Siddhant Walia

BSc Mathematics, 2017

Three words to describe your time at Warwick

Challenging, rigorous, rewarding!

Career aspirations

I've just joined Apple as a quantitative analyst and over the next few years I'm looking forward to gaining experience working at the intersection of data science, machine learning and product! From there, I hope to manage an analytics team and see where this takes me.

Manager (Cloud Analytics) at Efficio

To what extent did you plan your career?

I really did not and was constantly confused about what to do. I knew that mathematics opens loads of doors for us as we're trained to become highly analytical individuals. However, I was drawn to consulting as I knew it would introduce me to a variety of sectors and real-world problems, which would "hopefully" help me plan my next step better!

How do you use your maths degree in your job?

During my time in consulting, the main skills I used from my degree are being able to comfortably work through abstract problems, while being extremely confident with numbers/analytics in any setting. This meant any modelling/quantitative work was a breeze. I will also be moving to big-tech to become a quantitative analyst where I assume statistical modelling will also be key!

Why did you choose to study Maths at Warwick?

Mathematics was the only subject I enjoyed in school and found that calculus and probability really interested me because of how we could understand and explain real world phenomena. This motivated me to delve deeper into what maths has to offer, along with how it's applied! At the time Warwick was one of the top universities for mathematics and the course flexibility (along with interdisciplinary options) really appealed to me.

Which modules did you particularly enjoy/find useful?

I really, really enjoyed modules, which were more applied. Topics in Data Science, Mathematical Statistics, Bifurcations, Mathematical Economics were fantastic examples of mathematics shaping and solving real world problems. Additionally, I loved Complex/Vector Analysis, PDE and Galois Theory, all of which served me really well during my master’s too.

What core skills do you think you developed during your time at Warwick?

The rigour and depth of mathematical training we received at Warwick meant that I had a really strong mathematical foundation. This helped me hit the ground running during my master’s as I was ready to apply my knowledge and training instead of having to simultaneously build a strong quantitative foundation. Additionally, the main skill set I developed was being able to work through abstract problems. This really helped in consulting as at the core of it, we're solving different problems for businesses!