Vital Stats
HOMETOWN: Hong Kong
Master's Program:New York University (Courant Institute), Master of Science of Mathematics in Finance
Undergraduate Degree:Joint degree at Columbia University and Barnard College. I received a B.S. in physics from Barnard and a B.A. in applied mathematics from Columbia.
Honors: I received departmental honors in physics. I also received a scholarship for international students to attend Barnard College and pursue a joint degree from Barnard and Columbia. It was supposed to be a five-year program, but I finished it in four, as I had studied related subjects in high school.
Internships: I've had two internships -- one for a fund of funds, Gottex Fund Management, and one for Alliance Bernstein.
Mentor: I think when I first started thinking of the idea, I read Emanuel Derman's [director of Columbia's master's program in financial engineering] "My Life as a Quant," and I could identify with a lot of his thinking. I also read "Fischer Black and the Revolutionary Idea of Finance," which was written by Perry Mehrling, a Barnard economics professor. It made me think that I could do this kind of work, too.
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- Qualifications and Background
- Aspirations
- Beyond the Numbers
Advanced Trading: Why did you choose to pursue a master's degree in finance, and why did you choose New York University's program?
Wong: During my senior year at Columbia, we had a lot of guest speakers come in and talk about what quant people do in finance. I thought it was really interesting. I wanted to apply math to the real world. I ended up choosing to go to NYU because I liked that it had a longer program where you could do an internship. Also at NYU it was part of the math program and had some programming elements. It was very structured. I think the Columbia program is more flexible and might be better for someone who knows what they want to do in the quant field. It was a tough choice moving from Columbia, but I wanted the internship exposure.
AT: Have you done any internships?
Wong: After college I was thinking about getting a Ph.D. so I did an internship with a small fund of fund company, Gottex Fund Management. I worked in the asset-based strategy group helping to structure asset-backed securities. The asset-backed securities were privately originated so there was a lot of due diligence involved. It was a role that was more on the business side.
This summer, as part of the NYU program, I had an internship with Alliance Bernstein in its alternative investment and product development group. The product development group has its own quant hedge fund. I helped with some of the modeling.
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AT: What classes are you taking that will be essential to helping you be more prepared for a job on Wall Street?
Wong: The program overall will help me prepare for my career. At first I thought, "Why are we taking all of these pieces?" such as stochastic calculus, asset management and others. But after going on interviews and having a summer internship, it all starts coming together and clicking. It is a very well-structured program.
If you are asking what area I like, I think I find options and continuous time finance most interesting. That is where the creativity is. There is a lot of math involved -- it is about how you apply it to finance.
AT: How would you rate your knowledge of the business of financial services, on a scale of 1 to 10?
Wong: I have better knowledge in financial math, but in terms of general knowledge of the business of financial services, maybe a 7.
AT: Discuss your training in statistics and your ability to analyze data.
Wong: For my internship I used VaR and other statistical measures to evaluate a new proposal on interest rate swap margin requirements. The findings were presented to senior management and the proposal was accepted. I also parsed a big multi-asset correlation structure to facilitate portfolio analysis. In addition, time series analysis and statistics is heavily covered in our program and we got a lot of practice on real data.
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AT: Why did you choose to pursue a career on Wall Street?
Wong: I wanted to be able to apply math to real-world problems. I like the work environment. It is similar to academia in that you work in teams.
AT: In what type of role would you like to start?
Wong: My past internships have been with buy-side firms, so I have enough exposure to know it's interesting, but I'm still looking at other areas, such as research and other opportunities. It's still a little early for me to determine exactly what type of role I want.
AT: What do you see yourself doing in two years? In 10 years?
Wong: I'd like to be focused on one field and be a specialist in that field. I'd like to stay with a company and grow my career with one company.
AT: Name three firms you'd like to work for.
Wong: My past two internships have been with smaller firms. The first was a small fund of funds, and the second was a 5,000-person organization. I would like to work for a larger organization -- interact with people in different backgrounds and interact with different departments. I'd like to work for a global firm.
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AT: What sets you apart from other quant candidates?
Wong: My boarding school experience with students from more than 60 different countries gave me a great exposure to working closely with people from diverse backgrounds. And because of my extensive background in applied mathematics research, I feel that I have gained many strengths in creative problem solving.
AT: Has the current crisis on Wall Street changed your view of working in financial services?
Wong: Although the financial crisis has raised some concern with me, I am still very much optimistic about what I am studying.
AT: What three questions would you ask a prospective employer?
Wong: I'd be interested in seeing how people achieve current goals. How would my role be linked to the organization as a whole? What is your advice for an aspiring professional?
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AT: What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?
Wong: I have been dancing -- ballet -- since I was three years old. I was close to majoring in dance because I was interested in dance theory. I still take ballet classes and just moved to a new apartment that I'm sharing with an aspiring dancer. I also like opera, going to concerts and other cultural things that New York is known for.
Also, being from Hong Kong, I have tons of visitors coming to see me and see New York. I spend a lot of time being a tour guide. In general I like to go to different neighborhoods, as they all have a different vibe.
AT: Describe one of your future goals beyond a career on Wall Street.
Wong: I've always wanted to be a choreographer, but going into finance is not really the natural route to that. But staying connected with the dance crowd and living in New York might take me somewhere down that path in the future.
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AT: Is there anything else you feel is important that you would like to mention?
Wong: I went to United World College for two years -- it was essentially my last two years of high school. The World College is an organization whose goal is to bring about international understanding. I went to one in Hong Kong and there were 60 students from all over the world -- Russia, China, Eastern European countries. I feel that that experience prepared me to come to New York and will help me in the financial world to appreciate different cultures.
AT: Choose one word to describe yourself.
Wong: Dedicated.
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