While I'll agree the scale of our retail trading differs I wouldn't conflate what you describe above with professional trading experience. I realize I sound like a total dick here and it's not my intention but being thrown into a role in a machine that a few hundred Ivy League grads have been working long hours for years to constantly refine is just going to be a different learning experience than what you learn doing this by yourself. Again, I realize this is not a fun post to read but I want to hammer home the value of going and getting professional experience--even if only to prevent you from having to learn lessons by giving away money as losses. If you want concrete examples of the differences you can PM me or start interviewing.
An unusually long pregnancy, for sure. I'm afraid you don't, at all - to me, you sound very realistic. The OP's long and repeated history of blowing up, together with his observation that he must return to trading of some kind because he "misses it too much", do also ring some potential alarm bells which I think it might be wise not altogether to ignore. He's clearly doing exactly the right thing in returning to college, however, with only one year to go of a finance degree in which he's already invested so much time, effort, energy and money. That's a way of "getting the odds on your side over the long term", which is certainly a very valuable skill for traders, too. Wishing you well ...
Uh No... Finance doesn't teach you anything on what trading is like. This is literally one of the very first thing I'd learn when I was just starting out and it was in college. And it came from a book. Today that advice still holds up. If anything it's a handicap. It's been a few years since I graduated but back then most finance major I knew ended up in some type of financial sales job. Like a stockbroker. Which is more like a sales guy then an actual trader. Math, Engineering, Science major are the ones who get to be trader. To the OP. I think you've made some bad choices if what you wanted was to be a trader. Since this is being your final semester of college. Your time should be spent on doing the networking stuff to get a job come graduation not spending your free time trading to make it trying to be a daytrader. Especially more so since you have a kid. That is even more pressure.
I have 2 semesters left. And yes I have networked a lot. And I agree with you nothing I’ve learned in my finance major has been useable in trading. It’s actually almost the complete opposite lol
Absolutely ... it's a way of keeping all kinds of other (non-trading) career options open. The OP has already wisely decided, having invested so much in a college degree, with only one year to go, that it makes sense to complete it, if he can. Admittedly, I often tend to find myself, in trading discussions, pretty much out of step with the majority view on the potential value of formal education. It seems to me that in online discussions there's a generally prevalent consensus that the value of a college degree revolves entirely around the future earning potential it might produce. That's not a view I subscribe to, myself (even though my college fees were undoubtedly higher than the OP's). I'm more inclined to think that the value of education (specifically vocational subjects like law and medicine aside, obviously) lies mostly in its process, and in what's left behind with you permanently, long after all the course-work stuff you learned at college has been forgotten.
Well said. For me my degree is a hedge on my trading career. And something I was able to gain solid networking through and build good relationships through.
I assume this question is put to me? No, I didn't. I got a job out of high school as a margin clerk for accounts that were"OK to trade short options," as the margin calculations for such accounts were not yet computerized(!) and we did it by hand. I cleared $178 every two weeks. I saved a few hundred bucks (skipped lunches for a while) and started buying near-dated calls myself (knowing nothing, bugging guys in the dealing room about the p&f charts they were keeping, and how to read them). After a few weeks one of my option positions went on a tear, I made more on that one trade than I was going to for the next year at the job. I made up my mind I would throw myself 110% into what was my "Telos," I had to learn how to program, had to learn principles of accounting and technical analysis and all sorts of things. I was given the gift of desperation - the boredom of the shop, the pressing exigency of yesterday's overdue rent motivated me to study everything I could get my hands on, math books, great literature - everything.......
Math and engineering and so forth will likely be helpful if you plan to automate your trading in any way, and basic statistics are necessary for just about anybody. But if you plan to take the discretionary route, I strongly suggest you pick up courses in at least learning psychology and behavior pathology, or, if your school offers anything in behavioral finance, you can stalk two birds with one stone. I agree with Xela that the process will eventually matter more than the content. I have two advanced degrees, but I could not now tell you much if anything about the syllabi for any of the courses. The effects on my trading, however, have been invaluable. And if any of this seems off-topic, keep in mind that few if any can say what they'll be doing five years after they get the degree. Maybe you'll be working for somebody else, maybe you'll be working for yourself. Keep your options open and be prepared for any contingency.