How long does it take to learn how to be a quant?

>>1569082
College, graduate school, many hours on your own learning to code and learning to backtest, internships, etc

source: trade full time, couple of intern quants in the office

>>1569084
What do you mean by Graduate school?

There's a huge difference between a one year MSc and a four year MSc + PhD.

>>1569089
Depends on how badly you want the job, how good you are and what programs you can get into. Honestly it's pretty fucking annoying when you guys post on here wanting an exact, cut-and-paste path to getting a job. Everyone does it differently. Some guys have never set foot in a college but make millions trading. Some guys have been in academia their whole careers, afraid to test their skills in the real world. Firms will recruit PhDs and they'll recruit from undergrad. Depends on every person's unique situation.

>>1569084

Is it something you can learn on your own?

>>1569099
Yeah, but it helps to have mentors or teachers. I taught myself a lot about using Python and statistics, was able to get far on my own because I already had experience trading. But I would in no way, shape or form actually call myself a "quant".

>>1569104

Has it paid off though?

>>1569107
Yeah of course it has. How could learning new things and learning to analyze situations in new ways be a bad thing?

>>1569121

I mean like financially.

>>1569082
if u have to ask how long then youre probably not going to want to do it

>>1569249
bingo

Do you scalp? What is your averaging holding period per trade?

>>1569082
Quantitative analysts are a meme. You're a meme.

I'd say you need to at least attend graduate school from a decent college.