[duedue]

(09-19-2014 07:36 PM)Peregrine Wrote:  

Preface: I'm talking about quantitative analysis/modeling as it pertains to financial institutions.

(09-19-2014 03:22 PM)kongzi Wrote:  

Would you recommend quant/statistics/data science/numerical modeling as a better career than IT? Is it more lucrative than web development and other IT work?

If you're good at math and enjoy it, I would recommend it over IT. Math/stats skills certainly have a longer shelf life than IT skills.

Salaries range from 70 to 300k depending on rank. You could make more, but then you'd be in senior management rather than doing the actual analysis. Pay raises are mostly driven by promotions and job hopping. New jobs are easy to come by.

Hours are generally 40 to 60 a week.

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What are the people like?

Depends on the complexity of the data that you are working with. As the complexity increases, the people working on it tend towards shy/weird/awkward/borderline autistic.

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Since Americans like bad boys and jocks more than geeks, would you say the prestige is low for these careers? Is it any better in Europe or elsewhere abroad?

I would say it's neither plus or minus prestige.

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Are you required to spend alot of your free time working on personal projects and keeping up with technology news, like for IT careers?

You have to stay apprised of industry developments, but that's true of any career. If you're just looking to punch the clock, no.

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I doubled majored in applied math and another STEM field when I was an undergrad. If I get my Master's in a STEM field (not Statistics or CS) and have some programming skills, how can I get a job in those fields? how can I catch up with those who have degrees in MS Statistics to get a job? Do I need to learn R and SAS on my own and then use them to create personal projects, like programmers have to? Or am I better off studying algorithms and data structures?

Which STEM field is your Master's in? Math is preferable (for obvious reasons). Physics is second best.

Learn R, SQL, SAS, Matlab, and Excel (and Powerpoint, because you will usually present your data with it). If you're proficient with all/most of those, you should be fine. No personal projects necessary.

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Or if I don't like my current master's program, should I just look for data analyst/etc jobs now? Or the better ones require a Master's?

Master's required, sometimes even PhD. But that depends on the company. My area requires a Master's, PhD preferred.

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Is it true that there aren't many entry-level jobs in data science, and most job openings require a phD or lots of work experience? If so, am I better off getting an entry-level job as a quantitative programmer or statistician/data analyst?

There's grunt work that has to be done, which can be done by just about anyone who is good at Excel/R/SQL/Matlab/Access.

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If I want to live abroad, should I apply for quant/stats/data/etc jobs abroad, or work in the US first to build up experience?

Doesn't really matter from what I've seen. Data is data. I've seen people go both ways. If only US companies will take you, work there first and apply abroad later.

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Since I ultimately want to work as a freelancer/work for myself, is it easier to get into that if I first work in stats/data science as opposed to IT?

Remote work opportunities are more plentiful in IT. Your main shot at freelancing in quant work is becoming a consultant down the road, either for a firm or on your own.

Very solid advice. Where to look for problems for personal projects?
Also what book(s) do you suggest for statistics?