0Ls gunning for Big Law, why not finance? Forum

[JusticeHarlan]

Law requires no mathematical skill (a big challenge for well over 99% of the female population-except chinese girls- and maybe 80% of men.)

[dingbat]

I think people are overestimating the quantitative skills required for jobs like IB... they are very very basic. (Of course I'm not denying that there are some finance jobs like quants that require quantitative skills at the math-major level). I took the only math course that all UG finance people are required to take and it is an absolute joke. You aren't being asked to construct delta-epsilon proofs here. If you got a T-50-worthy LSAT score you have more than enough logical skills to, say, calculate a basic integral, and I doubt anything in IB is more rigorous than that. I was under the impression it's all about playing around with Excel anyways.

You have no idea....

Without getting into what IB actually entails, but working off your (incorrect) premise that it's all about Excel, here's a simple question.

You're asked to build a model in excel. How do you know what calculations you want excel to perform?Now that the model is built, you throw some numbers in and results come out.
How do you know if you built the model correctly?

(if the numbers are completely wrong, not only will you be fired, there's a chance you'll be made unemployable)

[rayiner]

ETA: I should add that the PC/liberal/feminist explanation for the lack of high-scoring/intelligent women is more due to cultural, discrimination, and socialization issues rather than a sheer lack of aptitude. See: Lawrence Summers-Harvard controversy re: lack of women in science and engineering in academia.

I'm always quite surprised to see this argument come up, because the argument really outstrips the ability of the data to support. Yes, the median white male scores about 0.30 standard deviations better than the median white female. But the median is not an interesting data point--our pool of scientists and engineers does not come from people who got a 500 on the SAT.

Amongst people in the top 5% of SAT Math scores (700+), the male/female breakdown is roughly 60:40.[1] If success in science/engineering is purely based on SAT Math performance, the underlying difference in aptitude would explain a 60:40 distribution in STEM fields, not the observed 5:1 or 10:1 distribution. If we concede that other aptitude components also play a role (SAT Reading, where the distribution amongst the top 5% is almost 60:40 females/males; Grade Point Average, where the distribution amongst the top 5% is 55:45 females/males), then differences in aptitude supports a smaller observed gap.

Even amongst people who got perfect 800 scores on the SAT Math, the delta is only about 2:1.[2] I would have been ecstatic if the gender distribution at my engineering school had been 2:1.

Differences in natural aptitude, particularly the higher standard deviation of male scores, explains why there are way more male Einsteins than female ones. Men are dramatically overrepresented once you get four or five standard deviations out. However, the pool of scientist and engineers aren't comprised of people five standard deviations out. They're comprised of people who got ~700 on their Math SAT (at alma matter, Georgia Tech, the SAT Math interquartile is 650-740). Amongst that pool of people, natural aptitude is enough to explain slight to moderate disparities in the representation of women. Not the dramatic ones that we see.

To add more context to it, the male-female differential on the LSAT is about the same as for the SAT Math: http://thedp.com/index.php/article/2008 ... gender_gap. That is to say men have an advantage of about 0.25 standard deviations at the median, and in the 175+ bracket the ratio is about 2:1. Yet, there is no shortage of women in law school, even with fairly gender-neutral admissions policies. If we take aptitude tests seriously, there is no reason the gender distribution of engineering school should be any different than law school!

[1] http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2011/09/201 ... -math.html
[2] http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2011/10/hug ... n-sat.html

[Geon]

I think people are overestimating the quantitative skills required for jobs like IB... they are very very basic. (Of course I'm not denying that there are some finance jobs like quants that require quantitative skills at the math-major level). I took the only math course that all UG finance people are required to take and it is an absolute joke. You aren't being asked to construct delta-epsilon proofs here. If you got a T-50-worthy LSAT score you have more than enough logical skills to, say, calculate a basic integral, and I doubt anything in IB is more rigorous than that. I was under the impression it's all about playing around with Excel anyways.

This is both true and untrue. Anyone who can get an C in 2nd year stats can do bankers math IMO. However the problem is if you do not have finance courses - which are basically just math problems in courses like investments- then you will not get an interview. You do not need to be strong in math to be a banker, but you need it to get an interview and hired if you don't know anyone. Your analysis is correct though, in economic boom times people with nothing more than high school were often hired onto the trading floor and working in I banks back in the day who worked their way up from mail room.

On the otherhand, I find it weird finance majors at your school take just 1 math course. We were required to take 3 minimum hard stat courses + 5+ finance courses which were all just math courses really.

