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I am currently a fixed income trader and I work 10 hours a day from 5 am - 3 pm. I am a mathematician by education but unfortunately I am not doing much math and programming at my job. So, I try to study an hour during lunch and three hours after work to keep up with my skills and learn more. Specifically, I focus a lot of time in C++, computational mathematics, stochastic calculus / differential equations, and machine/deep learning as a little hobby.

Until I find another job where I actually use my education I feel a bit frustrated with the little time I have during the week to study. On weekends I plan to devote more time to studying but I have to be realistic and relax a bit and have a life.

I guess this post is more for advice as to how I should study and gain as much time as I can to study because now I feel like I am kicking myself in the butt for not continuing my PhD and just walking away with a masters.

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    My personal advice: learn Haskell. It's much more mathier than C++, it quite some time to understand some concepts (khm, monads, khm), and it'll make you a better programmer and hence improve your day-job life, too. – Oleg Lobachev Jun 22 '18 at 19:57
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    What is your goal with studying? To come back and do a PhD? To do hobby level math? Becoming an independent researcher? – nabla Jun 22 '18 at 20:30
  • @nabla I may go back to finish my PhD. But my career goal at the moment is to be a quantitive researcher/developer so yea you can say an independent researcher. – Wolfy Jun 22 '18 at 22:13
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    If you want a career in data science, learn R or Python (and some stats). Plenty of demand for mathematics expertise in this career path, no PhD needed (although it helps). – Tom Kelly Jun 23 '18 at 6:14
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If you study 1+3=4 hours per day I believe this is enough. Do not worry about anything. Just keep studying like this and you will reach your goal.
(Which I suppose is to become an independent researcher)

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  • Thank you for your answer. I am shooting for independent research but want to probably finish my PhD in about 2 Years or maybe less not sure. I really could use a mentor. – Wolfy Jun 23 '18 at 20:06

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