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)

Here is a testimonial from Michael Converse, a first-year student at Anderson School of Business at University of California at Los Angeles and member of the MBA Math Board of Advisors, about his pre-MBA use of the MBA Math online quantitative preparation course:

I have spent the last 8 years, after graduating from Harvard University, working in feature film production and development for Sony Pictures Entertainment and Universal Studios. Most recently, I completed an internship at Comerica Bank. Through my career in the entertainment industry, I gained experience solving unique business problems in a high pressure environment, through relationship building, content development, project management, financial analysis, and creative problem solving.

MBA Math was essential in preparing me for business school. After I passed out of the statistics requirement at Harvard University as an undergraduate I spent my time focused largely on humanities-based liberal arts courses. Additionally, I had been out of the academic world for close to 8 years before I decided to seek a graduate degree in business at UCLA Anderson. Needless to say it had been a long time between quantitative courses for me. MBA Math gave me a structured, go-at-your-own-pace outlet for me to prepare for the first semester of business school. The early preparation not only allowed me to avoid getting lost but also enabled me to understand and enjoy more of what was being taught. I, with my classmates, found the first semester at UCLA Anderson to be intensely academically rigorous and demanding. I know that being able to prepare for it in the spare time leading up to the fall allowed me to excel AND to enjoy the amazing experience.