r/uwaterloo • u/BassParticular2884 • 2d ago

Question Quant Pipeline program?

I'm 17, applying for waterloo of course, and I want to get into quantitative finance; im already spending my free time studying math, computer science, and finance; but I want to know what would be the best program to apply for

I'm currently looking at the Mathematical finance + laurier finance double major, but ive seen some comments on pmath being overall better than Mathematical finance

Any advice would be appreciated

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u/Disastrous_End_2470 Mr.Goose #1 Fan 2d ago

what specific quant field do you hope to break into?

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u/BassParticular2884 2d ago

Honestly looking into Quant Trader or Quant Researcher, but i wouldnt be against Quant developer

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u/Lambda_5 2d ago

Look into what you want to do further, quant researchers often have PhDs so you’ll need to consider this, waterloo is primarily known for quant dev as we are a pretty cs heavy school yet even here its a top 1% field. In general you want to study a quantitative field, but math is king.

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u/BassParticular2884 2d ago

Its mainly leaned to quant trader; its just i wouldnt mind either quant researcher or Quant developer; but excuse my stupidity, what do you mean by 1% field?

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u/Lambda_5 2d ago

As in from the already super smart people at waterloo, the top 1% of those people might break into Quant, this is a whole different ball game from FAANG

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u/BassParticular2884 2d ago

Do i atleast have an advantage since im starting 6 years before i graduate university 💔 What can i do to be in that top 1% other than grades

I want to publish research by my first year, and publish more by my 2nd, im already working on any connections I can make, but Idk what else I can do

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u/Late_Breakfast_965 2d ago

Well, make sure you get into uwaterloo first and you will realize you are not the only one thought yourself outsmart all your peers. And be realistic, you want to publish research paper by your first year? What kind of paper only requires one year of work?