Being a developer in investment banking - need advice

[z064life]

Seeing as I haven't got a placement lined up, and my degree has skipped some essential programming skills, I have decided to spend my holidays (roughly 4-5 months) learning some skills. I was looking at professional careers (when I say professional, I don't mean graduate) and I noticed that the skills almost every job asks for are C# and Java, with experience in the Unix platform. Unfortunately I haven't got these skills (the only important skills my uni - which is a good one - has taught me are Oracle and SQL, and Oracle I decided to use on my iniatitive as my uni uses Access which is naive. Does annoy me that my uni skips some essential skills), so it gives me reason to learn them. However:

1) Obviously being a developer and a developer in an investment bank are completely different and need differing expertise. My degree (Business and Management Computing) does have a business background, so my career should be both business/IT related as this is what I am good at. Are the skills I listed above useful to learn? IE in demand by employees.

2) If I work in a bank or investment bank, wouldn't I need experience in investment banking and wouldn't this mean I would need a degree in investment banking? Is independent learning good enough (reading reference books etc)?

3) Wouldn't I need Maths at A Level (haven't got this)? Or would I be ok if I just learnt the maths in my own time?

4) Finally, are books effective in teaching programming languages or am I better off using interactive systems such as CDs? Baring in mind I'm totally new at this programming (with the exception of SQL and Lingo).

BTW I did read another 1 or 2 threads on this - good reads. Feel free to tell me any good learning aids to tell me that I should purchase.

[ewenm]

I worked from May 2004 to May 2005 as an contract Oracle Developer at Merrill Lynch. Oracle and SQL skills are valuable, Unix you can pick up quickly ("Unix in a nutshell" is a good reference book).

Java and C# are popular at the moment but you nearly always need a basis in SQL as a lot of business needs to get data in and out of SQL-based databases.

Feel free to email me through my profile if you want to ask more detailed questions.

[dcb]

z064life said:

Does annoy me that my uni skips some essential skills),

Mine did as well. Unix was a three week course after the finals.
Mind you, I've been doing UNIX for 25 years now.

z064life said:

1) Obviously being a developer and a developer in an investment bank are completely different and need differing expertise.

Not so different. As long as you can wear a suit, and you don't
mind the bank owning your life, working in a bank is fine.

z064life said:

Are the skills I listed above useful to learn? IE in demand by employees.

It seems to me that you picked up on a couple of programmer skills.
They are skills in demand. I'm not completely convinced there
is a 100% match between what you've done at Uni and learning
programmer skills.

Of course, if you are willing to don the anorak of computer
programming, then Unix, C# and Java can be learnt.

BTW, C# is in demand, but it's a closed language for the
closed boxes sold by Microsoft.

Java and UNIX work on lots of manufacturer's boxes, so they
are transportable skills.

z064life said:

2) If I work in a bank or investment bank, wouldn't I need experience in investment banking and wouldn't this mean I would need a degree in investment banking?

Not necessesarily. You are obviously young, and a bank
may see you as raw material.

Banks pay top whack and can be fussy. A first class degree
from Camford helps. MSc and PhD even better.

z064life said:

3) Wouldn't I need Maths at A Level (haven't got this)? Or would I be ok if I just learnt the maths in my own time?

A degree in maths is essential for some City jobs, but not
all. GCSE maths really isn't enough to do the tea in some
banks.

z064life said:

4) Finally, are books effective in teaching programming languages or am I better off using interactive systems such as CDs?

Books are better - they have more depth. Get Kernighan and Richie 2
and Stroustrup 3 and see what you think of them. Java is easy after those.

[PetrolTed]

I worked as a developer in an investment bank for some years and it rarely required any in depth maths (although I did have maths A levels). It will depend what type of system you're working on.

[z064life]

So it seems like I should brush up and learn some skills.

My only two concerns is I'm studying a BSc at Brunel, which may not cut it. Or will I have to go the extra mile and do a Phd/postgraduate degree in x degree to be taken seriously?

Furthermore, it seems like maths is an obstacle. Then again, maths is required for any and most programming work. I can get a book and learn statistics or whatever I need to learn, but this wont be a recognised qualification so what I can do here? Of course I can see I learnt maths (and the exact concepts) on my CV but it does not carry the same impact as saying I did A Level Maths.

[slapmatt]

You do see some jobs specifying A-Level Maths, or indeed 2:1 or above from a Red Brick university, but there are plenty of jobs that are happy to accept good old fashioned experience.

[bga]

slapmatt said:

You do see some jobs specifying A-Level Maths, or indeed 2:1 or above from a Red Brick university, but there are plenty of jobs that are happy to accept good old fashioned experience.

The thin sandwich placement Brunel offers normally helps with the experience bit

z064life - the placement centre should be able to hustle something up, I had mates at Brunel who got some decent placements after most of us had started them. IIRC there was a guy called Doug Perkins & a lady called Roxanne who would chase stuff up if sweet talked enough.