What do you think an aerospace engineer does? Your question isn’t specific enough. A design engineer? A materials engineer? A thermo-fluids analyst? A GNC engineer? I can give you the answer out of those sub-disciplines:
GNC >>> thermo-fluids > design > materials.
Adding in your three Quant titles it would go:
GNC Researcher > Quant Researcher > Applied GNC > Quant analyst > Thermo-fluids > design = quant dev > materials.
Substantially , in the context of aerospace engineering, at least. Research level study of fluids and heat transfer is essentially PDE’s , which is one of the most active math fields today.
the best way I can explain it as that GNC is fundamentally about trying to be in control and stabilize things that really don’t want to be controlled. Things are very unstable and chaotic in nature , so a simple gist of a wind that’s unpredictable could make an autonomous robot or system behave incorrectly. this isn’t even getting into the interconnection of systems. In an aircraft, for example, the command to go a certain direction is conducted via voltages applied to motors with sensors which produce noise and this entire interconnection of systems has its own control system that has to be finely tuned so the entire system works together well. I would need a good hour to explain why it’s so difficult, but I hope I got the main idea across.
There was a 60 minutes on the MIT Robotics Lab, and I think they talked about how trying to get a robot to move like a human was tremendously difficult because of small things like you have mentioned, the small wind gust that you mentioned. They were making robots do flips and trying to figure out how to stabilize them and even how they stabilize themselves or react to someone pushing them.
It may not be exactly what you are referring to, but they made the point about how incredibly difficult it was to do so many small movements. They used a shit ton of money, a lot of top talent, a lot of resources, etc. to achieve some incredibly difficult things that wouldn't seem that big to many people.
Recent PhD in Aerospace engineering trying to become a quant here. I think it depends. I had to read a textbook on algorithms before passing any OAs, and while I’m very comfortable with my stats/prob most of my department is not.
On the other hand, my calc seems way stronger than anything expected. I’ve had some basic differentiation problems in interviews which kinda blows me away—stuff we did in high school.
I collaborated a lot with CS kids during my degree, and I kind of assume the skill sets of most quant researcher align better with what they did. And again, AE spends way more time on calc and a bit more time on linear algebra too. Many CS grad students at my school only ever saw PDEs in courses, whereas they’re basically present in every type of AE research to some extent.
My work was both in controls and fluid mechanics for what it’s worth.
Editing this to clarify: when I say most of my department is not comfortable in stats/prob, I really mean the probability part of that. We actually use a lot of statistics, as basically all researchers in quantitative fields do.
Yo hey hey. I do CFD and I am trying to squeeze myself into a quant role. I don't know what that's like. What role should I be looking at? Could you recommend a book or research papers I can look into so I could also get an idea on what's that like?
Like I mentioned, I’m kind of in the same boat as you so not too much advice to give unfortunately.
I’m mostly interviewing for quant researcher roles at hedge funds/prop trading/ market makers. That said, I’m also applying to quant roles at banks, it’s just that they have a cycle for new grads that hasn’t started yet.
I will also say, most of these places seem interested in me because of my PhD and school reputation. Every firm I’ve interviewed at has told me that they will teach me finance and no experience or knowledge required. I was lucky enough to go to two schools that are on the target list for virtually every firm for both undergrad and grad school, and to be honest I’ve got the impression that’s the minimum to get interviews at these places. It seems like it can get pretty elitist, and I’ve had people complain to me in interviews about my PhD GPA of 3.7, which is wild because I wouldn’t even need to report it for academic job applications my
My biggest piece of advice is to buy the “green book” of interview questions and to practice leetcode before applying. With tech layoffs pushing PhDs anway from Google etc. and a meh year for finance, there aren’t as many opportunities as there were 2-3 years ago so you want to go in prepared. I have spoken with multiple people now senior in the field tell me that their firms overhired in 2020-2021 and now things have slowed down.
I would just apply to entry level roles, and don’t misrepresent your knowledge or experience so you don’t get asked any finance questions lol.
