A little too much Lost

I think I watched a little too much 'Lost' last night. I finished season 3 and I went to sleep at about 4 am only to awake after a gunshot to the back of my head from Ben, the leader of 'the others,' ended my visit to his Pittsburgh home.

You know those conversations in the show where Ben talks to Jack and you know he's just playing mind games with him? We were having one of those conversations, in his house and I was trying hard not to give anything away. You know, holding my cards close to the vest. At one point I even contemplated shooting him. Eventually I took the glasses, from a table, that I had come to pick up. (And I have no idea why these glasses were so important)

So, I said goodbye to Ben Linus, and right after I turned my back and was about to reach for the front door, BANG I felt my head jerk forward as a bullet hit me in the head. I fell to the ground and looked up at him and he taunted me with something like, "Nice try."

DANG IT! Why didn't I shoot him when I had the chance!? Stupid Ben Linus.

Top Financial Engineering Programs

Getting a degree in Quantitative Finance can be a great career
move. It can be very expensive as well. So I just want to call it from where I sit. I'm sure my opinions will change over time. Feel free to add comments.

I really like reading lists of things and so I'm going to publish a list of something that I actually have an opinion about: financial engineering master's degree programs.

Are you stoked?

1. New York University (NY, NY)

Masters of Science in Mathematics of Finance
Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences

In the heart of Wall St. and housed in a really good math program.

2. Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA)

Masters of Science in Computational Finance
Tepper School of Business

These guys do it right, interdisciplinary, career services available, internship after 2nd semester, and probably the biggest alumni network (for their program, not school).

3. Cornell University (Ithaca/NYC, NY)

Masters of Science in Engineering (Option in Financial Engineering)
School of Operations Research and Information Engineering

Third semester is in Manhattan at their Broad St. campus, which is a big plus for networking.

4. University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, CA)

Masters in Financial Engineering
Haas School of Business

Probably the best public university in the world, and a top ten business program. On top of that you have the option of looking for work on the east and west coast. The program is short, so it seems like it is most beneficial to those with some industry experience.

5. Columbia University (NY,NY)

Masters of Arts in Mathematics (Specialization in Mathematics of Finance)
Departments of Mathematics and Statistics

6. Stanford University (Stanford, CA)

Masters of Science in Financial Mathematics
Departments of Mathematics and Statistics

7. Columbia University (NY,NY)

Masters of Financial Engineering
Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research



This list pretty closely resembles how I would respond to each of the schools if I were admitted to all of them. Fortunately I only applied to 3 of them and was admitted to one so my decision wasn't too difficult. It represents my overall view of the quality of the program, including job placement.

The first three programs (NYU, CMU, CU) top the list because they have summer internships built into the system, which is a must for me, coming without prior financial industry experience. CMU and Berkeley rank highly because they are both housed in B-schools and offer a lot of career assistance. CMU is the oldest of the programs, I'm guessing NYU, Stanford, and Columbia MAFN are the most mathematically intense, and that NYU, CMU, and Columbia have the best reputations on The Street. Although, I have heard negative things about Columbia's MFE program from multiple sources.



This seems like a pretty good resource with some basic info on different programs.
Quantnet 2009 Rankings
Top 10 Quant Schools
Global Derivatives rankings

MIT: the new Harvard

I've been to a few movies this summer and I took notice that most 'genius' movie characters are MIT grads. So I did some investigating and compiled this list. It is laboriously entitled: 'Important fictional characters and the institutions which they attended.' But first, here are some of my general observations about how a school's brand is used to portray a fictional character.

Harvard grads are the crème de la crème of either doctors or lawyers.

MIT grads are geniuses in the sciences, or have large amounts of wasted potential.

Princeton grads have rich parents, or ties to politics.

Columbia grads are smart people, but mostly just cool New Yorkers.

Yale grads are rich AND snooty.

Harvard

Thurston Howell, III (Jim Backus, Gilligan's Island)
Major Charles Emerson Winchester III (David Ogden Stiers, MASH) - Medical
Mitch McDeere (Tom Cruise, The Firm) - Law
Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon, Legally Blonde) - Law
Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess, 21) - Medical
Skylar (Minnie Driver, Good Will Hunting)

MIT

David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum, Independence Day)
Will Hunting (Matt Damon, Good Will Hunting)
Dr. Ronald Quincy (Jason Isaacs, Armageddon)
Rockhound (Steve Buscemi, Armageddon)
James Clayton (Colin Farrell, The Recruit)
Dr. Tobias Fünke (David Cross, Arrested Development)
Benjamin Gates (Nicolas Cage, National Treasure)
Dr. Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd, Fantastic Four)
Charlie Eppes (David Krumholz, Numb3rs)
Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr. Iron Man)
Mickey Rosa (Kevin Spacey, 21)
Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess, 21)


Princeton

Charles Logan (Gregory Itzin, 24)
Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin,30 Rock)
Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale, Batman Begins)
Doogie Howser (Neil Patrick Harris, Doogie Howser M.D.)
Sondra Huxtable and Elvin Tiideaux (Sabrina LeBeauf, Geoffry Owens, The Cosby Show)
Uncle Phil (James Avery, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air)
Mary Jensen (Cameron Diaz, There’s Something About Mary)
Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe,The West Wing)
Charlie Eppes, Larry Fleinhardt (David Krumholz, Peter MacNicol ,Numb3rs)
Joel Goodson (Risky Business, Tom Cruise) gets accepted to Princeton
Charles (Scot Baio, Charles in Charge) gets accepted as a Princeton grad student

In Family Ties Mallory's (Justine Bateman) French language tutor and ex-boyfriend Jeff went to Princeton after graduating Harding High. Mallory broke up with him when she saw him kissing another woman while visiting him on campus. She got so upset and inadvertently ruined Alex's (Michael J. Fox) interview.

