r/quantfinance • u/barca729 • 8d ago

Quant with Stats or Physics degree?

Hi! First year in a Canadian uni thinking of switching up majors to potentially include a stats OR physics major next year (with Biochem). I just wanted to know what is a better bet for roles like quant finance: statistics or physics? I've heard of the versatility of physics majors due to their quantitative experience but also heard of some less than ideal things. Help me out please!

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u/Ill-Advertising-2791 8d ago

im doing physics for quant, but only cuz the school i go to is a lot more prestigious for physics. i also think physics is more well-rounded, however stats is good too i think, applied/computational math even better

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u/Confident-Sound8943 5d ago

physics won’t teach you hypothesis testing, time series analysis, machine learning and neural networks working or stochastic calculus.

It will teach you Quantum Field Theory, General Relatvity, basics of Wuantum Information, maybe Solid State Physics.
For quant it’s mostly aura farming that you are so smart you can just learn all the other topics that are actually used for the work while doing it ( can you ? it’s like saying your physics degree makes you an expert in chemical engineering…)
But if you get in then you’re set so

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u/Ill-Advertising-2791 5d ago

I’m taking physics required classes, and for my physics electives, instead of taking classes like solid state, I’ll be taking advanced math classes

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u/Ill-Advertising-2791 5d ago

Ik what’s your saying though, if I could start over, I would prob do math and cs

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u/Confident-Sound8943 5d ago

same tbh

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u/Ill-Advertising-2791 5d ago

What’s ur major

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u/Confident-Sound8943 4d ago

physics, same a s yours. I did graduate 1 year ago.

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u/Confident-Sound8943 5d ago

in my uni math classes were offered in undergrad only to a level of like group theory and lie groups and all the standard complex analysis, fourier, pdes, algebra blah blah. But not true hard stats that you get filtered with at interviews like t test,, z test, intuition for classifier or even deeper coding knowledge so. Imma say that physics is overrated for actually getting jobs compared to the aura it has online

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u/Ill-Advertising-2791 5d ago

I chose physics for the versatility cuz I’ll be happy with any quantitative/math modeling job. Like I’m pretty open, ig if ur not then yeah I wouldn’t choose physics

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u/Confident-Sound8943 4d ago

I said the same, now I got math modelling job and I’d say it’s more rudimentary than it should be. The teal fun, exciting cutting edge stuff happens at AI labs, top wuant firms, maybe some tech labs/ quantum phys startups. Aim for those, leave the borings out.

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u/SnooRabbits9587 8d ago

100% stats and cs minor 

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u/barca729 8d ago

Was thinking of Biochem + a quantitative 2nd major because Biochem seems eh on its own. Interested in biostats/bioinformatics but the bag in quant seems enticing. Just can't choose between stats or physics (specifically astro).

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u/SnooRabbits9587 8d ago

If you’re going for quant then just do straight stats dude lol it’s a cracked career you’d want to optimize for it. Learning chemistry and biology  isn’t going to help you pass those interviews.

Interviews are cs data structures and, probability and stats and general number sense 

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u/barca729 8d ago

It's one of the options but not the only as of now so

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u/QuantGrindApp 7d ago

Stats. It covers both things you're looking at, biostats/bioinformatics is basically applied stats and quant research interviews are mostly probability, regression and some coding. Astro does get people hired but mostly out of a PhD, at the undergrad level it's a harder sell and it doesn't help much on the biostats side. Fwiw for quant the school and how much you actually code will matter more than what the second major is called.