Yuqi discusses his time at Queen Mary, why he chose to study an MSc in Finance and Econometrics following his MSc in Banking and Finance and his commitment to lifelong learning.
Could you tell me about your current role at UBS? What drew you to this work?
I am currently working in Investment Banking Division in UBS, which is one of the core banking operations. My role involves managing the position and risk exposed from trading and reconcile the daily investment activity by clients and by Bank. I am also leading a small squad and ensure that we all delivery excellence results.
The main reason for joining UBS is that as a top bank in the world, UBS could be a good place to be exposed to global investment activities in the real world. It would be a great opportunity to have the theories learnt from class applied to the real world and see what you could achieve there.
Besides all the knowledge learnt, the skills of how to perform research and collect the necessary information in efficient way, as well as the self-learning methodology do benefit in future careers.
Could you describe your career journey to this point?
It is my third year since graduated from Queen Mary so generally, I think I am still around the starting point of the careers.
My journey started from put myself in Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), where I worked two years in Financial Market Services. I was a freshman but it was a good opportunity to see how bank operates and profits. After gaining experience I chose the more challenging and senior role in UBS to continue my profession careers in banking area.
Why did you choose to study MSc Finance and Econometrics? Why at Queen Mary?
When my first course of Banking and Finance in Queen Mary was near completion, I was encouraged by one of the professors in my university to keeping learning more if having any chances. Hence to advance the area of Finance I chose to enroll in the course of Finance and Econometrics in 2018. One key factor is that the course offers very insightful guidance on research as well as advanced courses of econometrics. Besides all the knowledge learnt, the skills of how to perform research and collect the necessary information in efficient way, as well as the self-learning methodology do benefit in future careers. The one gap that graduates usually meet is that the real working life might require to learn a lot of new things in short time which is different then in university. However, with the methodology and the learning skills developed in the Master life in Queen Mary, I could see myself overcame the learning gap smoothly in working.
What was so special about your time at Queen Mary? Do you have any particularly fond memories you would like to share?
I would say that the wonderful two years in Queen Mary is the precious memory I would never forget. Everyone in the school was quite kind and helpful. The one thing I would like to share is the diversity sense brought by School. As a foreign student, I was a little “home-sick” when spending long time abroad. But I could see that Student Union tried to organize for the activities and celebration for the festivals even for foreign countries. For myself, I enjoyed the Chinese new year celebration organized by Student Union in 2018. The traditional food and activities did bring me the sense of home and relieved my home-stick a lot.
If you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?
One advice I would like to give my self is “Keep learning”. I was planning to apply for research degree and even PhD courses during the completion of course of Finance and Econometrics. Unfortunately, something went in surprise and I had to change my plan. I would say that though have the intention to learn more, I hardly have the time and effort devoting to study after busy working day by day. Therefore, if having the ambition and the curiosity to discover and deep dive in the areas interested, I would suggest my-self to keep up learning. Actually, even now I would say that someday I might go back to school to continue learning, which is also part of my career.