Why I studied Quantitative Economics at Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Kolkata

In this blogpost, I will try to give a brief overview of some of the key incidents in my life, due to which I decided to study Quantitative Economics at Indian Statistical Institute (MSQE).

While I was doing my engineering, I was actually thinking of writing a novel. And in those days, the novel writing phenomena was very popular in IITs and IIMs because of the works of Chetan Bhagat.

When I started writing, I showed it to one of my friends. She reviewed my writing and remarked, “you don’t develop your characters, they suddenly come up to the scene, do their act and vanish.”
This got me thinking and she also handed me a list of books to read. Then I went through a bunch of books in the hopes of possibly mastering the skill of novel writing.

It was just an example from a part of my life to set a context here.
So what is that context? When I was in my class 3, 4, 5 and so on, I was not really good in mathematics.
I was a very mediocre kind of student and the reason behind that is, that I never studied that well. I just studied before my exams. And maths is a kind of subject that you cannot pass if you study it just before the exams.

With the passage of time, few things changed, I started to get better at maths from class 6-7 onwards. And then in class 9-10, I was so good at maths that I was among the top 3 rankers (only in Maths) of my class and I used to be liked by my maths teacher a lot. And after that when I went to class 11-12, mathematics became challenging in nature, but physics was my refuge. It gave me the room and the freedom to apply conceptual understanding to solve physics numerical problems. It has been very well said that if you have learned physics, you will never forget it, just like you never forget riding bicycle. But with mathematics, practice is of prime importance.

So when I went into IIT with this background that I am good in maths and I really like physics, I wanted to do some kind of research. When I started studying in IIT, the research interest started dying out. There was no maths, no physics and whatever there was, it was not interesting for me.

And later on, like other IITians, I started moving towards the domain of consultants. Unknowingly, I started taking baby steps towards MSQE.
I was crystal clear in my mind that I wanted to do something in mathematics. To do something in mathematics, engineering is not a very good option. There were options like actuarial science, and statistics. But unfortunately, in those days, I was not very familiar with the domain of statistics. And actuarial science was something which required a lot of commitment.
So, out of all these constraints, I gradually developed an interest in Finance, Investment banking and had also done few internships in these domains.
Post my graduation from IIT, a major chunk of my work life was devoted to teaching physics for JEE and NEET. Due to my prolonged physics teaching stint, my interest in mathematics never subsided and while I was reading through all sorts of thing available around me, I understood that there is something in which I can do work on, i.e., Analytics.
At that time, data science had also started coming to the picture. That led me towards the courses which I can do, in which I can mix finance, mathematics and analytics. Meanwhile, I also passed CFA level 1.
In CFA level 1, the economics section was a bit tricky for me.
After that you already know my story of how I decided to do MSQE.
But what is the part between my economics and analytics interest to MSQE, that is something which even I do not know, I just have a very vague kind of a memory; it was somewhere around the month of May, 2013 that I thought I will do some kind of course related to analytics. In this regard, I talked to a friend, who was preparing for CAT. He gave me an idea that there is a course called MSQE in ISI.
Till late 2014, when I started researching about Quantitative Economics at Indian Statistical Institute (MSQE) (and to be specific, only in the month of December, 2014), I decided to study MSQE, with this idea that I want to study Economics, Finance and Analytics.

So, altogether I can say that it was not because of some allure of placements at ISI Kolkata, but it was my interest & passion towards the domain of economics and finance that drove me to the door of ISI MSQE.

So this is why I decided to study Quantitative Economics (MSQE) at Indian Statistical Institute (ISI).

Is Coding needed for Data Science? - Role of Programming in Data Science

Data science is a combination of mathematics & statistics, programming and domain expertise. The rising penetration of high-speed internet has fueled the growth of people learning programming languages. 

So, in an era where coding is considered a life skill, one question arises: Will coding skills help in data science career? The short answer is 'Yes!', it'll help. The point to remember here is that it is only 40% of the task.
The rest is explaining the mathematical & statistical basis and findings to stakeholders and decision-makers. Domain expertise and mathematical & statistical understanding will help you along with coding skills.

