Registered Nurse Thinking About Switching Careers and Entering a MS in Financial Engineering program

[jah.david.kim]

I was thinking how great it is to have your cake and eat it too. Perhaps an option is you do the degree (if you decide MBA I’m quite sure this is feasible) online and do travel nursing to make some more cash as you get through school.

Maybe. I'm leaning away from the MBA and more towards the MS in Finance because it appears from what I see online, that employers are more interested in a more focused degree.

Other degree's I'm considering are my MS in Information Systems and a Master's in Marketing. On top of my Doctorate of Nurse Anesthesia degree, Nurse Practitioner, and MS in Finance.

But I have enough education benefits to do two more masters so I can consider what you were just suggesting (travel nursing and an MBA or Finance)

 

[PepeQuant]

Honestly... you never become rich by working for someone else.. it is the least efficient/most pathetic way to become rich. This is the same for quant, doctor, software dev or wut so ever any other things.

However, the purpose getting a stable (or maybe not that stable for quant) job is to get the cash flow coming in, which gives you the freedom and (little bit of) experience to discover things that you might be able to do it on your own. Of cuz it involves certain factor of risks. But hey, you gotta pay the risk premium if you want bigger payoff. Alternatively, you can invest your own money (housing market, stock, cryto currencies etc). Most of the time (at least for me), these side dishes yields much greater profit.

All the rumors you get from the internet that quants make big buck is simply false advertising, unless you are James Simons or D.E Shaw. The 0.0000001% of this industry. Well~~ you can become that rich anyway if you are 0.0000001% of any industry..

 

[Ken Abbott]

Avg of $200k including bonus? Also, as a side though, why are middle office roles so abundant in general?

For every front office role, there are between two and ten supporting roles. This number has gotten bigger since the crisis because of regulatory demands.

 

[Daniel Duffy]

Maybe. I'm leaning away from the MBA and more towards the MS in Finance because it appears from what I see online, that employers are more interested in a more focused degree.

Other degree's I'm considering are my MS in Information Systems and a Master's in Marketing. On top of my Doctorate of Nurse Anesthesia degree, Nurse Practitioner, and MS in Finance.

But I have enough education benefits to do two more masters so I can consider what you were just suggesting (travel nursing and an MBA or Finance)

How many degrees is that??
Learning the maths and programming that is needed to be a quant at this stage of the same is a bridge too far.

 

[Jack Heatly]

Honestly... you never become rich by working for someone else.. it is the least efficient/most pathetic way to become rich. This is the same for quant, doctor, software dev or wut so ever any other things.

However, the purpose getting a stable (or maybe not that stable for quant) job is to get the cash flow coming in, which gives you the freedom and (little bit of) experience to discover things that you might be able to do it on your own. Of cuz it involves certain factor of risks. But hey, you gotta pay the risk premium if you want bigger payoff. Alternatively, you can invest your own money (housing market, stock, cryto currencies etc). Most of the time (at least for me), these side dishes yields much greater profit.

All the rumors you get from the internet that quants make big buck is simply false advertising, unless you are James Simons or D.E Shaw. The 0.0000001% of this industry. Well~~ you can become that rich anyway if you are 0.0000001% of any industry..

Are you saying the TV show Billions is a lie?

 

[achirikhin]

I agree with all the others here; I would stick to what you are doing. MFE is a HUGE emotional and mental drain as well as the new debt you will incur, not to mention you don't even know how well you will do in finance.

MOST FINANCIAL ENGINEERS CAP AT AROUND $200K.

Not true. This is a senior associate/junior VP level, so 4 years experience at most. Very low

 

[achirikhin]

I'm a registered nurse that's worked in psychiatry for the past 6+ years. I have my MS in Nursing in which I completed one bio-statistics course and I completed by PhD in Nursing coursework, which included one statistics course in which we learned to use Stata (program) to run basic statistical analysis of research variables. But my research was more geared towards social type soft sciences. I do have a little amount of programming exposure by having gone to DeVry for a year for a post-bachelors in IT where I did a little visual basic programming. I found it challenging but was able to get through it with the help of a friend that was good at visual basic. I later entered a MS in Information Systems program at DePaul University but stopped to enter the Army to pay down student loan debt (currently at $220,000). I was a medic in the Army so I decided to go into nursing after I left the Army.

I have a Post-911 GI bill that will expire in November 2022. So I have to go back to school, otherwise, I'll just throw away those education funds. Instead of going for my Nurse Practitioner degree (which can only make so much money before it hits a ceiling), my intent is to get into a more lucrative career that does not have the same salary cap that nursing does. I'm interested in data science and quantitative finance because they seem to use a similar analytical, knowledge discovery mindset that research involved, which I love.

My main concern is if I would be able to make it through a Masters of Science in Financial Engineering program given my lack of math and programming background. I've been talking to some schools (UC Berkley, Claremont Graduate School, Fordham University, and Barch College) and they offer conditional acceptance where the student is accepted to the MS in Financial Engineering program but they must complete the recommended math and programming prerequisites before they delve into the hardcore quantitative finance courses. This is the route I'm considering.

Back when I was at DePaul in 2002 for Information Systems, I did take a java programming course, in which I had to drop because I was not getting it. I could get html and java script but I found java difficult. I have not had algebra (outside of GRE prep) or calculus since high school in the early 90's. My question is: What chance do I have of being successful in a MSFE program, given my lack of math and programming background, even if the MSFE program allows me to finish the math and programming prerequisites before the MSFE program?
Also, if I'm 41 years of age, is it more challenging to get into the quant analyst field in my 40's?

I know that it's never suggested to go into a career PURELY for the money but the truth is that the projected salary should be taken into consideration. If I go for my psychiatric nurse practitioner, I can start out around $90,000 to $100,000 and can move up to $140,000 in Chicago and $170,000 in Los Angeles (possibly $200,000 in LA). But that's as far as I would ever go. My impression is that quants can keep making higher salaries than what a nurse practitioner makes.

It is absolutely fine to consider salary as a factor.

Not all quant roles require programming, but all roles require understanding of finance and financial products. You may be better of not taking those MFEs that require programming as a prerequisite, or may have no programming modules at all. CQF perhaps. There should be courses like that, I am sure.

Alternatively you may try applying to a major American bank in a less quanty role than a pure quant, or a business role altogether. Risk management perhaps. In the latter, you will not require programming skills beyond SQL, which is a data retrieval language. You may not require that either.

Or you may look for a job as a pure risk/regulatory quant, who interprets and augments Basel accord.

Lacking programming can be substituted by a combination of product/regs knowledge and personal skills (plus maybe some basic stats). As a practicing nurse, I am sure you have mastered the latter, so use them convince the employee that you can learn the other two I am sure you have many other skills you can sell, which may STEM grads will spend years mastering.

Consider taking www.qaprofession.com to learn more about the actual quant professions, not all of which require programming, but all require the below list:

 

[Takemikazuchi]

This thread is 6 years old sir

 

[Takemikazuchi]

I wonder what OP ended up doing.