Students

Studying mathematics is an arduous undertaking, testing one's patience while learning new, complex concepts and one’s tolerance for frustration. This is common to all of us, and fortunately so, as it reminds us that we are not alone in this journey. We are however led to believe that there exist some exceptions in our world, some people who possess a certain knack for mathematics. For them, mathematical expressions come as naturally as brushstrokes to an artist. When we talk about these numerical artists, we think of Euler, Gauss, Newton, to name a few giants. While we humble mortals are quite certain of never attaining such intellectual heights as they did, we are capable of appreciating their talents from a content-based perspective thanks to our quantitative background. For the layperson, however, their encounter with the notion of the “mathematical genius” is often shaped by popular culture. But does this mathematician on the big screen correspond to the mathematician in the real world?

The leg starts. A player approaches the dartboard, cool as ice. With a fluid motion, he bends his elbow, leans in, and releases a dart that finds its mark in the triple 20 as if it were the most natural feat in the world. Within a second, he follows with another throw, and another.  Again, a perfect throw. Then another, and another, and another. By the time he reaches his seventh dart, the arena has fallen into silence. Everyone holds their breath and waits in anticipation. Two darts are left and 81 remains to be thrown. Triple 19. Just one dart left. Double 12. The place explodes. Nine darts, zero mistakes, and most importantly, game over. Surely a player this good could be doing this all the time? That, however, is completely false. 

I found out quite quickly during my studies that continuing the natural path of becoming a PhD was not for me. I really liked the content, as both physics and mathematics basically presented complicated puzzles that I wanted to solve, but there were a couple of specific things about a PhD which really irked me. Spending four years -a long time!- on a single topic, mostly by yourself, with relatively little reward for doing great as opposed to scraping by; it had a lot of things that I really did not want in a job. Instead, I flipped them around: what jobs are out there that are fast-paced, very diverse, team-based, where there is a clear feedback loop and you can get a lot of responsibility fast if you do very well? With these job traits to look for, I landed on two possible career paths: strategy consulting, and trading. I sent out some messages to members of my study association who were working in those fields, and after a lot of chats with them I was convinced I should at least try my hand at getting into trading. Now I am coming up to four years as a trader at Flow Traders and I'm still very happy being here.

Formula 1 seasons last more than twenty races, but championship battles often are predictable surprisingly early. After only two races, fans already speculate about who will become world champion. But how much information do the first races actually contain?