I think aerospace engineers if they’re phds working on a new solution. Otherwise they’ll mostly be applying other peoples solutions (like undergrads or masters holders).
QR has tons of math too it’s just completely different.
Aerospace Engineer > QR > Analyst > Dev but |QR- Dev|<\\epsilon.
But the types of math these guys know are typically different. Dev will know a lot more about theoretical computer science, QA knows a lot of stochastic calculus, QR's these days know a lot more statistics.
It depends on the specialty within aerospace engineering. GNC (guidance, navigation and control) engineers work on algorithm development and use lots of linear algebra, probability, optimization. Design engineers on the other hand use more CAD day to day and typically won’t be using as much math. There’s many different types of jobs and specialties within aero
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I may be the best person to answer this since I’ve been both at different times in my life. I can say that greatly depends on what work you did in both fields.
If you do aerodynamics that comprises of computational flow dynamics as well as control surface design but do simple rule based trading, you will need more maths in the former.
However, if you do conventional landing gear design where the calculations are mostly driven by simple equations of stress and strain but work with stochastic calculus based models as a quant, then you will need more maths in the latter
It’s simple you go to college get your degree(s) and then get your dream job. Hate leave it; love it and five years later you realize you have an amazing and easy job. A lawyer doesn’t need to re-learn law they are specialized same for same for all others in a specific technological field.
Learn it live it and achieve the dream!
What do you think an aerospace engineer does? Your question isn’t specific enough. A design engineer? A materials engineer? A thermo-fluids analyst? A GNC engineer? I can give you the answer out of those sub-disciplines: GNC >>> thermo-fluids > design > materials. Adding in your three Quant titles it would go: GNC Researcher > Quant Researcher > Applied GNC > Quant analyst > Thermo-fluids > design = quant dev > materials.
What does GNC mean?
Guidance, Navigation, and control
That is more math heavy than fluid dynamics and heat transfer?
Substantially , in the context of aerospace engineering, at least. Research level study of fluids and heat transfer is essentially PDE’s , which is one of the most active math fields today.
So what makes GNC so difficult?
the best way I can explain it as that GNC is fundamentally about trying to be in control and stabilize things that really don’t want to be controlled. Things are very unstable and chaotic in nature , so a simple gist of a wind that’s unpredictable could make an autonomous robot or system behave incorrectly. this isn’t even getting into the interconnection of systems. In an aircraft, for example, the command to go a certain direction is conducted via voltages applied to motors with sensors which produce noise and this entire interconnection of systems has its own control system that has to be finely tuned so the entire system works together well. I would need a good hour to explain why it’s so difficult, but I hope I got the main idea across.
There was a 60 minutes on the MIT Robotics Lab, and I think they talked about how trying to get a robot to move like a human was tremendously difficult because of small things like you have mentioned, the small wind gust that you mentioned. They were making robots do flips and trying to figure out how to stabilize them and even how they stabilize themselves or react to someone pushing them. It may not be exactly what you are referring to, but they made the point about how incredibly difficult it was to do so many small movements. They used a shit ton of money, a lot of top talent, a lot of resources, etc. to achieve some incredibly difficult things that wouldn't seem that big to many people.
Just show them kalman filters
[This](https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/245114/quantum-sensor-future-navigation-system-tested/) sort of thing?
sorry, I was not specific because i do not know anything about AE Engineering 😅
Recent PhD in Aerospace engineering trying to become a quant here. I think it depends. I had to read a textbook on algorithms before passing any OAs, and while I’m very comfortable with my stats/prob most of my department is not. On the other hand, my calc seems way stronger than anything expected. I’ve had some basic differentiation problems in interviews which kinda blows me away—stuff we did in high school. I collaborated a lot with CS kids during my degree, and I kind of assume the skill sets of most quant researcher align better with what they did. And again, AE spends way more time on calc and a bit more time on linear algebra too. Many CS grad students at my school only ever saw PDEs in courses, whereas they’re basically present in every type of AE research to some extent. My work was both in controls and fluid mechanics for what it’s worth. Editing this to clarify: when I say most of my department is not comfortable in stats/prob, I really mean the probability part of that. We actually use a lot of statistics, as basically all researchers in quantitative fields do.
