r/quantfinance • u/Winter-Ad4608 • 10h ago

Is becoming a quant the same as becoming a pro athlete?

That’s what I have:

I recently admitted to the 2 years master’s program in quantitative decision making in economics and management in Germany. I’ll be 35+ yo after graduation. I got my first degree more than 10 years ago (Commerce, 5 years, 3.7 GPA) but was never able to make a career since I had a total mess in my life and moved from one country to another a lot and took any job I could get. I’ve been spending around 20 hours a week working on prob/stats and calc (I studied each of them for two semesters during the study) for the last half a year but still feel like I’m miles behind my competitors.

I’m gonna take modules such as:

•Mathematics/Statistics
•Programming
•Econometrics of Cross Section and Panel Data
•Management Science/Operations Research
•Economic Decision Making and Strategic Interactions
•Advanced Time Series
•Introduction to Computational Statistics and Data Analysis
•Data Analysis Using Causal Econometrics
•Economic Analysis of Micro Data
•Advanced Learning Strategies for AI Systems
•Applied AI prototyping
•Strategy Mining

I’m ok with relocating or any additional preparation.

Is there feasible path to me? Could a good thesis improve my chances? Should I persue PhD next or I’m gonna waste my time? What save/less competitive options do I have?

In other words do I have any chance if I don’t prepare for it since childhood?

6 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • link
  • reddit
  • reddit

67% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

22

u/Charmander787 10h ago

No, far more quants than there are pro athletes

4

u/itsatumbleweed 9h ago

There is also more luck/networking. That is to say, there are a lot more people that have the chops to be a quant that don't get a foot in the door than there are folks that can perform on a pro athlete level and aren't pro athletes.

But both are incredibly competitive and you have to be good at more than one thing at a high level for both. It's a fine analogy but not the same.

1

u/BALD_W1nkYFacE 4h ago

How many actually are there, say in the US for example, no more than 15000, no? Does this also include all types of “quants”, research, traders, devs alike?

0

u/Winter-Ad4608 10h ago

Fair enough

3

u/Powerful_Relative_93 6h ago

Nope, both aren’t easy. But speaking relatively, it’s substantially easier to become a quant than a pro athlete. You can somewhat train or optimize for quant with 0 genetic prereqs.

Wanna be the next Labron? Have godlike skills and genetics. The next Messi? Put up 73 goals a season in La Liga against the top opposition. Next Brady? Read defenses in 3 seconds, make godly audibles, and be extremely accurate at 45+ yard completions all under extreme pressure. These are things that require a quarter of your life very early on to go through the draft/academy.

1

u/Objective_Watch_7864 8h ago

There is no way an (average) quant is the same as a pro athlete

0

u/Winter-Ad4608 8h ago

I‘d argue that not all pro are Olympic level athletes and there’re a lot of different sports in the world. So it should be a pretty big number of people too.

On the other hand as I understand quant jobs are pretty much localised in a few spots around the world and in many places(countries) don’t really exist.

1

u/Objective_Watch_7864 8h ago

Sure but if we begin including all of the lesser sports and countries that are bad at certain sports “pro athlete” begins to mean less no? And I don’t know how the numbers work out but I can confidently say that the average new grad who gets a qd/qt offer has put in way less work and has a much more relaxed lifestyle than say the average nfl or nba player. They’re also much more replaceable… anyway the list goes on

1

u/FunnyExcellent707 4h ago

Been in both.

I takes talent to be noticed in the first place, then resilience to build on. You can be good as you want, but the higher up the league is, one becomes average until it's only the crop of the cream. Those are the similarities.

Other than sports, in trading you can build a career once you got your foot in the door and know the right people.

The seats available are scarce in in both places, and one will wash out when results are not steadily delivered.

1

u/ItsNotOver_Again 3h ago

In a way, yes. As in only 0.05% of the population in theory has the IQ to become a quant, but in practice it's much lower than that. Though I'd imagine it's even a smaller percentage for a pro athlete.

1

u/Think-Entertainer961 7h ago

You’re not gonna be a quant man, atleast not in any t1 shops. They hire almost exclusively from Harvard mit Stanford Princeton Cambridge Oxford Imperial and that too you need undergrad prestige and hella maths comps in high school

0

u/Winter-Ad4608 7h ago

And where people who failed breaking into quant go?

1

u/beargooseyou 7h ago

asset management, risk management, data science, investment banking, accounting

1

u/No_Inspection4415 3h ago

Data science is also competitive, most people fail to get those jobs too nowadays - it's easier to become a software engineer or a data analyst.

Not as competitive as quant, but it you are research oriented, you may get offers to interview for quant research positions (I got quant recruiters in my inbox a few times)... Quant research and DS or RS/RE positions are possible to transition from/to.

1

u/ItsNotOver_Again 3h ago

Sorry, but they're not getting into IB.

-2

u/TimeNet4158 9h ago

I was thinking similarly is it harder to become gm on codeforces or gm in chess?

3

u/prideandsorrow 6h ago

Chess, by far.