College general

Ayy Veeky Forums

Just got into Columbia ED. Worked minimum wage two years before applying to school, and I understand that I want to make some serious cream. What should I major in to crack a million a year in time? I was a white boi without any of the pretty diversity things that help people in, and I had a 790/780 M/E SAT. While the mathematics 300k meme might be a joke, I'm thinking maths with a minor in financial ec.

Also, pre-college advice/college general from those who have advice to give.

ED huh? I mean geez that's kind of personal but maybe you should ask your doctor. They have pills for that kinda thing now.

bump for interest. just snorted 5 viagras, not even at half-mast :'(

> A million a year

Lawyer, Dentist, Doctor, Business (must be a very good salesman)

Plastic Surgeon

I went to Columbia for undergrad as well. If you are in engineering do operations research or financial engineering. If you are in CC do economics, math, or computer science. Make sure to take a least some coding classes whatever you do. Get the best grades you can and do internships. You will be well-positioned for the banks and hedge funds which recruit at Columbia. You're lucky that Trump just got elected because Wall Street will be booming by the time you're a junior.

Absolutely based. When did you grad?

Planning to CC, but could be convinced to go eng. Thoughts? As of your advice, I would probs major math, major/minor ec, and take those coding classes.

Graduated 2015. Currently working at a bank. My first-year compensation was $120K.

As far as CC or engineering, it depends on your strengths. CC isn't like other liberal arts colleges. There is an intense core curriculum and if you aren't into essays or foreign languages it may be a good idea to switch.

If you're technical aim for trading. Otherwise do investment banking with an econ major. Try to get high grades in your first and second years. That's the GPA that will be reflected when you apply for junior-year internships. Once you get an internship you can secure a full-time offer and not worry at all senior year.

Wow, this place is a goldmine.

DESU the core was the main reason I applied (also interested in classics).

If I was looking to go technical, should I go primary math, ec or comp sci? Thanks for the scuttlebutt about early grades.

If you're not too spooked, my burner is [email protected]. Not to brownnose I swear, but pretty cool to see a grad who knows whats up

For quantitative trading (what I'm in) you'll want to learn coding and math. In CC there is a math-CS major which covers both. In engineering OR and FE cover this. Within computer science, machine learning is particularly useful. I will email you tomorrow.

LOL, the first three on your list won't ever see $1M a year ever ever ever again!

no one cares what school you got into faggot

^can confirm

Maths is the main thing... take lots of stats courses and some programming courses - don't worry so much about software engineering principles/methodologies etc.. but focus on stuff like algorithms, scientific computing.

Make sure your linear algebra is shit hot and that you've studied some optimization/operations research.

Next step graduate and get yourself in a good machine learning course - in the US CMU offers a very good ML course. You could also try studying at Stanford or MIT too. If you fancy coming to the UK to study then any of Cambridge, Edinburgh and UCL will offer a similar level of education in machine learning.

Basically the mix of stats and the relevant maths modules + the programming you've covered will make you an ideal candidate for an ML course with a much better background than the typical CS grads.

Once you've got a good undergrad maths degree + a top ranked ML masters course then... well you could quite easily get into finance - specifically prop firms and hedge funds value ML experience (Banks are a bit patchy at the moment and only tend to have a few odd projects scattered among random teams)

You could also join a large tech firm at a similar level of compensation to the finance industry. Your maths, knowledge of algos etc.. will help immensely with the recruitment process. On the other hand your lack of working on some shitty java project or not having learned about waterfall or agile or other bollocks won't harm you - you'll see again why your time was better spent on mathematics, optimization, algorithms etc...

so to summarise - maths undergrad then machine learning masters pretty much opens you up for some of the highest paying jobs in finance and some of the highest paying non-finance roles in various tech start ups, established firms or data science teams just about anywhere

LOL I know people in every profession I mentioned.

And yes with business ownership (or high rank in the business example) a million or more a year is possible.

I know a lawyer who got a million in one case. An orthodontist who owns 2 practices, he makes a million a year.

I pain doctor in my area who makes about a million a year.

I know salesmen that easily clear $300k+ every year.

They worked hard, looked the part, were in the right place at the right time, knew the right people, etc...

stop bullshitting on the internet

CLS here, undergrad Fordham
My advice?
Don't go to CLS.
Don't leave Manhattan unless absolutely necessary for the next 4 years
Don't fall for a qt Williamsburg girl
Major in anything you want (excluding the obvious shit-tier majors) and N E T W O R K.

I CANNOT EMPHASIZE ENOUGH HOW MUCH YOU NEED TO NETWORK IN THIS CITY, PRETEND TO CARE ABOUT OTHER PEOPLES BULLSHIT AND THEY WILL PRETEND TO CARE ABOUT YOUR BULLSHIT AND HELP YOU OUT WITH IT.

