Freedom,
Well, congrats on your acceptance to Oxford. Oxford has a good math program. Perhaps, I can speak a little bit about your situation. I went to a top Ivy League school here in the US. I have worked on both sell-side and buy side institutions during portfolio management, trading, and quant research.
And let me tell you this SURPRISE. When I tried my hands at prop trading(almost 1.5yrs now), I thought all of this stuff that I learned in school, the complex modelling skills I've gained during my previous quant trading jobs,etc. would somehow help me in prop trading.
The truth is NONE of actually helped! At least not directly. Perhaps indirectly. I had to go through all the ups& downs and psychological turmoil of trading. Now, I admit I'm beyond my previous newbie skills. And perhaps my education did play a small role in helping me recognize or discovered certain "edge"(positive expected value strategy). But it's the psychology that helped me applied it correctly and maximize the edge. And no one can teach you psychology.
Education is good if you need to go to established institution that looks favorably on that. But if you want to trade for yourself then none of it really matters. Because markets are collective crowd behaviour and the crowd is usually irrational and erratic and crazy at times. hehe.
Psychology, emotional make-up/intelligence , and perseverance probably counts more and help you in the long run in terms of trading success.
However, education can be a good foundation if you want to become a pure systems trader or worked for a quant trading desk/hedge fund. Most of what Wall St does is NOT "trading" per se. It's market making. The public is confused. The pure traders who do well are very rare and difficult skill to obtain and can not be found in anywhere except through deep introspection.
So, again congrats on your further education. But the market isn't so simple. But the thing is most established places will pay you while you learn. So, that's a good stress reliever while you are a beginner. So, go for that.
good luck.
trader99
trend