Coding skills come in handy for data problems. A lot of basic things like data cleaning, data manipulation, loading libraries, etc. require programming knowledge. Good coding skills will help you circumvent the issues that initially come with data science problems. Many data scientists, regardless of their knowledge of the necessary steps required to solve the business problem, are not good at coding. So they face difficulty loading & manipulating the data, and getting the necessary libraries for implementing the desired solution.

Many data science problems can be solved with the help of libraries of programming languages like Python and R. If you are good at coding, you'll be able to troubleshoot the issues & problems very well, unlike those who are good at mathematics & statistics but don't have knowledge of loading packages, libraries, creating environments, etc. 

But when you present your solution to the end user, they generally ask very basic questions. These questions can be bucketed into two categories:

1. Domain-specific question

2. Mathematical & statistical assumptions of the solution

So, it is essential to understand the domain problem as well as the mathematics & statistics behind your solution. This puts you in a position to explain the solution to the end-user and stakeholders, it could be a data analyst or someone in a higher position in the company, like the person who is taking charge of sales or marketing. Understanding mathematics & statistics also helps in deciding the steps needed to solve a given problem. It also helps in determining which algorithm to prefer over another. 

Coding will help you to some extent. You still need a mathematics & statistics foundation and domain expertise. If you don't have one, you will have to gain that skill. 

If you ask me, I'll advise you to start with mathematical & statistical foundations. Domain expertise will come through experience. There is no substitute for experience in terms of domain expertise. But mathematics & statistics can be learned in a limited amount of time. It doesn't require 7-8 years of experience, unlike acquiring domain expertise. 9 months to 1.5 years are more than enough for you to master statistics & mathematics.

So, the conclusion of this post is that coding will help you a lot, but coding is not the entirety of data science.

ISI MSQE Job Profiles - Prospects after Masters in Quantitative Economics from Indian Statistical Institute

Are you curious about the job profiles that are offered at Indian Statistical Institute (ISI)?
If yes, you are on the right place. Here, I will introduce you to some of the potential job profiles offered to an ISI MSQE graduate.

Financial Risk
There are various investment banks and financial institutions which recruit various young minds for the financial risk roles.The CTC offered under this job profile depends on the company; It varies a lot from company to company.

The job profile offered under the financial risk role is the most relevant role for an MSQE student.

Insurance & Actuary
Though this job profile is not directly related to the MSQE curriculum, but it’s a perk of studying in ISI that companies do come in ISI for recruiting students from M.Stats for the field of Insurance & Actuary. So sometimes, they recruit students from MSQE as well. It will be prudent if you clear few actuarial papers to fulfil the eligibility criteria required by some companies in the field of Actuary & Insurance. It’s an undeniable fact that these jobs pay a lot.

Data Science & Analytics
Honestly speaking, there is a lot of buzz about Data Science, ML, AI, etc. Also there is a lot of confusion among youth about real definition of Data science and Machine Learning. Students remain confused that does data science has any relation to Computer science & Software Engineering.
So, as a result of these misconceptions, sometimes, there is expectations mismatch as well.
There are a lot of tech companies who come to Indian Statistical Institute for fulfilling their hiring needs related to Data Scientist and Data Analyst Profiles.

IIT v/s ISI v/s IIM
Many of you might wonder whether the roles offered in ISI MSQE is somewhat similar to the roles offered in Top IIMs and IITs? So in my opinion, the roles offered in ISI MSQE is between what an IITian could get and what an IIM graduate could get. What I am trying to say is that there are few roles which are offered to IITians, ISI MSQE students as well as IIM MBA graduates. But there are very few roles which is common in all the above three categories. Majority of roles offered to MBA graduates are quite irrelevant for MSQE graduates. Companies coming to IIMs mostly have more or less business outlook, sales outlook, marketing outlook and more like a manager outlook in their hiring. But companies coming to recruit ISI MSQE students search students for technical roles from the analytical perspective. But in spite of all these facts, there are many profiles for which an IIM and ISI graduate both can be recruited. It's not all about the curriculum, but the batch strength also matters a lot. Maximum strength of an ISI MSQE batch is approx. 30 but on an average there are around 300 students in each batch of IIM MBA program. So job profiles is also very diverse for IIM students.

In my opinion, out of all these job profiles discussed above, financial risk is the most relevant role for an ISI MSQE student. Apart from these profiles, you can also go for research, PhD, or public sector jobs after doing your masters in quantitative economics from Indian Statistical Institute (ISI).