You'd be surprised how many people will tell you business ideas searching for input and how easily you can take that and shape it for yourself.
Basically, Zuck your way to the top.

This is my plan.

Finance intern -> ML Masters -> Investment demon

Nobody gives a flying fuck about undergrad. I had a 2380 SAT 3 years ago and I am at a state school for math. Currently I work at NSA because they hire 10% of my major every year. If you want handholding go to a liberal arts college.

Lol FUCK Fordham
Only positive thing I can say about this school is that they're good at job placements. Absolutely horrible for anything in IT or comp sci.

How about a non trad getting into General Studies would that be okay for getting into trading and market making at a bank instead of CC or SEAS?

Columbia student here. Congratulations man

Columbia is one of the best schools for getting rich if that's what you desire. The networking opportunities are everywhere, the internships aggressively recruit, and if you're in SEAS, there's literally a financial engineering major that feeds right into analyst positions.

I'm a math major myself, I don't know what I'm going to do after graduation but I'm considering the masters in financial mathematics degree program that Columbia offers

>Also general Columbia advice user
Join the facebook group 'Columbia buy/sell memes', right now.

Understand how new york works and take advantage of it. Make sure you can ride a subway competently, and go downtown once in awhile to remind yourself that you live in the greatest city in the world.

Find a club sport, or at least go to the gym regularly. Being in the city takes its toll on people that aren't used to it. You feel more tired, dirtier, more stressed, just from the environment. If you're already a city person, then the gym is still pure upside. Dodge Fitness Center is very close to all five undergrad dorms, take advantage of it.

Don't worry so much about the party culture as a freshman. There's a sometimes strangely unique emphasis on "going out" here and basically doing nothing. Don't invest hours of your day so you can end up drinking grain alcohol with people you don't even like in a dumpy Carman double. Find friends and do actually fun stuff with them, as opposed to focusing on going to every frat party that the idiots on your floor will be raving about.
Feel free to ask questions. I remember the feeling of just getting in.

Requested the group, it was suggested already and I should have earlier.

Any baby-tier advice on networking? Obviously interested in interning over the summer after sophomore? and completely new to the "everlasting special handshake competition" of networking.

What questions did you wish you asked? Did you feel that a Math major was a good decision for you? What were your career aspirations coming in?

Thanks man. Really grateful.

If you need advice on networking then you probably won't gain much from a degree at Columbia lad.

>tfw didn't do as well as i wanted to in high school
>3.5 gpa
>got accepted into rutgers business school

would it be wise to get my bachelor's in finance and then look to transfer to columbia for grad school?

i kind of feel lost.

Maybe not actually baby tier, more just Columbia specific baby tier.

I'm honestly not great to ask about networking. But I wouldn't worry about it too much freshman year. It's a lot better to have friends and no connections after one year here than connections and no friends.

You'll need to attend events (there are billions) in your field and try to get to know professors eventually, but there is literally no reason to do this first semester. You can worry about career related stuff later. Plus CCE is very very good at resume and interview coaching, and fucking LIONSHARE is an incredibly based website that you as a student get access to that directly links you with internships and jobs at all sorts of prestigious firms in NYC and around the world that are recruiting Columbia students.

Math major was certainly a good decision for me. I have pretty wide interests in science, especially physics and cs, so taking math lets you be "literate" in these fields: you have to learn formalism and terminology etc etc, but the most difficult concepts are already comprehensible. Coming in I wanted to be a research mathematician or physicist, and I still very well might go for that sort of thing.

Taking honors math your freshman year is an absolute must. If you're behind, then it will slap you in the face and catch you up. If you're ahead (I had already taken everything covered in Honors Math when I matriculated. And there were probably ~10 other people in my year with preparation equal to or better than mine. Columbia has some smart students) then you're still forced to take it, plus every other math and hard science major in your year will be taking it with you, so it isn't too bad in terms of forming study groups and making friends.

Sorry these are both me, coincidentally the school wifi has dynamic IP

>Only positive thing I can say about this school is that they're good at job placements

Isn't that what matters though?

Since there's a lot of college talk going around. I just finished my first semester at Swarthmore college. I guess it's one of the better liberal arts schools that one could go to.

The problem is I have no clue what to major in. I wanted to do economics with a math major...but am absolutely retarded with numbers. Any advice?

(pls no liberal arts college meme)

Why in the fuck would someone with your background and skill set go to work for the government? I can't get my head around that at all.

The people you mentioned are all CURRENTLY employed in those fields and earning good money. My point is that new entrants to those career paths should NOT expect to earn anything close to that. Things have changed.

I forgot to add
T. Commuter

To all you Columbia Law kids: Paris is a hewg slut and loves BDSM

Well no shit.

Double major in computer science and computer engineering
minor in electrical engineering

how am i doing Veeky Forums