[Geon]

I think people are overestimating the quantitative skills required for jobs like IB... they are very very basic. (Of course I'm not denying that there are some finance jobs like quants that require quantitative skills at the math-major level). I took the only math course that all UG finance people are required to take and it is an absolute joke. You aren't being asked to construct delta-epsilon proofs here. If you got a T-50-worthy LSAT score you have more than enough logical skills to, say, calculate a basic integral, and I doubt anything in IB is more rigorous than that. I was under the impression it's all about playing around with Excel anyways.

You have no idea....

Without getting into what IB actually entails, but working off your (incorrect) premise that it's all about Excel, here's a simple question.

You're asked to build a model in excel. How do you know what calculations you want excel to perform?Now that the model is built, you throw some numbers in and results come out.
How do you know if you built the model correctly?

(if the numbers are completely wrong, not only will you be fired, there's a chance you'll be made unemployable)

+1
Additionally, when the boss gives you the numbers and says build a model and you can't do it your gone.

[DaftAndDirect]

This thread took an interesting turn.

[dingbat]

You mean after the narcisistic douchiness of the last two pages?

[justinp]

I think people are overestimating the quantitative skills required for jobs like IB... they are very very basic. (Of course I'm not denying that there are some finance jobs like quants that require quantitative skills at the math-major level). I took the only math course that all UG finance people are required to take and it is an absolute joke. You aren't being asked to construct delta-epsilon proofs here. If you got a T-50-worthy LSAT score you have more than enough logical skills to, say, calculate a basic integral, and I doubt anything in IB is more rigorous than that. I was under the impression it's all about playing around with Excel anyways.

You have no idea....

Without getting into what IB actually entails, but working off your (incorrect) premise that it's all about Excel, here's a simple question.

You're asked to build a model in excel. How do you know what calculations you want excel to perform?Now that the model is built, you throw some numbers in and results come out.
How do you know if you built the model correctly?

(if the numbers are completely wrong, not only will you be fired, there's a chance you'll be made unemployable)

+1
Additionally, when the boss gives you the numbers and says build a model and you can't do it your gone.

I mean... it's not like you often have to build a model by yourself. Most of the time (according to everyone I've ever talked to about the actual work that analysts do... which could be unrepresentative, but who knows) you grab one of the dozens of templates that you were trained to use in the first month on the job, change a few minor things to tailor it to this particular deal, and plug and chug until all the balance-checks say zero.

This is hard in the sense that it is finely detail oriented and requires a good understanding of a complex system with lots of inter-related moving parts, but it isn't *mathematically* hard in the computational or really conceptual sense.

I think the big problem for most law-school applicants who are looking at T-14 schools isn't that they couldn't do the math or whatever, it's that most of the banks are looking for a fairly specific personality type/temperament or whatever that most law applicants just don't match. Law applicants tend to be temperamentally (not politically) conservative, a bit less crazy extroverted, and so on than most future bankers.

All of this is off-the-cuff speculation of course.

[rayiner]

For people talking about how engineering is so great: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-2 ... ajors.html

[dingbat]

change a few minor things to tailor it to this particular deal, and plug and chug until all the balance-checks say zero.

You just described the cause of the CDO/mortgage debacle very succinctly.

In my experience, most people don't build models. Typically there are a handful of Excel experts and a bunch of useless wasters.
Actually, a large part of the work can include doc review, customer service, etc., that doesn't require sophisticated math skills or VBA programming, but those people should still understand what's going on.
Sometimes the difference between a deal working or not working is dependent on the VP (or at least someone) being able to look at it and go, well, of we change this and adjust that, maybe we can eke out a profit

[TLS_noobie]

There seems to be some confusion about what exactly an investment banker does and how the bank makes money...so as a supplement for future tangential discussion, here is this:

Day in the life of an analyst: http://www.mergersandinquisitions.com/i ... worst-day/
How the bank makes money: http://www.mergersandinquisitions.com/i ... ake-money/

[Geon]

I think people are overestimating the quantitative skills required for jobs like IB... they are very very basic. (Of course I'm not denying that there are some finance jobs like quants that require quantitative skills at the math-major level). I took the only math course that all UG finance people are required to take and it is an absolute joke. You aren't being asked to construct delta-epsilon proofs here. If you got a T-50-worthy LSAT score you have more than enough logical skills to, say, calculate a basic integral, and I doubt anything in IB is more rigorous than that. I was under the impression it's all about playing around with Excel anyways.

You have no idea....

Without getting into what IB actually entails, but working off your (incorrect) premise that it's all about Excel, here's a simple question.