Columbia

Alex Hitchinson (Will Smith, Hitch)
Eric Richman (Mike Vogel, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants)
Meadow Mariangela Soprano (Jamie-Lynn Sigler, The Sopranos)
Stanley Goodspeed (Nicholas Cage, The Rock)
Will Truman, Grace Adler (Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, Will & Grace)
Jessie Spano (Elizabeth Berkley, Saved by the Bell)
Carol Seaver (Tracy Gold, Growing Pains)
Dr. Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox, Lost) (Fox is also a Columbia alumnus)

William Forrester (Sean Connery) bears a likeness to J.D. Salinger, a Columbia alumnus.

Yale

Rory Gilmore, Richard Gilmore (Alexis Bledel, Edward Herrmann, Gilmore Girls)
Niles Crane (David Hyde Pierce, Frasier)
Sideshow Bob, Montgomery Burns (The Simpsons)

Bad Job Interview

A guy named Michael Lewis was fresh out of a Master's program at the London School of Economics and landed a job at Salomon Brothers in the early eighties. He wrote a book about his experiences called "Liar's Poker." Part of the training program at Salomon entailed listening to lectures from different traders.

'When [O'Grady] entered the classroom, the first thing he did was to have the video that usually recorded events shut off. Then he closed the door. Then he checked for eavesdroppers on the ledges outside the twenty-third-floor windows. Only then did he sit down.

He began by telling us how he had come to Salomon. He had been one of the firm's lawyers. The firm's lawyers, when they saw how good traders had it, often ended up as traders themselves. The firm had actually invited O'Grady to apply. He interviewed on a Friday afternoon. His first meeting was with a managing director named Lee Kimmell. When O'Grady walked into Kimmell's office, Kimmell was reading his resume. He looked up from the resume and said, "Amherst Phi Beta Kappa, star athlete, Harvard Law School, you must get laid a lot." O'Grady laughed (what else do you do?).

"What's so funny?" asked Kimmell.
"The thought that I get laid a lot," said O'Grady.
"That's not funny," said Kimmell, a viciousness coming into his voice. "How much do you get laid?"
"That's none of your business," said O'Grady.

Kimmell slammed his fist on his desk. "Don't give me that crap. If I want to know, you tell me. Understand?"
Somehow O'Grady squirmed through his interview and others, until, at the end of the day, he found himself facing the same man who had given me my job, Leo Corbett.

"So, Dick," said Corbett, "What would you say if I offered you a job?"
"Well," said O'Grady, "I'd like to work at Salomon, but I'd also like to go home and think it over for a day or two."
"You sound more like a lawyer than a trader," said Corbett.
"Leo, I'm not making a trade; I'm making an investment," said O'Grady.
"I don't want to hear any of that Harvard Law School clever bullsh--," said Corbett. "I'm beginning to think you would be a real mistake. . . . I'm going to walk out of here and come back in ten minutes, and when I come back, I want an answer."

O'Grady's first reaction, he said, was that he had just made a catastrophic error in judgment. Then he thought about it like a human being (what was so refreshing about O'Grady was that unlike the other men from 41, he seemed genuinely human). Salomon had invited him to interview. Where did these butt-heads get off issuing ultimatums? O'Grady worked himself into an Irish rage. Corbett was gone far longer than he promised, making O'Grady even angrier.

"Well. . ." said Corbett, upon his return.
"Well, I wouldn't work here for all the money in the world," said O'Grady. "I've never met more a------s in my entire life. Take your job and stick it up your a--."
"Now I am finally beginning to hear something I like," said Corbett. "That's the first smart thing you've said all day."
O'Grady stormed out of Salomon Brothers and took a job with another Wall Street firm.'


That was only the beginning of the story though. About a year later after O'Grady had become an excellent bond salesman Salomon called him again, apologized for the way it had treated him and amazingly he agreed to listen and was hired.

Southwest...?

So this is my question. Do you like flying on Southwest? Wait, think about it. Don't let me bias you at all but whenever I fly southwest I feel like I'm flying on a big yellow school bus with wings. Plus, the past few times that I've flown on Southwest I have failed to print out my boarding pass the night before, so I feel like an idiot when everyone else, eagerly holding their 'Group A' pass (like some kind of gold star) gets up and takes all of the good seats. I had to sit between....BETWEEN a husband and wife my last flight because neither would take the middle seat. So, does Southwest just suck? I'm guessing no, because in 2007 they carried the most passengers of any airline (101 million).

Caged Wisdom

The title of my blog has a long and glorious tradition. It started with a roommate last year who never came out of his room. Because of his large beastly qualities and a unique stench, readily identifiable upon entry to the premises I started to call our apartment 'the cage.' The name caged wisdom came about later when I was mentioning to a friend that my roommate stays in his room most of the day except to return dishes to the kitchen sink. Upon a chance encounter he would speak to you for about 15 minutes at a time, without letting you speak, about his favorite tv shows or movies, local restaurants, about how he didn't like our previous roommates, about how you were wrong about everything, and about how he didn't like your friends, even occasionally insulting them when they happened to be there. He would then retire to his cage, and his TiVo, only to return when he had more 'wisdom' to impart to your (un)fortunate soul. My other roommate said it best when he described his thoughts during one of caged wisdom's instructional (one way) conversations: "Is there anything that I can say to you right now that will make you let me go?" I suppose that sometimes we best keep our wisdom caged.

Hello World

This is my first blog and I thought I'd kick it off in stunning nerd fashion.

public static void main(String args[])
       {
          System.out.println("Hello World!");
       }