Building a Future Beyond the Court

For Yaqub Mir, the path toward his future career started long before he stepped into the Dimensional Fund Advisors office in Charlotte, North Carolina.

A guard for the UC San Diego men's basketball team and a Data Science major in Roosevelt College, Mir has become increasingly interested in the intersection of technology, data, and finance. A Big West Conference Honor Roll selection, Mir has continued to excel academically while building toward his future career. This summer, he had the opportunity to take that interest from the classroom into the workplace, spending approximately 10 weeks as an Investment Engineer Intern with Dimensional Fund Advisors.

Dimensional Fund Advisors is a global investment management firm whose approach is rooted in academic research, financial economics, and systematic portfolio design. The firm manages more than $1 trillion in assets and has longstanding ties to financial academics dating back to its founding in 1981.

Based in downtown Charlotte for the summer, Mir worked in a role closely aligned with the career path he hopes to pursue.

“I was at an asset manager called Dimensional Fund Advisors, working as an investment engineer,” Mir said. “It was something I really wanted to get into because I’m majoring in Data Science and Finance. I want to work in that quantitative space within finance.”

The experience gave Mir an opportunity to see how the skills he has developed at UC San Diego could be applied in a professional setting while gaining a better understanding of what a career in quantitative finance could look like.

The Road to Charlotte

Landing the internship was not an easy process.

Mir began searching for opportunities nearly a year before the summer began, submitting applications through LinkedIn, Indeed, and company websites. In total, he estimates he applied to approximately 200 internships.

Only about 11 applications turned into interviews.

Dimensional was the opportunity that ultimately took him the farthest.

The interview process included three interviews followed by a Super Day, where Mir completed five interviews back-to-back. The interviews focused heavily on financial models, coding, and mathematics, requiring Mir to prepare beyond what he had already learned in the classroom.

“It was kind of like a test,” he said. “I had to study for those interviews as well.”

The preparation paid off. After successfully completing the interview process, Mir received an internship offer and accepted the position for the summer.

For Mir, accepting the opportunity also meant making the biggest move of his life.

Born and raised in Granite Bay, California, he traveled across the country to spend the summer in Charlotte. While moving away from home came with challenges, Mir said growing up as an only child helped him develop a sense of independence.

“I feel like I was always pretty independent, so I was okay with moving across the country,” he said.

He eventually found a roommate who was also interning in Charlotte, connecting through LinkedIn with a Wells Fargo investment banking intern.

Learning the Workforce

The transition from college to the professional world brought another adjustment.

Mir's typical workday began around 6 a.m. and could last until 6:30 or 7 p.m. Monday through Friday. Working around the financial markets meant long days, but the experience gave him a firsthand look at the rhythm and expectations of a full-time career.

“That was probably the biggest shift, just really experiencing what the workforce would feel like,” Mir said.

The intern cohort also provided an important balance to the demanding schedule. Getting to know other interns gave Mir a group of peers to connect with while navigating a new city and professional environment.

“It kind of helped having some friends there and keeping it more relaxed rather than just doing straight work the whole time,” he said.

While the experience introduced Mir to a new environment, it also allowed him to put his academic background into practice.

From Data to Impact

As an Investment Engineer Intern, Mir was tasked with analyzing how the company was requesting financial data through Bloomberg.

His project centered on Bloomberg Per Security REST API request data, which is used to retrieve investment-related information such as stock prices and other securities data.

Mir built a Python ETL pipeline to extract, transform, and load Bloomberg request information into three structured datasets. He then integrated the data with internal investment data in Snowflake using SQL to evaluate the efficiency and costs associated with different security requests.

The work ultimately allowed him to identify 18 inefficient Bloomberg Per Security API request patterns, depending on the type of security being requested.

One discovery involved inconsistent field-list IDs in Futures Prices metadata requests. The pattern contributed to stale data, slower processing, limited historical traceability, and increased costs.

For Mir, the project was an opportunity to work with the type of data he had been studying while seeing firsthand how those skills could contribute to a larger organization.

At the conclusion of his internship, Mir presented his project to senior leaders and executives within Dimensional's Investment Engineering Department.

For an intern, presenting months of work to a room of senior leaders and executives was a significant opportunity, and one that showed Mir how his work could have an impact beyond the classroom.

Connecting the Classroom and Career

Mir entered the internship with a foundation built through his Data Science coursework at UC San Diego.

Python, Pandas, and other data science tools gave him the technical skills necessary to work with and extract information from large datasets.

But the internship taught him something that could not be replicated entirely in a classroom.

“I think the workforce is like 30 times different from school,” Mir said.

While his classes provided the technical foundation, his time at Dimensional taught him how to apply those skills to real-world research and day-to-day business decisions.

“I think being there for those 10 weeks really helped me understand how to implement what I’ve learned into day-to-day research and the workforce.”

The experience also encouraged Mir to expand his academic interests.

During his time at UC San Diego, he added a minor in Finance, allowing him to explore the connection between the technical skills he has developed through Data Science and the financial concepts he encountered during his internship.

Now, he is taking additional finance courses as he continues building that foundation.

“I think that's what I'm most excited for right now,” Mir said. “Just getting a feel for how finance really works with numbers and statistics.”

More Than a Triton

On the basketball court, Yaqub Mir is a guard.

In the classroom, he is a Data Science major entering his senior year academically who has added Finance to his academic path.

In the workplace, he is an aspiring investment engineer who spent his summer turning data into insights.

His experience with Dimensional Fund Advisors showed him that the skills developed at UC San Diego can extend far beyond the classroom and that finding the right opportunity often requires persistence.

After applying to hundreds of internships and navigating a demanding interview process, Mir earned the chance to spend his summer across the country, working on a project with real implications for an investment management firm.

For Mir, working in that environment offered a glimpse into the career he hopes to build.

The internship also reinforced the value of combining different areas of study.

Data Science gave him the tools to work with the data. Finance is helping him understand the meaning behind the numbers. His experience as a scholar-athlete continues to teach him how to manage demanding schedules, adapt to new environments, and stay committed to long-term goals.

As he starts his senior year academically at UC San Diego, Mir is looking forward to taking more finance courses and exploring where the intersection of data and finance can take him.

His summer in Charlotte may have been his first extended experience in the professional world, but it was an important step toward the future he is building.

For Yaqub Mir, the numbers are only the beginning.

Fuel the Future of Triton Athletics
Support scholar-athletes like Yaqub Mir by donating to the Triton Athletic Fund or the sport of your choice. Visit TritonAthleticFund.com for more information.

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About UC San Diego Athletics
After two decades as one of the most successful programs in NCAA Division II, the UC San Diego intercollegiate athletics program has begun a new era as a member of The Big West in NCAA Division I. The 24-sport Tritons earned 30 team and nearly 150 individual national championships during its time in Divisions II and III and helped guide 1,400 scholar-athletes to All-America honors. A total of 84 Tritons have earned Academic All-America honors, while 38 have garnered prestigious NCAA Post Graduate Scholarships. UC San Diego scholar-athletes exemplify the academic ideals of one of the world's preeminent institutions, graduating at an average rate of 90 percent, the highest rate among public institutions in NCAA Division I or II. For more information on the Tritons, visit UCSDtritons.com or follow UC San Diego Athletics on social media @UCSDtritons.