You're asked to build a model in excel. How do you know what calculations you want excel to perform?Now that the model is built, you throw some numbers in and results come out.
How do you know if you built the model correctly?

(if the numbers are completely wrong, not only will you be fired, there's a chance you'll be made unemployable)

+1
Additionally, when the boss gives you the numbers and says build a model and you can't do it your gone.

I mean... it's not like you often have to build a model by yourself. Most of the time (according to everyone I've ever talked to about the actual work that analysts do... which could be unrepresentative, but who knows) you grab one of the dozens of templates that you were trained to use in the first month on the job, change a few minor things to tailor it to this particular deal, and plug and chug until all the balance-checks say zero.

This is hard in the sense that it is finely detail oriented and requires a good understanding of a complex system with lots of inter-related moving parts, but it isn't *mathematically* hard in the computational or really conceptual sense.

I think the big problem for most law-school applicants who are looking at T-14 schools isn't that they couldn't do the math or whatever, it's that most of the banks are looking for a fairly specific personality type/temperament or whatever that most law applicants just don't match. Law applicants tend to be temperamentally (not politically) conservative, a bit less crazy extroverted, and so on than most future bankers.

All of this is off-the-cuff speculation of course.

That's the only part I agree with. People take finance courses, don't get A's and basically realize they have zero chance of cracking into IB thats what it comes down to. Only a small %, usually 10-15% ITE will be able to consistently get As in entry finance courses, and this is coming from a business major where people needed 90s in high school calculus to gain entrance.

If you have decent interview skills, and A average, you'd have to more or less talk yourself out of an interview. And that would really be lack of preparation. IB are not very extroverted at the low levels, although they increasingly look for club presidents, its not like boiler room or nothing, you have to remember most these people are nerds.

[TLS_noobie]

Only a small %, usually 10-15% ITE will be able to consistently get As in entry finance courses, and this is coming from a business major where people needed 90s in high school calculus to gain entrance.

Does the economy seriously have an affect on the professor's curve for your UG's finance courses?

If you have decent interview skills, and A average, you'd have to more or less talk yourself out of an interview. And that would really be lack of preparation.

This may have been true pre-crash...but now, even A's may not be enough to nab you an interview (let alone a job) at a BB or prestigious boutique. From the friends I have that are still in UG I've heard that Wharton and Ross were both slaughterhouses at OCI this year...

[Geon]

For people talking about how engineering is so great: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-2 ... ajors.html

Its kinda funny in a sick and twisted way.

But how come this has not extended to the rest of the economy. Ie. why don't we see lawyers in their 50s being laid off in favour of lawyers in their 30s or new grads.

[TLS_noobie]

For people talking about how engineering is so great: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-2 ... ajors.html

Its kinda funny in a sick and twisted way.

But how come this has not extended to the rest of the economy. Ie. why don't we see lawyers in their 50s being laid off in favour of lawyers in their 30s or new grads.

This article is not exactly representative of much. The CS industry is relatively new. A lot of CS people I've worked with that were in their 40s or 50s, fell into CS because it wasn't a very popular UG degree back in the day (and at some places it wasn't even offered). So, technically speaking, the standards that the youth of today versus yesterday are held to are much higher because of the quickly evolving nature of the industry. It would be speculative (or anecdotal at best) to claim that my friends working over at FB are going to be pushed out in 20 years because they are out of date...

But to be honest, there are not many jobs where you can sit around for 20 years without keeping your skillz (read: phat beatz) up to par. The unique thing about the Silicon Valley culture, however, is that people jump jobs/companies very often. And startups are very prevalent. In fact, I am going to be bold enough to say (without any statistics backing me up, lol) that a majority of startups in the valley are from ex-Google/FB/Mozilla/etc. employees who quit to go off and do their own thing....that certainly isn't because they were getting old or out of date. And in the CS community, it would be really weird to be sticking with one company for 20+ years...in my opinion at least...

[rayiner]

For people talking about how engineering is so great: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-2 ... ajors.html

Its kinda funny in a sick and twisted way.

But how come this has not extended to the rest of the economy. Ie. why don't we see lawyers in their 50s being laid off in favour of lawyers in their 30s or new grads.

The two industries have dramatically different dynamics. Engineering is all about optimism. When you hire an engineer to work on a new project, you're full of hope and enthusiasm for the future. The project is going to do all these cool things, it'll be on time and under budget. You have only a fuzzy idea of what the project entails, but because you're optimistic, you assume that major things aren't hiding in the shadows. Under these circumstances, hiring a young guy who sounds smart and happens to work for cheap seems like a good idea.

