly advise reading the fine print before heading into scams like that. They say that the more a person is educated about finance, the more susceptible they are to financial scams. Here's a great example.

Do you know what leverage is Brian?

 

[Ian Kaplan]

No it does not transfer over nicely. The best quants are experts in math, computers, and the financial markets (don't underestimate that knowledge, that intuition takes time to build). But anyway, your problem is that you've never visited a top notch university before. Maybe you've outgrown Utah Valley University, but you have yet to realize what a monumental task you've set for yourself. I also came from a no-name university, but even though most professors didn't impress me, I didn't say "f*** school" and leave. I took graduate classes, and finance classes, and started teaching, and doing research at a grad level. Then I got into a top quant program and realized what dumb sh** I was. When you are finally around very insightful students and professors in the field, you feel happy to be where you belong, but also a lot of pressure to catch up. Now if you left school because you didn't want to listen to the teacher, then that's a different story, but if you wanted to be more challenged, you should have gone higher in education, and you should have set your sights on a better university. You should go to one of the top quant programs and sit in on one of their classes. I guarantee you will change your mind about everything. Forgive my bluntness.

What ygmwy has written is so good that there's not much to add. But I will comment on my own experience. Graduate school was completely different from undergrad (I just got a Computational Finance Masters from the University of Washington). If you put in the work, you can develop a relationship with most of your professors. Grad school taught me how little I know and how much more I want to learn. There was never enough time to learn all that I wished I could. In this sense its true that you have to teach yourself. But the foundation I got was invaluable. The other great thing about graduate school is that you can focus on one area (you don't have to take a year of psychology and art, for example).

There were things that I learned in grad school that I had tried, unsuccessfully, to learn on my own. Also, I had professors who are universally brilliant. The professor I had for options and monte carlo simulation has a deep knowledge of options and options modeling that takes years to achieve. He's also a really fine man who it was a pleasure to know. You're not going to get this on your own. This professor strongly believed that he wanted to give us the best education he could (as he put it, "give us our money's worth"). That means I worked harder in those classes than I've ever worked in other classes. There's no way this is going to happen on your own.

The system is what it is. In order to go to grad school you need an undergrad degree. There are some good, non-profit, fully accredited on-line degrees. Check out Excelsior (a CUNY spinoff) or the Western Governors University. You can test out of classes and get your undergrad degree as quickly as possible. Then you can get a graduate degree, which is where the real learning takes place (add plug for University of Washington program here).

 

[Brian Scherms]

Thanks for looking out @ygmwy and @Ian Kaplan . Y'all are studs. I meant to be sarcastic when I heard that anybody can automatically get in and there's no salary.

Leverage, to my knowledge, is when you borrow money to invest with and get the shaft if your investments don't go right(unless your question was rhetorical).

 

[ygmwy]

Thanks for looking out @ygmwy and @Ian Kaplan . Y'all are studs. I meant to be sarcastic when I heard that anybody can automatically get in and there's no salary.

Leverage, to my knowledge, is when you borrow money to invest with and get the shaft if your investments don't go right(unless your question was rhetorical).

Good man. For something that could ruin your life, I just needed to be sure. It's hard to tell sarcasm through just text.

 

[bigbadwolf]

Check out Excelsior (a CUNY spinoff) or the Western Governors University.

Seems neither is offering an online math degree. Is anyone offering an online math degree in the US?

 

[Daniel Duffy]

Seems neither is offering an online math degree. Is anyone offering an online math degree in the US?

MIT?(?)

 

[bigbadwolf]

MIT?(?)

Access to their lectures, yes, but AFAIK, you can't earn an online math degree from MIT. The situation is very different to the UK, where you could (can?) earn credits from the Open University and during the final year can transfer to a proper university. Or you could (can?) earn an OU degree and go on to grad work at a regular university. Not sure if can because OU math offerings seem to have gone downhill.

 

[okmijn]

You pay to go to school to be around people who are smarter than you and hopefully if you decide to, some of that will rub off on you and you become stronger.

 

[Michael Pender]

I dont have a university degree but like to study material on my own. I am currently working as a programmer and learned everything I know outside of college.
...
Is it possible, after studying (not just reading), but really taking it all in, to become a quant at any level of a company? I'm not thinking of working at anything big in NYC or any of those big firms making 500k.

As others have said, the first hurdle is to get past the HR Department screeners. They are not programmers themselves and won't have the skill set to evaluate whether you are capable of actually doing the job, only whether you have the appropriate terms on your resume that the hiring manager said they want. Your best bet would be to target smaller companies that don't have formal HR Departments where you would actually interview with the hiring manager.

It is not impossible, but it is very, very hard.

I have a friend who did something similar as a freelance programmer and eventually worked his way up to assignments with Microsoft, Google and other names people would recognize. He did not complete the college degree program either, and it makes it very hard to get in the door at the larger companies initially.

I was thinking that if, on my own, I could make a model of some sort and prove that I can make money with some algorithm that it would stand out or at least equally to having a degree with no proof of experience.

I'm all about being creative and forging my own path and any advice or light shed on this would be awesome. This is my first post in here, so hi everybody and thanks!

Completing a degree program shows that you have skills in an area, but it also shows that you can stick with a challenge and see it through. Completing a program requires planning, time management and other skills which are also of value to a potential employer. For example, completing a degree shows you are willing to put up with the amount of bull fertilizer necessary to accomplish a long-term goal. Working with other people in a larger company always involves a certain amount of bull fertilizer.

Also, one of the benefits of going to a good university--especially at the grad school level--is the career placement office and the alumni network. They can be very valuable resources when you look for internships or a job after completing your degree.