Let's hope so... lots of Malaysians studying this sort of subjects right now.

You're right. For Quants a graduate/MSc degree in Quant Finance/Financial Eng/Comp Finance will be the least one needs. Maths, Engineering, Physics, Stats PhDs are not uncommon. For undergrad an Accounting/Finance degree is less specialised, so more "flexible" we could say. However no one gets to do a graduate Quant Finance degree unless they've done a lot of Maths in undergrad or they are some sort of Maths genius.

All true. Not everyone is like your friend though. It is highly specialised, but if anyone seriously considers a quant career then they need to choose their undergrad subjects quite carefully. Finance degree will not do. Even a Quant Finance degree may not do because you may only do a couple semesters of Maths plus a couple semesters of Mathematical Finance, then a bunch of Stats. That's how many undergrad degrees are. In the US it's even broader despite the longer duration making the concentration in Maths even less.

I don't feel that they teach theory from the purist, hypothetical, academic perspective. I feel like they emphasise a bit that there is the practitioners' point of view that theory doesn't agree with, although it is heavily used in practice sometimes. I do feel that while they teach Corp Finance theory, Black-Scholes, Binomial, Options, MPT, there is very little solid link to reality. They do point out that "in reality it's not likely to be like this, they add this and that" but even at 3rd year when it's meant to be "applied" it feels as if I've completed all these classes but they aren't going to propel me into a job (if I can get one) armed with any know-how. So I'm doing all this just to go in blind. Like, I know when you start work (I've worked in Finance "behind the scenes" for some time) there's so much to learn and you develop a new system for yourself/follow one while learning continuously for an extended period. But in this case I'm doing a full degree, taking difficult and high level electives, yet I feel as if I could've learnt so much more on my own or by working a couple months. There is a huge flaw in the school system and it is easy to admit the degree is all one really gets from the academic side of school (this doesn't apply to all schools, I didn't go to a top 10 uni in the world unfortunately, who knows if they're any better).


Interesting, you got into FM from reinsurance and financial accounting. Were you an accountant in the reinsurance business? When you went into FM did you have to start from the bottom?

Is it true that in FM people work not as many hours as IB analysts?