Law is all about pessimism. You hire a lawyer when things have gone sideways. Your future is grim and depressing. Your venture has crashed and burned, and you're facing the threat of substantial liability. You don't fully understand what you're in for, but because things have already gone so sideways you're pessimistic, assuming that major roadblocks might lie ahead. In these circumstances, hiring an old guy who has seen your problem a dozen times before seems like a good idea, even if he doesn't come cheap.

[09042014]

Also old engineers are crotchety old, know-it-alls who refuse to learn new things. It's really strange.

[rayiner]

But to be honest, there are not many jobs where you can sit around for 20 years without keeping your skillz (read: phat beatz) up to par. The unique thing about the Silicon Valley culture, however, is that people jump jobs/companies very often. And startups are very prevalent. In fact, I am going to be bold enough to say (without any statistics backing me up, lol) that a majority of startups in the valley are from ex-Google/FB/Mozilla/etc. employees who quit to go off and do their own thing....that certainly isn't because they were getting old or out of date. And in the CS community, it would be really weird to be sticking with one company for 20+ years...in my opinion at least...

It's not a matter of sitting around for years without keeping up your skills. It's a matter of being in an industry where the presumption is that if you're over 40 your skills are out of date, and having to fight that presumption every time you jump jobs.

I worked as a software engineer at a startup through college, and it's a great job when you're young. You work a ton, learn a ton, get in way over your head. At the same time, working at a startup is not a long-term option. You don't have upward mobility within the company and are not compensated for the extra risk you take over a position at a big company. Startups are awesome if you're the one starting one, but they involve a tremendous amount of risk, especially here in the U.S. where leaving a job means giving up your health insurance. The latter point makes it basically a non-starter for people with families and kids. I think like law school, if you consider the universe of startups the expected return probably isn't worthwhile.

[TLS_noobie]

But to be honest, there are not many jobs where you can sit around for 20 years without keeping your skillz (read: phat beatz) up to par. The unique thing about the Silicon Valley culture, however, is that people jump jobs/companies very often. And startups are very prevalent. In fact, I am going to be bold enough to say (without any statistics backing me up, lol) that a majority of startups in the valley are from ex-Google/FB/Mozilla/etc. employees who quit to go off and do their own thing....that certainly isn't because they were getting old or out of date. And in the CS community, it would be really weird to be sticking with one company for 20+ years...in my opinion at least...

It's not a matter of sitting around for years without keeping up your skills. It's a matter of being in an industry where the presumption is that if you're over 40 your skills are out of date, and having to fight that presumption every time you jump jobs.

I worked as a software engineer at a startup through college, and it's a great job when you're young. You work a ton, learn a ton, get in way over your head. At the same time, working at a startup is not a long-term option. You don't have upward mobility within the company and are not compensated for the extra risk you take over a position at a big company. Startups are awesome if you're the one starting one, but they involve a tremendous amount of risk, especially here in the U.S. where leaving a job means giving up your health insurance. The latter point makes it basically a non-starter for people with families and kids. I think like law school, if you consider the universe of startups the expected return probably isn't worthwhile.

The point of what I said was not to advocate going off and beginning/working for a bunch of startups, but was that the industry as a whole is young and it is difficult for anyone to say what it will be like for a 40 or 50 year old in 20 years since most of the 50 year olds in the industry today are "out of date" because of the lack of standardization and career path when they began (80s/90s CS was much different than what we have now...). I mean, we still can't be sure that some of the tech giants of today are going to be around in 20 years because the tech industry is extremely new and comparing a company like Google to GE or Procter & Gamble (both companies that have been around for a long time) would be foolish. It is a similar idea to compare career paths from other jobs to the tech industry because we haven't quite seen a single generation go through a mature tech industry yet and so to claim that the career path requires youth is speculative at best. It seems logical right now, but who knows what the CS world is going to be like in 20 or 30 years? Law/Finance/Sales/Other forms of engineering are all going to be largely the same in 20 years...CS is still a new frontier...

As a software engineer for large and small companies, I have worked with older people, and all of them fell into CS from other disciplines (one of which was a geologist by trade before he got into CS). It was a different world back then because you didn't have thousands of kids coming out of a UG CS programs gunning to work for the tech giants. Will the landscape stay the same and push older people out in 20 years? I don't know...but who does? What I do know, is that saying because 40 and 50 year olds being pushed out now means 40 and 50 year olds will always be undervalued would be a logical fallacy because it is purely speculative, especially in an industry that is changing quickly.

