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Trading at University, Advice Needed 37 replies

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Attachments: university or more time for trading
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university or more time for trading

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  • university or more time for trading
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  • First Post: Aug 2, 2011 5:16am Aug 2, 2011 5:16am
How many of consistently profitable people have a graduation at an university? What do you think what is better choice, studying at an university and do trading ( but only few hours per day) or do trading almost all the day?
imho definitely university ..... no question about that ... but not just any university .... it should be a top one like an ivy-league or something equivalent in other countries.

you're not going to find any ivy-leaguers here because they already have high paying jobs with banks and investment firms and excellent promotion prospects.
You don't need a degree to trade. No one will ever care about your papers and achievements - if you're thinking about being employed as a proprietary trader. You are a profitable trader or you are not. There is easy way to prove it. It's your account statement. Your trading portfolio.

I am a graphic artist. Same thing. Either you can make nice pictures or you can't. No one cares about your background.

No one will ever teach you how to trade/draw/paint. These are skills. And one must develop a skill by himself through proper practice, observation, acquiring knowledge. And the last one is the only thing they can give you in universities. But knowledge can be acquired from many other places. It's up to you.

You will only need a degree if you're going to become a Talking Head - trolling Bloomberg, writing books, making scam systems, etc.
Nice tribute, i totally agree with you ;-)

Quoting T.E.Lawrence
You don't need a degree to trade. No one will ever care about your papers and achievements - if you're thinking about being employed as a proprietary trader. You are a profitable trader or you are not. There is easy way to prove it. It's your account statement. Your trading portfolio.

I am a graphic artist. Same thing. Either you can make nice pictures or you can't. No one cares about your background.

No one will ever teach you how to trade/draw/paint. These are skills. And one must develop a skill by himself through proper practice, observation,...
Quoting T.E.Lawrence
You will only need a degree if you're going to become a Talking Head - trolling Bloomberg, writing books, making scam systems, etc.
If you're going to be a scammer, why waste time and money at a university?

OTOH, if you want to be a researcher, or a professor, for example, go get your degrees.

I personally don't think you should "do trading almost all the the day"; one of the nice things about trading is that [potentially] you can eventually work few hours and earn a nice income.

It all depends on what interests you, what you want to do in life, what your goals are etc.

For trading per se - no, you definitely do not need a degree.
Quoting T.E.Lawrence
You don't need a degree to trade. No one will ever care about your papers and achievements - if you're thinking about being employed as a proprietary trader. You are a profitable trader or you are not. There is easy way to prove it. It's your account statement. Your trading portfolio.

I am a graphic artist. Same thing. Either you can make nice pictures or you can't. No one cares about your background.

No one will ever teach you how to trade/draw/paint. These are skills. And one must develop a skill by himself through proper practice, observation,...
I have a different point of view - education will shape your head towards a more scientific/analytic approach to things.

If we talk about an economic degree, courses like macro, statistics to name a few, does help you to understand how the financial market work and how to make sense of tons of (research) data. I can't speak for everyone but it certainly helped me.
Measure twice, cut once
Quoting petertrader
How many of consistently profitable people have a graduation at an university? What do you think what is better choice, studying at an university and do trading ( but only few hours per day) or do trading almost all the day?
study man study...university is very important.
Trade responsiblypatience is the key/Swing trader
DO NOT drop the chance of doing your degree for trading!
Why rush into full time trading with no garantee of success?
Do your degree and trade at the same time, daily time frame for example.
You have the rest of your life to trade, and the degree is more important to begin with.
Quoting fosking
DO NOT drop the chance of doing your degree for trading!
Why rush into full time trading with no garantee of success?
Do your degree and trade at the same time, daily time frame for example.
You have the rest of your life to trade, and the degree is more important to begin with.
Took the words right out of my mouth!

Also, you can tell you're a young 'un! Putting a key life decision as a poll on a public forum shows your immaturity. You really need to discuss this with your parents and weigh up all the pros and cons. I can assure you that once you have gone through the process, Uni will have far more benefits and open many doors later on in life. If anyone begs to differ, they will also be showing their immaturity.
Quoting fosking
DO NOT drop the chance of doing your degree for trading!
Why rush into full time trading with no garantee of success?
Do your degree and trade at the same time, daily time frame for example.
You have the rest of your life to trade, and the degree is more important to begin with.
He said consistantly profitable trader so no need to worry about the guarantee


I like your answer in reverse. Trade now and make money, you have your whole life to study. If you decide you don't want to trade anymore you will have a better idea of what you want to do and the money to do it.

edited to add: the only advantage i see to studying when you're younger (when you don't need it to make money) is the social life
Get your degree first because at least you will always have something to fall back on if trading is not for you.

