Profile Evaluation

HTML2008

Hi, Folks:

Greeting...

I am thinking seriously about applying this year for next Fall, I would appreciate your opinion on whether I will have a chance for TOP5. I know this is not a perfect question to ask since there is no definitive answer, but just want to get a feeling of how things are. Please feel free to point out the weaknesses you see in my profile, that way I can somehow make up for them.

Here is my background

Education:
   Undergraduate: 4 year college in China, major in EECS, my school was NOT one of the best
   Graduate:   University of Pennsylvania: Master in Electrical Engineering
                    Columbia University:           Master in Computer Science

Working Experience:
   AT&T:  Network and System Engineer, 1.5 year
   One of the Wall street big 5:  algorithm trading, 2 years

GMAT:  770  (V 98%, M 99%)

Community Work:
   not much at all, plan to start something in April

By the way, what do you guys think about the investment / return of top mba? Is it really worth it? I mean money wise, a two year top mba will probably cost $150,000, people say the average salary after 3 years is about $150,000, if that is the case, you will have a hard time paying off the student loan, what do people usually do? I really want to figure the money part out first.

appreciate everyone's help

Regards

--Richard

MrDJay

my two cents. given your background and your current job (Wall Str top 5 firm Algo trader)

You have no need to take an MBA at all.

Good luck and I wish I can meet you sometime next year in Wall St.

qifeimoxi

lz说得应该是FOIT, 不是trader。。不然钱就不是问题了，而是兴趣了。

top10 应该没什么问题，top5也值得一试。余以为top mba为得是career switch，为的是兴趣理想，为的是更多的职业选择，按照你现在的情况，钱应该不是什么问题啊。当然如果知识为了涨工资去读mba，lz的情况大可不必，FOIT收入和生活平衡那是很舒服了，职业生涯长，技能的移植性强，pay也是噌噌的涨啊。

还有就是年龄和家庭问题。

HTML2008

Yes, i am quant IT, not algo trader.

Speaking of using MBA to switch career, most people I talked to who graduated from those schools said it is really hard, companies usually much prefer to hire someone with the right background and previous working experience for a particular position. It simply makes more sense to the companies.

Maybe I am a too practical, I always think MBA as a path not the end. Everyone can probably still pursue their dreams without it. It is an investment, so what matters is what you pay now and what you get back later ...

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts, let me know if there are questions I can answer for you guys about NYC and maybe Wall Street firms

Regards

--Richard

qifeimoxi

quant IT？quant不属于IT，如果是quant要涨工资，根本不用mba啊，从quant转做trader应该很正常，到时候就有钱了。。也有trader去读mba的，我想大多都是做腻了，想换个行当做做 (career switch)

btw, i feel nyc is not a typical us city, everybody is so busy striving for money, money and money, as practical as lz pretty much like a modern city in Asia, tk, hk or sh, which is a bit too tiring for me.. maybe lz can share with us your life experiences in nyc and the street, and what you, as a particular case, can bring back to china, what kind of advice/help you can offer to people who like to be part of the street. thanks.

HTML2008

Quant is definitely a term that is being over-generalized, in a quant team, there are real quants who develop the model, those guys usually have phd in math or physics from MIT and alike, then there are people around them, like us, to implement their models and support them. We call ourselves quant IT, in a bitter way  : )

I agree with you about wall street, to put it in a nice way, this place is the extreme of capitalism, the sole purpose is to profit, to put it in a more frank way, just bounch of suckers (including me, at least for now) who only care about money. Look at the recession we are in right now, It all started with one thing: greed on wall street. I was talking to a trader in my firm and this is what he told me: "well, you either make a lot of money today for yourself and six month down the road someone else fu*k up badly or you don't make a lot money today but that guy still get screwed by someone else, what do you do?"

I cannot totally agree with you about New York though, don't get me wrong, I'd much prefer to live in Boston or DC or Philly, but NYC is really unique in many ways. For a start, it is a city that will either make you or break you, it is a place so streeful that you really have to use the last bit of your strength to survive. (I guess that is why we see so many crazy people on the subway  : ), But it is also unique in the way it accommodates so many different culture in one place, you meet people from every corner of the world here and get to know them and their way of living, it is quite interesting actually. By the way, there are also tons of artists here, I am not very into art, so cannot give you more details on it.

About our home, China, it is too big a topic to be articulated here, one thing for sure is that China will need more and more world-class elites to lead the country (ok, maybe just the companies) to compete on this global platform, I'd assume that is why many people here would like to pursue mba in the first place.

I've had dreams, only wake up in the cold winter of reality to realize how hard it is. From the bottom of my heart I wish all of us can achieve our dreams, but figuring out the money part is probably the first step anyway ...

hope that helps

Regards

--Richard

qifeimoxi

definitely an insider's view..

ok, back to the original question, if i were you, i would not go for mba, at least not for money, simply not worth it:

1. you are already in the heart of the "most-profitable" industry, unless you wanna change industry
2. mba takes time and money, i guess it's hard to become a trader if you are 30+ when you graduate