[DaftAndDirect]

An old but interesting article that is relevant to this topic:

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2006/04/07/rob ... -a-banker/

[Geon]

Only a small %, usually 10-15% ITE will be able to consistently get As in entry finance courses, and this is coming from a business major where people needed 90s in high school calculus to gain entrance.

Does the economy seriously have an affect on the professor's curve for your UG's finance courses?

If you have decent interview skills, and A average, you'd have to more or less talk yourself out of an interview. And that would really be lack of preparation.

This may have been true pre-crash...but now, even A's may not be enough to nab you an interview (let alone a job) at a BB or prestigious boutique. From the friends I have that are still in UG I've heard that Wharton and Ross were both slaughterhouses at OCI this year...

Sorry, the economy does not affect the grades. it is in this economy one without As is unlikely to get hired. In the past years B+ was good enough, heck even B- would get you an interview and internships.
As should get you at least a first round interview, given how large the interviews are and how many rounds of interviewing, it is highly unlikely if you have an A you'd be excluded. But then again the US market has had major banks like lehman collapse completely so maybe your job market is worse.

Anyway my point is simply your grades, will be the most important factor. If your in 4th year and got C in finance kiss ibanking good bye. And when half the class ends up with Cs in finance it cuts the number down quickly. To those who think they can get A and those who do get A.

[jkpolk]

Differences in natural aptitude, particularly the higher standard deviation of male scores, explains why there are way more male Einsteins than female ones.

I think Einstein's Y Chromosome was the key to why the ledger is

Men: 1 Einstein
Women: 0 Einstein

Your argument places quite the emphasis on this term "natural aptitude," as opposed to "aptitude when you happen to take the test after years of social molding." The LSAC, and SAT, care about distinguishing between the two- and are quite clear which they measure. How do these tests get at "natural" differences between genders for any score range? I feel like I'm missing somethig.

[Napt]

Differences in natural aptitude, particularly the higher standard deviation of male scores, explains why there are way more male Einsteins than female ones.

I think Einstein's Y Chromosome was the key to why the ledger is

Men: 1 Einstein
Women: 0 Einstein

Were you being purposely ignorant here? Males are overwhelmingly over-represented relative to their population at the top of every field (e.g. Nobel Prizes, Field Medals, CEOs, chess grandmasters, whatever). Males are also overwhelmingly over-represented on the bottom (e.g. homeless, retards, criminals, whatever) too.

Like I said earlier in the thread- male IQ has more variance than female IQ, which means there are more males at the very very top and more males at the very very bottom, while female IQ tends to cluster in the middle without much variance. And that results in the above, with males dominating the top of every field and also dominating the bottom of every field.

[jkpolk]

Differences in natural aptitude, particularly the higher standard deviation of male scores, explains why there are way more male Einsteins than female ones.

I think Einstein's Y Chromosome was the key to why the ledger is

Men: 1 Einstein
Women: 0 Einstein

Were you being purposely ignorant here? Males are overwhelmingly over-represented relative to their population at the top of every field (e.g. Nobel Prizes, Field Medals, CEOs, chess grandmasters, whatever). Males are also overwhelmingly over-represented on the bottom (e.g. homeless, retards, criminals, whatever) too.

Like I said earlier in the thread- male IQ has more variance than female IQ, which means there are more males at the very very top and more males at the very very bottom, while female IQ tends to cluster in the middle without much variance. And that results in the above, with males dominating the top of every field and also dominating the bottom of every field.

lol

[Napt]

Differences in natural aptitude, particularly the higher standard deviation of male scores, explains why there are way more male Einsteins than female ones.

I think Einstein's Y Chromosome was the key to why the ledger is

Men: 1 Einstein
Women: 0 Einstein

Were you being purposely ignorant here? Males are overwhelmingly over-represented relative to their population at the top of every field (e.g. Nobel Prizes, Field Medals, CEOs, chess grandmasters, whatever). Males are also overwhelmingly over-represented on the bottom (e.g. homeless, retards, criminals, whatever) too.

Like I said earlier in the thread- male IQ has more variance than female IQ, which means there are more males at the very very top and more males at the very very bottom, while female IQ tends to cluster in the middle without much variance. And that results in the above, with males dominating the top of every field and also dominating the bottom of every field.

lol

Lol, please enlighten me on male patriarchy, white racism, and the glass ceiling. I'm sure this is the explanation for women failing to reach the top of any rigorous fields, right?