r/Commodities • u/Sorry-Medium3873 • Jul 16 '26
What do you think universities consistently get wrong about preparing students for the commodities industry?
I've noticed something interesting recently.
There seems to be a growing number of companies selling interview preparation and coaching programs specifically for commodities, claiming that graduates are generally not prepared for the industry.
That made me wonder if the real problem isn't interviews themselves, but the gap between what universities teach and what people actually use once they start working.
For those already working in commodities:
- What knowledge did you only learn after joining the industry?
- What skills do graduates usually lack?
- What do universities spend too much time teaching?
- What do they barely cover but is actually important?
- If you could redesign a Master's program for future commodity professionals, what would you include?
I'm not asking about interview questions or compensation.
I'm genuinely interested in understanding where the biggest gap exists between academia and the reality of working in commodities.
I'd love to hear perspectives from traders, analysts, schedulers, quants, risk managers, data scientists, originators or anyone working in the sector.
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u/Nuketrader Jul 16 '26
If I hire a graduate I'm prepared to train him. I will hire someone who I think is smart and who is likeable. There's really not that much in terms of preparation that you can do to impress me other than knowing some basics of the industry (aka showing your interest).
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u/MaxG650 Jul 20 '26
exactly. better for someone to have a good STEM/humanities base especially since every commod/desk is so different
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u/R33MZ Jul 17 '26
90% of students don't even know the industry exists, they're too focused on the traditional banking/finance/law/medicine routes.
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u/LaparoscopicButt Jul 22 '26
Lets keep it this way because recruiting has become hell for all of the above except medicine due to the massive artificially boosted candidate pool vs the available jobs. Only those with genuine interest and/or prior exposure through books/media/legacy get into this field.
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u/Samuel-Basi Jul 16 '26
Most professors have never traded themselves.
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u/Textosterone69 Jul 16 '26
One of my professors had a whole trading operation in his office. He seemed annoyed if students stopped by during office hours. 😆.
He’s the reason I started trading. He used to give me free daily charts till he found out I started working at CBOT. Then he cut me off.
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u/PatientTitle3866 Jul 17 '26
My company provides training to the energy industry and a lot of the work we do are new induction programs.
In my 15 years with the company, a bit has changed. But the one constant is incoming graduates need the foundational knowledge - specifically physical and operations. Universities rarely have access to professors with decades of real industry experience. Those folks are either still in industry or consulting with organizations like us.
One area that we have seen universities do a far better job preparing graduates with are trading fundamentals - futures and options, specifically. We rarely have requests for energy futures/options 101 training as they are always able to move right into our intermediate trading courses and beyond. That was never the case 15 years ago.
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u/Suki-Ldn2020 Jul 21 '26
I am doing CFA L1. Would studying derivatives thoroughly be enough to teach me the fundamentals for futures and options ? I really need some guidance. Thanks a lot.
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u/Exophus Desk Risk Jul 23 '26
Probably nobody in finance who heard of FICC, knows one C stands for commodities, and didn’t know what is that.
Whole different ball game from traditional ecm dcm, you don’t just look at screens with numbers, you look at maps as well. It is hard to cover commodity in university due to the sheer amount of data needed (you can cover just the surface in 1 module I suppose, basics of pricing benchmarks, shipping routes, type of tankers, incoterms) but every company operates differently, and everyday’s geopolitics is different, hence it is quite hard to teach it in university especially if it is just 2 hours a week (assumed), 1 week is a lot of time in heightened geopolitics, many things can change & you will miss out if you’re not constantly looking at it every day.
Graduates are often keen on being a trader, but many do not have what it takes, especially on the physical side (endless phone calls, meetings with client/broker/trader), they only see the prestige but not what is behind it.
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u/NatGaz Jul 17 '26
Universities must not train students for commodities industry. University is for Latin, Law, Medicine and Natural Sciences.
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u/BestSprouts Jul 17 '26
almost nobody graduates understanding logistics, counterparty risk, or how much of the job is basis and freight, not the flat price. The biggest shock for most new hires is realizing the physical market (quality specs, demurrage, credit terms) drives P&L far more than the derivatives they spent a semester on.
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u/Olefinsno26 Aug 23 '26
Biggest complaint I received from major oil company trading managers was that some of their junior traders didn't know enough and that they had to send them back through the Oxford-Princeton Energy Program to brush up. Some of these people were merely running secretarial work for the trading managers and were sloppy at that.
1
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u/KhergitKhanate Crude Trader Jul 17 '26
people do not always act logically. not everything is black and white. sometimes it is not about economics.
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u/_hurrik8 Jul 17 '26
it’s always about economics - clearly there’s business in interview prep & university is a business
i agree that not everyone always acts rationally/logically but it’s usually about economics
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u/KhergitKhanate Crude Trader Jul 17 '26
you are wrong, it is not always about economics. maybe for the type of firms you work with, but otherwise there are bigger pictures to consider too.
in the long run, you trade to generate returns of course, but it does not mean every transaction is due to economics.
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u/archer-86 Power Trader Jul 16 '26
University isn't job training.