Why Math Students Haven't Discovered Quant Finance?

A subscriber asked, "why don't math student know about quantitative finance?" Following up the question the discussion of why math majors know about engineering as it uses math and pays well just like quantitative finance.

There are many reasons for this however the number of jobs available in quantitative finance are much smaller than engineering. For this reason alone I don't think many professors even know it is a job to recommend to students. Another reason I think comes from the idea of "finance" which seems to be business. The business people and the STEM (math, engineering, statistics, and computer science) people often don't get along. I think this makes professors and students less likely to explore quant finance even though it is just math applied to finance. I saw this as a grad student as the engineering school fought the business school on how the masters in financial engineering was structured. That conflict resulted in the program being shut down. As a quant (the finance people view us as dumb and ridged math people) I have often been ignored or not treated well.

Another reason is that most people understand what engineering is or have family that are engineers. This results in students wanting to be engineers.

Overall I wish more students were aware of the quantitative finance career paths and the interesting work we do. If you are interested, please reach out to me as I am happy to answer questions.


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