MBA Quant Experience

Michael Converse, a first year student at UCLA's Anderson School, offers his perspective on quant skills preparation.  Note that the calculus he mentions needing for Managerial Economics is covered in the MBA Math course and requires no more than 30 minutes to understand the concepts and apply the mechanics.

At UCLA Anderson, we needed to know how to take a first derivative for a unit of MANAGERIAL ECONOMICS. I wouldn’t suggest taking an extensive calculus course just to learn how to take a first derivative. I took an INTRO TO CALCULUS course and regret wasting the time. I now know a lot of calculus that I will never apply. My time would have been better spent preparing for school.

In finance, some professors used advanced calculus to show how certain formulas are derived. Knowing calculus makes you feel better while watching or reading a complex derivation, BUT at the end of the day you’re tested on and use the formula…not how it was derived!

Ultimately, I would give calculus low priority in terms of preparation. If you want to get a basic understanding of a subject that you haven’t had any exposure to I would recommend, in addition to mbamath.com:

READING:

THE CARTOON GUIDE TO STATISTICS (seriously, this book is great)

ACCOUNTING FOR DUMMIES

TAKING:

MATHEMATICS FOR MANAGEMENT (most universities offer them online during the summer)