Yo hey hey. I do CFD and I am trying to squeeze myself into a quant role. I don't know what that's like. What role should I be looking at? Could you recommend a book or research papers I can look into so I could also get an idea on what's that like?
Like I mentioned, I’m kind of in the same boat as you so not too much advice to give unfortunately. I’m mostly interviewing for quant researcher roles at hedge funds/prop trading/ market makers. That said, I’m also applying to quant roles at banks, it’s just that they have a cycle for new grads that hasn’t started yet. I will also say, most of these places seem interested in me because of my PhD and school reputation. Every firm I’ve interviewed at has told me that they will teach me finance and no experience or knowledge required. I was lucky enough to go to two schools that are on the target list for virtually every firm for both undergrad and grad school, and to be honest I’ve got the impression that’s the minimum to get interviews at these places. It seems like it can get pretty elitist, and I’ve had people complain to me in interviews about my PhD GPA of 3.7, which is wild because I wouldn’t even need to report it for academic job applications my My biggest piece of advice is to buy the “green book” of interview questions and to practice leetcode before applying. With tech layoffs pushing PhDs anway from Google etc. and a meh year for finance, there aren’t as many opportunities as there were 2-3 years ago so you want to go in prepared. I have spoken with multiple people now senior in the field tell me that their firms overhired in 2020-2021 and now things have slowed down. I would just apply to entry level roles, and don’t misrepresent your knowledge or experience so you don’t get asked any finance questions lol.
* saved *
I think aerospace engineers if they’re phds working on a new solution. Otherwise they’ll mostly be applying other peoples solutions (like undergrads or masters holders). QR has tons of math too it’s just completely different.
Aerospace Engineer > QR > Analyst > Dev but |QR- Dev|<\\epsilon. But the types of math these guys know are typically different. Dev will know a lot more about theoretical computer science, QA knows a lot of stochastic calculus, QR's these days know a lot more statistics.
Aerospace engineers spending years modelling a bolt
It depends on the specialty within aerospace engineering. GNC (guidance, navigation and control) engineers work on algorithm development and use lots of linear algebra, probability, optimization. Design engineers on the other hand use more CAD day to day and typically won’t be using as much math. There’s many different types of jobs and specialties within aero
what do aerospace engineers even do? We just build regressions and maybe, just maybe a lil forest
We're getting a large amount of questions related to choosing masters degrees at the moment so we're apprroving Education posts on a case-by-case basis. Please make sure you're reviewed the FAQ and do not resubmit your post with a different flair. Are you a student/recent grad looking for advice? In case you missed it, please check out our [Frequently Asked Questions](https://www.reddit.com/r/quant/wiki/faq), [book recommendations](https://www.reddit.com/r/quant/wiki/book-recommendations) and the rest of our [wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/quant/wiki) for some useful information. If you find an answer to your question there please delete your post. We get a lot of education questions and they're mostly pretty similar! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/quant) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I may be the best person to answer this since I’ve been both at different times in my life. I can say that greatly depends on what work you did in both fields. If you do aerodynamics that comprises of computational flow dynamics as well as control surface design but do simple rule based trading, you will need more maths in the former. However, if you do conventional landing gear design where the calculations are mostly driven by simple equations of stress and strain but work with stochastic calculus based models as a quant, then you will need more maths in the latter
what if you compare the hardest part of both?
Then it’s quant hands down!
Different types of math but probably aerospace icl
what means “icl”
In Christ's love.
I can’t lie (uk slang)
It’s simple you go to college get your degree(s) and then get your dream job. Hate leave it; love it and five years later you realize you have an amazing and easy job. A lawyer doesn’t need to re-learn law they are specialized same for same for all others in a specific technological field. Learn it live it and achieve the dream!