Reference // Learning Shelf

Guides // Playbooks & References

Use this as the shelf after the toolkit points you somewhere. Open the guide that supports your current rep, then get back to making progress.

This page keeps the supporting material in one place: bootcamp, planning, courses, firms, prep, and application examples. It should help you finish the next action, not collect tabs.

Best first move
10 modules
Use bootcamp before you over-specialize.
Planning surface
1 semester
Turn interest into a real weekly plan with the roadmap builder.
Starter target
1 finished thing
Notebook, memo, systems repo, or repeated training reps.
Open Bootcamp Build a Plan

03// STARTER_SURFACES

These are the core pages that make the rest of the site usable. The goal is not to open all of them at once. Open the one that matches your stage, then leave with one next action.

Quant Bootcamp

A weekly learning path for concepts, problem nights, deliverables, help channels, and the bridge into pods and recruiting prep.

Open bootcamp

Quant Plan Builder

Turn your track, stage, and available time into a semester plan that is actually survivable.

Build plan

Recruiting Suggestions

Current-window guidance for what to polish, watch, apply to, or follow up on during the 2026-2027 cycle.

Open window

Firm Database

Map firms by work style, role mix, and interview emphasis before you chase logos blindly.

Explore firms

Interview Prep

A role-aware prep board for mental math, systems reps, notebook depth, and application timing.

Open prep board

Application FAQ

What AggieQuant actually rewards in applications, and what thin applications look like in practice.

Read rubric

04// BY_STAGE

Use this section by stage: early exploration, project-building, and recruiting require different next actions.

Freshman / early explorer

Find the work that feels real

Start with Quant Bootcamp, read the basic qualifications, attend one useful event, and finish one tiny thing before you worry about being "behind."

  • Pick one track to test instead of trying to inhabit all three.
  • Attend one event that clarifies what kind of work sounds fun.
  • Leave with one notebook, simulator rep, or memo stub.
Read qualifications
Sophomore / project-building

Choose a lane and build momentum

Use the semester plan, firm database, and pod system to turn curiosity into something that recruiters or older members can actually evaluate.

  • Bias toward one example you can finish and explain.
  • Use pods to turn interest into recurring weekly work.
  • Do real work before you chase prestige language.
See pod system
Junior+ / recruiting push

Convert prep into timing

Work backward from recruiting windows, bias toward your strongest current surface, and stop trying to prep equally for every lane.

  • Use timelines and events to know when applications actually move.
  • Choose your strongest current lane and lean into it.
  • Let interview prep reinforce, not replace, your core example.
Open timeline

05// BY_TRACK

A lot of confusion comes from treating trader, researcher, and developer as branding labels before timing is clear. Use these after you know your stage and recruiting window.

Trader

Decision-making under pressure

Good trader prep is fast, verbal, and repetitive. Build intuition for probability, spread capture, and risk framing.

  • Open next: Interview Prep, Recruiting Suggestions, Firm Database.
  • Read: Heard on the Street, options basics, market microstructure notes.
  • Best first example: repeated drill logs plus one clean market-style write-up.
Open prep board See event reps
Researcher

Hypotheses, data, and skepticism

Good research prep rewards clean assumptions, strong statistics, and the ability to explain why a pattern might be misleading.

  • Open next: Quant Bootcamp, Firm Database, Pod system.
  • Read: probability, time series, experiment design, and model checks.
  • Best first project: one notebook or memo that survives honest scrutiny.
Map firms See research pods
Developer

Systems, tooling, and performance

Good developer prep rewards runtime awareness, debugging quality, and code that feels built rather than just solved.

  • Open next: Course Map, Interview Prep, Pods.
  • Read: systems design, C++ depth, Linux workflows, data infrastructure patterns.
  • Best first project: simulator, data workflow, or reliable tools repo.
Map courses Open build lanes

06// REFERENCE_SHELF

Keep this shelf secondary. It exists for targeted lookup after the timeline or toolkit has already told you which bottleneck matters.

Good research habits beat information hoarding.

One strong path, one real project, and one feedback loop will take you farther than opening every guide and finishing none of them.

Open Bootcamp Open Suggestions