Imagine yourself in the role of your potential employer (e.g. a hedge fund manager). Which uncommon skills would you be looking for in applicants?
Re programming—have a project. Have multiple projects. Throw code onto GitHub. Demonstrate your ability to construct and debug a working piece of software that does something useful. If you want to be employed as a coder, the first question will be “Show me what you did”.
Re finance—acquire experience with real financial markets (as in, not models from academic literature). Pick an area, learn it. Paper trade or even better, live trade with whatever amount of money you can afford to lose. Figure out market frictions, figure out risk management. Get acquainted with all the ways in which real markets are different from theoretical ones. Get your hands dirty.
Some generic advice.
Imagine yourself in the role of your potential employer (e.g. a hedge fund manager). Which uncommon skills would you be looking for in applicants?
Re programming—have a project. Have multiple projects. Throw code onto GitHub. Demonstrate your ability to construct and debug a working piece of software that does something useful. If you want to be employed as a coder, the first question will be “Show me what you did”.
Re finance—acquire experience with real financial markets (as in, not models from academic literature). Pick an area, learn it. Paper trade or even better, live trade with whatever amount of money you can afford to lose. Figure out market frictions, figure out risk management. Get acquainted with all the ways in which real markets are different from theoretical ones. Get your hands dirty.