And it was utterly primal, it was purely what you could do, not who your daddy was or where you went to college or what race or creed you crawled out of. It was the most primal life and death struggle in the modern world, and that was part of its appeal to me and still is and it doesn't matter what others think of it, or you or what you gotta go through to pull it off. None of that - and none of them, matter. It's entirely on you.
Advice for a youngster?!
- Thread starter aorneltrades91
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There's two sides to this coin.Absolutely ... it's a way of keeping all kinds of other (non-trading) career options open.
The OP has already wisely decided that having invested so much in a college degree, with only one year to go, that it makes sense to complete it if he can.
Admittedly, I often tend to find myself, in trading discussions, pretty much out of step with the majority view on the potential value of formal education.
It seems to me that in online discussions there's a generally prevalent consensus that the value of a college degree revolves entirely around the future earning potential it might produce.
That's not a view I subscribe to, myself.
I'm more inclined to think that the value of education (specifically vocational subjects like law and medicine aside, obviously) lies mostly in its process, and in what's left behind after all the stuff you learned at college has long been forgotten.
From the standpoint of the firm hiring, I largely agree. The value is not in what's learned but in the piece of paper. My quant major didn't guarantee to my employer that I would remember how to do Lasso Regression my first day on the job but it did demonstrate that I was willing to put in the effort to figure it out at one point which is a pretty good indication I will do it again when comp is involved. Additionally, when you come from a school like where I attended (which is probably not unlike your background) the value of the degree is not only the type of stuff I was doing but the relative strength of the people I was competing with. A B from MIT is not a B from a community college. Employers know that. Part of the value of hiring from a top school is getting kids who are used to having to compete harder. That's just an unfortunate fact not meant to hurt any feelings. I worked hard just to stay competitive. So did everyone else.
In terms of my own professional development though, I think you can't discount the value of education. I wouldn't even be able to answer emails appropriately in my current job without a college education. The confidence in my own problem solving abilities, becoming comfortable with setbacks at 9 PM, how to converse and think in an academic or research setting, embracing failure and having a critical/postmortem mindset, realizing that the people who look like geniuses beyond reproach more often than not just work harder than I do--this is what college really taught me. Also just "general refinement"--I didn't attend prep/finishing school--not really how my family rolls. Then there's all the geeky stuff like dropping Latin phrases in conversation to make me look smart and stuff...can't discount that.
This sounds very much like what Wyckoff and Livermore and others among the pioneers went through. You really can't buy this sort of experience.
I was very fortunate, no doubt, which is why I say that anything I may have has been given to me.
Don't people pick up a book and read anymore? I took an psychology course post graduation for fun and the lecture was basically just reading the textbook. If I wanted to learn psychology all I had to do was buy the textbook and read. The difference was the course costed $500. The textbook costed $150. Maybe $50 used from the previous year.
So basically, I could have just educated myself for $50 instead of $500.
At the cost of making myself sound 30-40 years older than I am, I'm not sure so many do, really.
That's awful.
I'd have hated and resented that.
Universities/colleges these days should have an eye on marketing in its broadest sense, knowing that (most) students pay really hefty tuition fees and many can build up considerable debt while studying. Their students are really (among other things) "customers".
On the other hand, it's also true that in some countries, far too high a proportion of people are going to "universities"/"colleges" and "studying" stuff that's really of very, very little value to anyone, and probably not even really teaching them any valuable future learning-skills or processes. So I can, in a sense, see the other perspective as well.
In almost every sub-field of finance, there are things that are hard to learn on your own. Nobody is suggesting that he gets vocational training in "finance". Good education teaches you how to learn. For example, I got a PhD in biophysics and yet look where I ended up.
Well, no. Someone managing 500k from friends and family can not really make a proper living out of it.
You don't need college and/or a degree to be a trader -- you only need that stuff if you will be an employee and have to basically impress and convince people.
There are varying degrees of "trader".
Will you be one of those relatively ultra rare one's who do it all by themselves and grows and compounds a $5,000 account to $500K.
or will you be a trader working for a bank or trading company taking very small and conservative risks to make basically just a base salary.
You're young still, you have alot of to learn about collective book smarts, trading smarts, one's self, psychology, life wisdom, etc etc.
Based on your initial post, I wouldn't bet on you...I would bet against you.
People, or traders, with PH.d's and masters degrees like to kind of brag and be smug...thinking they are superior traders generating great returns...but most of them can't trade their way out of a vagina. They can't show a consistent penny profit annually if their lives depended on it. Their success is in just theoretical macro knowledge.
Wherever you decide to go from here...Good luck, and Mazal tov, and May the Farce Be With You.
Make Trading Great Again 2018...High-Five`
Makin moves, making mooooves...make a million dollah moov~
Make your own success story movie a reality...complete with a fun song playing in the end credits.
There are varying degrees of "trader".
Will you be one of those relatively ultra rare one's who do it all by themselves and grows and compounds a $5,000 account to $500K.
or will you be a trader working for a bank or trading company taking very small and conservative risks to make basically just a base salary.
You're young still, you have alot of to learn about collective book smarts, trading smarts, one's self, psychology, life wisdom, etc etc.
Based on your initial post, I wouldn't bet on you...I would bet against you.
People, or traders, with PH.d's and masters degrees like to kind of brag and be smug...thinking they are superior traders generating great returns...but most of them can't trade their way out of a vagina. They can't show a consistent penny profit annually if their lives depended on it. Their success is in just theoretical macro knowledge.
Wherever you decide to go from here...Good luck, and Mazal tov, and May the Farce Be With You.
Make Trading Great Again 2018...High-Five`
Makin moves, making mooooves...make a million dollah moov~
Make your own success story movie a reality...complete with a fun song playing in the end credits.
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While that might be true in case of psychology, which is (at the introductory level) mostly a descriptive science, there are plenty of things where learning something requires knowing another 5-6 things. A good education takes care of that and makes it easier to learn things on your own.
I recall hearing this at a charity event: "In 1913, only 10% of American youth got a college education. In 2013, over 40% of Americans got a college degree but the figure from 1913 is still true"