I work at a trading firm. RIP to the GOAT, the god of quants.Reading about him and RenTec, back in high school, was one of the first things that got me attracted to the field.
They should blame Xi. All these economic decisions wouldn't have happened had there been no COVID. The Chinese government deliberately released this lab-made bioweapon/virus, to see how it would negatively impact most of the world. From economies struggling, to people getting polarized and more divided, and supply chains getting affected, their move has been a massive intelligence success for them.
If anything, the western world needs to take a lot of strict action against the Chinese and also the tons of CCP sympathizers in their countries.
In the trading industry, DE Shaw and Five Rings are the two places that care about school prestige well into someone's career. All other firms don't give a crap about it once someone has some experience.
I went to a crap school in India and a mediocre US school for my grad work, still got interviews at trading firms as a new grad and an industry hire. Currently working at one right now, so I can say that I have seen it first-hand.
Their interns are easily the top 1% of CS students in the US. Some of their interns who attend CMU already have OCaml experience, as CMU uses OCaml for their compilers course. Some of their interns have interned at other trading firms.
Jane Street gets a shit ton of applicants. Every slightly ambitious college grad applies there. Same for experienced roles, it's full of FAANG folks hoping to get in.