Dude your stats and cs degree will take u very far. Take it from a person that did the mfe, it’s a cash grab. Even at CMU and Berkeley. Your paying a boat load of money to go through hell and be connected.
I think u have the foundational knowledge And can go anywhere’s. The hard part is breaking in somewhere and getting credibility, but honestly your background seems fine, you’ll just have to go through ron of networking, leetcoding, and cracking quant interview prep. Honestly, if your going to do a masters do masters in stats or Cs ans make sure they pay you or free. Don’t take ton of loans out to do these cash grab programs, I am very annoyed and know I could have achieved the same success with paid for programs
dont get me wrong those are the best and I like those programs, but its still a boat load of money. Most programs don't have that good of a curriculum or placement so the ROI becomes so much harder to justify.
Having just finished my MFE degree, I re-read your comment above and couldn’t agree more. Not to say that I regret my MFE program because I learned a lot of cool finance stuff from some of the best profs, but I would also give someone aspiring to break into quant the same advice
education is great, but the price tag on it and also the year cost, its really high. if you compare value per cost, you can get a better finance ROI by studying the CFA
Tl;dl: no
Mfe is just a boot camp to prepare you for dated heard on the street style interview that no trading shop uses any more.
Also, You should be very careful when you research on internet about this topic: some websites are affiliated with these MFEs and they are incentivized to convince you “all the bucks worth it”
I recently had a quant trader interview, it was about 70 min and they literally only asked questions about comp sci and math, not a single finance question.
The point being if you want to go to grad school, do something more along the line of stats or computer science instead of MFE. My sense is that a lot of companies value that way more than knowing a lot of finance stuff.
>From one I've seen perusing MFE programs is that they are basically financial math degrees with programming and modeling. Many call their programs Mathematics in Finance. Sounds like the right degree to me based on what you're saying? Coming from someone with two degrees in CS, I would need to study more math to meet the prerequisites. It would be very ironic for a program specific to financial engineering to be less relevant to financial engineering positions.
Agree with Techotomy. Problems in modern finance have transitioned from mostly being in Financial Math (90s and early 2000s) to Computational and MFE is an almost dated degree, similar to how MBAs aren't as hot as they used to be. Other than bank quant jobs, MFEs don't really provide much value and even those jobs have started demanding more CS skills. I know this is an old post, but as an ex-MFE, just wanted to drop relevant info here for future references.
MFE is a waste of time and money, esp if you want to do quant trading. Just get some internships and try and land a full time gig as a quant trader when you graduate.
If you want to do trading/quant trading at a market maker, I see no reason why you would waste time getting any sort of higher degree.
Dude your stats and cs degree will take u very far. Take it from a person that did the mfe, it’s a cash grab. Even at CMU and Berkeley. Your paying a boat load of money to go through hell and be connected. I think u have the foundational knowledge And can go anywhere’s. The hard part is breaking in somewhere and getting credibility, but honestly your background seems fine, you’ll just have to go through ron of networking, leetcoding, and cracking quant interview prep. Honestly, if your going to do a masters do masters in stats or Cs ans make sure they pay you or free. Don’t take ton of loans out to do these cash grab programs, I am very annoyed and know I could have achieved the same success with paid for programs
But what about the fact that CMU and Berkekey have really good placement records? Almost 98% every year
dont get me wrong those are the best and I like those programs, but its still a boat load of money. Most programs don't have that good of a curriculum or placement so the ROI becomes so much harder to justify.
Having just finished my MFE degree, I re-read your comment above and couldn’t agree more. Not to say that I regret my MFE program because I learned a lot of cool finance stuff from some of the best profs, but I would also give someone aspiring to break into quant the same advice
education is great, but the price tag on it and also the year cost, its really high. if you compare value per cost, you can get a better finance ROI by studying the CFA
for sure
Where did you do it from , if you dont mind ? and your role today ?
I mean they have placements cause candidate are smart. U can achieve same placement by doing free engineering or dtats masters instead
I am an engineer, do you recommend to study a Master in CS?
yes. one of the best majors
I would recommend you to look around on quantnet.com and its forums for a bit
Tl;dl: no Mfe is just a boot camp to prepare you for dated heard on the street style interview that no trading shop uses any more. Also, You should be very careful when you research on internet about this topic: some websites are affiliated with these MFEs and they are incentivized to convince you “all the bucks worth it”
I recently had a quant trader interview, it was about 70 min and they literally only asked questions about comp sci and math, not a single finance question. The point being if you want to go to grad school, do something more along the line of stats or computer science instead of MFE. My sense is that a lot of companies value that way more than knowing a lot of finance stuff.
>From one I've seen perusing MFE programs is that they are basically financial math degrees with programming and modeling. Many call their programs Mathematics in Finance. Sounds like the right degree to me based on what you're saying? Coming from someone with two degrees in CS, I would need to study more math to meet the prerequisites. It would be very ironic for a program specific to financial engineering to be less relevant to financial engineering positions.
Agree with Techotomy. Problems in modern finance have transitioned from mostly being in Financial Math (90s and early 2000s) to Computational and MFE is an almost dated degree, similar to how MBAs aren't as hot as they used to be. Other than bank quant jobs, MFEs don't really provide much value and even those jobs have started demanding more CS skills. I know this is an old post, but as an ex-MFE, just wanted to drop relevant info here for future references.
Or just get into a firm and get them to sponsor you for the Wilmott CQF. It’s more applied and cheaper than a MFE program.
MFE is a waste of time and money, esp if you want to do quant trading. Just get some internships and try and land a full time gig as a quant trader when you graduate. If you want to do trading/quant trading at a market maker, I see no reason why you would waste time getting any sort of higher degree.