Finance vs Accounting degree

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Yeah, you could get jobs with a finance degree, but definitely not many higher end jobs.. definitely not compared to accounting. If I was going just finance, I'd definitely get an MBA.

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Do you just like making stuff up?

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Good luck finding quant work. In today's market place, most quants are PHD's in the hardcore sciences such as Physics or Math. Also, quants are located in the tri-state area. If you do have interest in becoming a quant, computer science as an undergrad then financial engineering can also be a good path but finance and/or accounting is probably not going to cut it and I am speaking from experience in this area.

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yea, if i could program i'd be a quant by now lol.

you need academic quality modelling skills in addition to computer science graduate level programming skills.

you need to be able to take a model from theory to practice, backtest it, evaluate it, and make it run by itself.

furhter, as mentioned, quants are typically in tristate area and a majority of the time refer to PhD in math, finance, physics, engineering + computer skills.

DE shaw and many others though hire undergraduate-graduate level quant analysts.

not an easy thing to break into. if i had a "do-over" it'd be to be a sick computer programmer.

Barron

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um, no. while DE shaw and some others may specifically want math/comp sci kids with no finance background, many quant shops are perfectly happy to have an econ or finance undergrad, as long as they have a modicum of programming ability. believe it or not, quants need to have economic intuition and a knowledge of financial instruments, not just the ability to work with c++ and stochastic calculus. it really doesn't take that much programming skill to backtest a model, but you have to be smart enough and have the intuition to come up with reasonable things to test and interpret the results once you do.

that being said, the above is really geared towards the hedge fund world .. I'd imagine sell-side shops have more PhD's and more pure math guys.

sincerely,
just out of undergrad and working at a quant fund.

[skindog]

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Yeah, you could get jobs with a finance degree, but definitely not many higher end jobs.. definitely not compared to accounting. If I was going just finance, I'd definitely get an MBA.

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Do you just like making stuff up?

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I was talking about my school, not the world in general. And I made it perfectly clear that my view may be skewed because I didn't talk to every single recruiter. I'm not ignorant enough to think there are no higher end finance jobs. If that's what you assumed, you should start thinking before posting.

To clarify some more, at my school accounting>finance MBA>finance because there were very few great job openings for finance and a horde of finance students. You really had to stand out to land an awesome job. OTOH Getting off to a great start in accounting wasn't as hard. Of my accounting friends, about half went to work at the big 4, and the rest went to work at large regional firms (McGladrey, Crowe Chizek), all making ~60k a year.

So to OP: It all depends on the recruiting opportunities available to you at your school and how much work you want to put in.

[DcifrThs]

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Good luck finding quant work. In today's market place, most quants are PHD's in the hardcore sciences such as Physics or Math. Also, quants are located in the tri-state area. If you do have interest in becoming a quant, computer science as an undergrad then financial engineering can also be a good path but finance and/or accounting is probably not going to cut it and I am speaking from experience in this area.

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yea, if i could program i'd be a quant by now lol.

you need academic quality modelling skills in addition to computer science graduate level programming skills.

you need to be able to take a model from theory to practice, backtest it, evaluate it, and make it run by itself.

furhter, as mentioned, quants are typically in tristate area and a majority of the time refer to PhD in math, finance, physics, engineering + computer skills.

DE shaw and many others though hire undergraduate-graduate level quant analysts.

not an easy thing to break into. if i had a "do-over" it'd be to be a sick computer programmer.

Barron

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um, no. while DE shaw and some others may specifically want math/comp sci kids with no finance background, many quant shops are perfectly happy to have an econ or finance undergrad, as long as they have a modicum of programming ability. believe it or not, quants need to have economic intuition and a knowledge of financial instruments, not just the ability to work with c++ and stochastic calculus. it really doesn't take that much programming skill to backtest a model, but you have to be smart enough and have the intuition to come up with reasonable things to test and interpret the results once you do.

that being said, the above is really geared towards the hedge fund world .. I'd imagine sell-side shops have more PhD's and more pure math guys.

sincerely,
just out of undergrad and working at a quant fund.

