Even though many of our graduates will have progressed in their careers since completing a case study, they are still of interest to students who wish to gain an understanding of the world of work.

I work in a research and development team, dedicated to investigating and developing quantitative methodologies that manage risk and investment in financial assets.

We start the day with a 'scrum', a morning meeting about our work the previous day and what we plan to do in the day.
Most of the day is spent investigating individually for specific studies we have planned. The analysis covers new methodologies or reviewing current products used by clients.
We mostly use MATLAB to implement codes and tests. And we write up the findings in studies using word and excel.

The work environment, my colleagues, the freedom to investigate and constantly learning new things.
The team work is very important and everyone supports other peoples work.

You must be able to work independently, no-one has the answer and the solutions are not clear. You have to be happy to try new things and learn them by yourself. It is like doing a university project except there is no professor guiding you.

A lot of what I do is similar to the final parts of a university degree. I have a lot of freedom to try out new things and investigate areas that interest me.
It is not a repetitive job, every day I learn and do new things.

Investigating, logical thinking, finance, mathematics, statistics, programming, writing studies, language, communication.

There is no training course as such but your team mates teach you the basics at the start. After that you never stop learning and understanding new things.

Research Department ETS (Sept. 2010 - present)

Certificate in Quantitative Finance (CQF) (2012)

I am very happy where I am. I hope to stay working here for the foreseeable future.
I would possibly like to study the CFA in the future.

For someone coming from a very scientific background it is useful to have some financial knowledge before starting in a career similar to mine.
It is important to be logical and relate tests to real life situations. Theory is only half of the race in the real world.