The Stanford MS-FM Times

This blog chronicles my life as a student at the MS in Financial Mathematics at Stanford University

  • About the Author

    Financial Mathematics
    Stanford University

    Fixed Income Research
    DBS Singapore

    Finance
    IIM Ahmedabad

    Chemistry
    IIT Kanpur

Of long breaks and secrets!

Posted by tapishkushwaha on April 17, 2008

Well its been a long time since i wrote last and a busy time at that. I guess so much is being said about the economy or the job scenario at all these FE programs that theres not much left for bloggers like me! Add to that, ive just got done with a qtr with 5 courses, and let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty. It makes me wonder that being in such a hurry sometimes is not a good thing!

Well a lot of people have asked me about the result of my job hunt and where i’l be heading. Problem is, a lot of people in important places have been kind enough to have a look at this blog and hence i do not think i can be very clear on that here. Suffice to say that im happy with the progress thus far and that i will be associated with a bank in a few months time.

As for the internship offers for my class at Stanford, almost all the people have offers by now. One observation though is that a lot people have got positions outside the US, which is very understandable given the pessimism here. I mean if the 5th largest I-bank gets sold for a song, common sense tells us things are far from rosy.

Amongst other things, I recently had the pleasure of attending a panel discussion on the Credit Crisis and the possible effects of public policy on it. The panelists were 3 eminent economists, John Taylor (former Under secy of Treasury), John Williams (SF Fed) and John Shoven (Stanford Econ dept). While they were quite confident that the economy as a whole would hold up quite well and the recession will be a very mild one, unfortunately they were much more pessimistic about the Financial Sector. They saw Wall St compensation coming down quite bit given the Bonus heavy packages. They were also  of the opinion that Wall St banks in general had hired too many people in the recent years and they would have to get rid of the extra flab.

All bad news for fresh grads!

All the negativity aside, i wish all the fresh new FE students all the very best for the coming yr and a half.

p.s thinking of headings is really not as easy as it would seem.

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4 Responses to “Of long breaks and secrets!”

  1. dave said

    The current crisis is a side effect of the war in Iraq. Amereicans voted Bush for the second term and they are suffering now. The situation might improve after the elections if the next president pulls out some troops and improves the country’s economy. It looks like, the worst affected were foriegn students, particularly from India. Lot of them quit their jobs to study MFE.

  2. iadx said

    Which courses are you taking this quarter?

  3. SKB said

    Hey,

    Seems like a long time since you posted this blog. I just came across it a few days ago and like many others, have found it quite interesting.

    Just to give you my background, I am a physics major from IIT Bombay and am really interested in getting into quant finance (despite the current situation).

    What i needed to know was really general.

    1) What was the difference betweent the Equity/Fixed income research job you get after an MBA from the ones you get right out of IIT?

    2) You are pursuing this degree after your MBA. Is it better to pursue right after i graduate or maybe after a little work ex. or even later?

    Thanks.

  4. SKB said

    Also,

    3) You also spoke about being able to choose electives from the GSB etc. So from that point of view, what are the kind of jobs up for grabs at placements?

    Much Appreciated.

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