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i didn't think i was implying that any programmer could do it.

you clearly have to have a finance background/economic fundamentals. for me that wouldn't be the issue. there were also maths tests i had to take. that wouldnt' be the issue either...the C++/Java programming test would be.

i searched job boards, personal contacts, recruiters etc. for analytics/quant etc. positions and i'd say a huge chunk of them require at least my schooling (MBA mathematical finance, 1 year financial analysis training) and programming.

the ones that don't require the schooling do absolutely require the programming and somem fin/econ background.

i've spoken with many people and they all seem to say the same thing: "we can train a good logical thinker with some fin/econ background in econ better than we can train a great financial economic mind to program"

so like i said, i wish i had that do-over lol.

btw, what is "a modicum" or programming ability. i can program in matlab to test and develop, but can't bring the model live so to speak (i.e. pull data from somewhere and put it somewhere else)

Barron

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btw, what is "a modicum" or programming ability. i can program in matlab to test and develop, but can't bring the model live so to speak (i.e. pull data from somewhere and put it somewhere else)

Barron

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how difficult it is to move from research to production depends in large part on how good the systems are that are in place at a given firm and how good their IT staff is. I would imagine that the smaller and newer the fund, the more a quant would have to know about databases and such to be able to do their job effectively.

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I noticed D.E. Shaw mentioned. This firm is a special case in all areas as they for the most part only hire individuals from elite universities. In any case, I challenge anyone to show me someone who is a real quant analyst at a reputable firm whether it be a brokerage house or a hedge fund with a Finance BA and MBA. I do not think they exist because that is not what employers want. As I stated previously, they want proficiency in C++/matlab/python/java and/or high level sciences like Physics or Math. The preference as another poster mentioned is to have both. On another note, I would tell any person who deciding on a major right now to take computer science. The market for people with a background in computer science and economics is incredible and shows no sign of slowing down.

[Taylor Caby]

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I don't know about other schools, but the recruiters at University of Illinois weren't very eager to recruit someone with just an undergrad finance degree - to me it almost seemed like a pre-law or pre-med major... wth do you do with it if you don't go further?

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Are you being serious here, because this is pretty ridiculous?

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I graduated from U of I with "just" a finance degree. It's true that at that particular school, you have more opportunities with an Accy degree, but this is a special case, imo.

U of I has the best Accounting program in the country and you can pretty much get a job anywhere in the field if you have a decent GPA. As far as finance goes, it's one of the best schools in the midwest, but it isn't competing seriously with ivy league schools for top finance jobs.

I'm not sure if you are interested in banking but I know quite a few Finance grads from U of I that have great banking jobs and a few that have great trading opportunities as well. Finance definitely seems like the "riskier" route, only because with Accounting you pretty much know what you are going to get when you graduate, where as there is huge upside in Finance but also more dead end career paths.

Personally, I couldn't stand the accounting classes I took. I just wasn't interested in it at all and I don't think I could have really applied myself in that major, at least at the entry level classes that were so boring to me. Do what you love, you will be happy years down the road.

Best,
tc

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I noticed D.E. Shaw mentioned. This firm is a special case in all areas as they for the most part only hire individuals from elite universities. In any case, I challenge anyone to show me someone who is a real quant analyst at a reputable firm whether it be a brokerage house or a hedge fund with a Finance BA and MBA.

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I work with at least one (I think two, but the other might have doubled in math) who only has the BA portion of that, is that close enough?

edit to add: it would be very rare for a good candidate for a quant position with a finance BA to go on to get an mba; for someone with a pure math/stat/compsci background it might be useful, but a finance ba looking to go into quant who was actually interested and qualified wouldn't make the decision to get an mba over going to work or more quantitative graduate work.

[petp_the_greek]

if i could do it all over again i would have a double major of finance and computer sci/quant related stuff.
programmers (C++, unix...etc) who know their finance stuff are in sick demand from both hedge funds and i-banks.