You can still trade part time anyway so I don't see why you can't do both. But definitely get your degree.
Quoting bbakker
If anyone begs to differ, they will also be showing their immaturity.
I was way to immature and inexperienced when i finished school to be choosing what i wanted to devote years of my life studying. Everyone seems to be assuming you can't study if you're over 21.
Quoting havaiana
I was way to immature and inexperienced when i finished school to be choosing what i wanted to devote years of my life studying. Everyone seems to be assuming you can't study if you're over 21.
The longer you leave it, the harder it gets to get back into education. I am not saying it is impossible as my sister went to Uni at the age of 30 and now has a doctorate, but she had the motivation to do it for a number of reasons.
Quoting havaiana
He said consistantly profitable trader so no need to worry about the guarantee
I don't know the guy so I'm not going to start making assumptions, but if this guy hasn't started uni yet it would make him 16-18? consistently profitable can be taken with a pinch of salt.

If you were dating a girl (call her Foxy Forex), would you give uni a miss incase you never find "the one" again? especially as you could date through uni and if Foxy Forex doesn't turn out to be the one, your still ok.

Just don't tuen down the opportunity mate, else you will regret it like I did!
First. Go to university, study and make your exam in bachelor and/or master, may be a doctor and/or a MBA.

Learn how to think in a more critical way.

Learn how to think faster.

Learn how to change the aspects in your mind when circumstances changes.

Then,... trade the Forexmarket.
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Quoting Forexcube
Learn how to think in a more critical way.

Learn how to think faster.

Learn how to change the aspects in your mind when circumstances changes.
I don't know about this, i learned more about economics teaching myself after uni than i learned at uni, uni was almost a waste of time. This could also be attributed to my attitude though i suppose, that's why i benefited more from studying later in life when i knew exactly what i wanted to study and why.

I could always teach myself things more efficiently than i could learn them at school, but we're all different

Quoting bbakker
The longer you leave it, the harder it gets to get back into education. I am not saying it is impossible as my sister went to Uni at the age of 30 and now has a doctorate, but she had the motivation to do it for a number of reasons.

This is very true, especially when you have family etc. Also hard to go back to study when you're earning decent money even if you don't like what you are doing.

To the threadstarter, how much time do you spend trading? you could probably uni part time without cutting back your trading time too much depending on how you trade...
University hands down. It is as much a social experience as it is an educational one... so to speak.
I am starting at a uk one in october so I am just going to higher tfs and writing stuff so that I can do it all from my iphone. Though to what extent this is still going to interfere with the supposed 40 hours of work a week I do not know!
Quoting petertrader
How many of consistently profitable people have a graduation at an university? What do you think what is better choice, studying at an university and do trading ( but only few hours per day) or do trading almost all the day?
My last 3 years of school (just finished in June) I didn't put much effort into school.

The only time my laptop wasn't open with charts was during exams. Even during study groups for big exams and assignments/presentations I was watching charts and managing positions.

Not to say I didn't learn, because I did focus on learning the things that interested me and the things I would need for my career.

I'm under capitalized, and I need a good job to fund my account while I build a long term track record of steady % growth. Maybe one day I'll have enough funds under management to pay all of my expenses, but I need a good job so I don't have to trade with scared money anymore.

So my point is: focus on school to the extent that you can get decent grades, and learn what you need to learn, but spend the rest of your time partying and trading.
  • Post #19
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  • Edited 2:44pm Aug 2, 2011 2:30pm | Edited 2:44pm
Quoting petertrader
How many of consistently profitable people have a graduation at an university? What do you think what is better choice, studying at an university and do trading ( but only few hours per day) or do trading almost all the day?
I met trading after graduated from university. But If I were to start all over again, I'd personally go for university plus trading on spare time. After graduated, I may go full time.

University was fun for me. Lots of spare time to explore life experiences, gave me more character, and plenty of fun. Many priceless moments of my life are in university

Trading is naturally a boring business, like fishing, plenty of waiting patiently and professionally. If you don't combine it with fun things, you can go nuts quickly. So imo more time to trade doesn't guarantee better life experience. You may gain more money but perhaps you will want to shoot your head off because your life sucks and barely mean anything other than dollars. It will make sense when strings of losses hit you, your systems fail, you have no idea how to fix it, and you have no other life than that. Bang! lol ;-)
The tone of your words reflects the quality and result of your trading ;-)
Go to school, it is as much a life experience (when you are young) as it is educational.

You can also easily trade from school, depending on a few things such as your chosen degree.

My senior year, when I first started getting into trading, I had classes Mon-Thursday, no class earlier than 2:30 PM, and about 2-4 hours of school work (between written assignments & reading) a night. Not to mention the fact that with laptops/smartphones you can now bring your trading with you almost anywhere these days.
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