Baruch College Financial Engineering program

Baruch College Financial Engineering program

Overview Tuition Reviews (24)
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Established
2002
Type
Full-time, part-time
Application deadline
Apr 1
Location
New York, NY
Bernard M. Baruch College, more commonly known as Baruch College, is a constituent college of the City University of New York, located in the Flatiron district of Manhattan, New York City.

History
In the Fall 2002, the Mathematics Department at Baruch College introduced a new Master program Applied Mathematics for Finance. The program was initiated by Dr. Matthew Goldstein, Chancellor of The City University of New York, when he was President of Baruch College, and was established under the direction of Executive Vice Chancellor Alexandra Logue, then Dean of the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences at Baruch College.

The program was later renamed Masters in Financial Engineering in the Fall 2007 to reflect the growing number of practitioners teaching in the program.

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YearApplicantsAdmittedEnrolled
20061843626
20073374245
20085145740
20093532924
20104673528
20116724330
20126403731
20135153727


Academics
Over the years, the program has transformed from theoretical, mathematical focused into a practical, computational focused with many new cutting-edge courses being offered as a result of suggestions from its alumni, teaching adjuncts and industry connections.
The program is known today for its emphasis on providing its graduates a very strong practical and technical training.

Trading floor
The Wasserman Trading Floor in the Subotnick Financial Services Center is one of the largest and most technologically advanced educational facilities of its kind.
The Trading Floor contains 42 Dell Precision Workstations running the Windows XP Professional operating system. Real-time data is provided by Reuters using their 3000 Xtra service and Kobra applications suite.
The Center contains four main areas: The Trading Floor, the Development Classroom, the Research Facility and the Seminar Room.
The Wasserman Trading Floor in the Subotnick Financial Services Center is one of the largest and most complete educational facilities of its kind. The Center introduces Baruch College students to economic, financial, journalism, and technology principles using professional market data systems and analytic software.

Competition
The Baruch MFE program began competing in the Rotman International Trading Competition (RITC) since 2009.
In 2013, team Baruch MFE tied for 3rd.
In 2012, two Baruch MFE teams ranked in #1 and #4 overall standing.
In 2011, the Baruch MFE team ranked #3 overall after MIT and University of Chicago.
In 2010, the Baruch MFE team ranked #13 overall.
In 2009, the Baruch MFE team ranked #10 overall.
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Author
Andy Nguyen
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Latest reviews

Y
The most practical knowledge is being taught here, I still constantly review my school notes several years after I finished the program. Excellent career service! Very sweet and warm hearted community.
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A
Amazing program. Smaller community makes everyone really close in the program. I can always get warm help from our alumni. The network is really strong. Well-designed and practical courses are truly useful for the future career. Dan and faculties genuinely try their best to help students.
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PonyMFE
Application process is fast. First from Wang and Second round from Dan go in less than a week.
Smaller group than other MFE program, which makes everyone know each other and 1.5yr time enough to help you make real new friends in Baruch. What's better, the alumni are really nice and helpful. I think it is also due to the small communities.
Cutting-edge and advanced courses. Sometimes you find you have known it in work before it is published. Also, this is highly-recommended when in the interview, the interviewers are also familiar with Baruch MFE. So, no worries about the “big name”.
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Xiangyu Gu
One thing that Dr Dan Stefanica mentioned in the pre-MFE class is that the program is planning to launch a "accent reduction" program, since a great port of the student body is from non-English speaking countries. I can hardly imagine that any other program would even think about issues like this, and believe it or not, this might be surprisingly useful. And beyond that, only programs as caring as the one at Baruch would come up with ideas like this.

I think that among all the programs out there, Baruch has one of the strongest group of faculties. They are excellent on both academic and industrial side, and more importantly, they are extremely considerate.
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Tianyu Li
The program which giving you full support and all you need for success:
Most devoted director + top tier faculty + strong and reachable alumni network + close connection to academic and industry + very high placement rate + part-time student friendly + affordable tuition
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Sally Liu
If you feel very lucky, do not take it for granted. The professors really did a lot of networking for you behind the scene.

If you feel unlucky, do not give up. Have faith in the Baruch MFE community and there will be a way out!
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YYe
Baruch MFE is a small and highly demanding program. Its director Dan is extremely dedicated to the success of his students. He gives great support to all his students for them to be successful in their careers.
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N
1. Dr. Stefanica, the program director is one of the most devoted and dedicated people I've met. He genuinely cares and helps the students to be successful.
2. The program provides a variety of opportunities ranging from specific opening to general professional development.
3. The alumni network is very strong with Dr. Stefanica being the central node.
4. I always received help whenever I reached out to my classmates.
One of the best decisions I've made in my life.
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MRoss
I joined Baruch straight out of Bachelor’s (Math/Finance). I had one finance internship prior to joining.

Baruch was the obvious choice over other programs for a variety of reasons: cost, close-knit classes, excellent professors, and exceptional job placement.

The refresher courses offered (mandatory) are essentially sped up pre-MFE courses. They are incredibly difficult with a class and homework every day of the week. But they really prepare everyone and put them in the right mindset for how difficult the actual courses are.

The course selection is truly amazing. There are classes for everyone from Market Microstructure to Risk Management. All courses are taught by real life practitioners which is very evident; you can almost smell their passion for the material they are teaching. Dan Stefanica himself teachers the two Numerical Method courses, and he is a fantastic teacher as well. Most of the professors are engaging and exciting. Homeworks are mostly completed in groups but that does not change how difficult they are. People with full time jobs should absolutely not do this program full time.

While the only requirement in joining is some C++ knowledge, students leave this programming knowing C++, VBA, Python, and R (at least). Since most of the teachers are practitioners they require that their homeworks be submitted in their native programming language. This leaves the students having exposure to a much wider variety of languages then is found elsewhere.

As far as job placement is concerned. It is not just that “Baruch has excellent placement”. It is that Baruch molds us all into “place-able students”. We are literally taught everything from what shoes to wear to how to conduct ourselves at interviews. While most programs focus 100% on course material, Baruch understands that no matter what job one is applying for there will always be a large soft-skills component. I can say firsthand that this feature alone has changed my life.

But perhaps everything aside what stands out more than anything in this program is how close all the students are with one another. Each student cares deeply about the wellbeing of the other (as does the Dean!). My friends not having an internship became my problem as well. When I was having difficulty with a particular programming project I had no less than five other students working with me for hours in order to ensure I submitted my project on time. I will most likely keep in touch with these guys for my entire career.
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An outstanding MFE program in NYC

What do you think is unique about this program?
What is unique about Baruch MFE is its culture of success. Dan (the program Director) has a significant effect on the program by requiring hard work and results. My impression is that other programs' key selling point is their host school reputation.
Baruch MFE on the other hand has had consistent top results in competitions with other schools. Another consequence of this trait is the very positive feedback our students get during the recruiting process.

While not perhaps unique, other useful features of the program are:
- the Quant Lab - where students can work, cooperate and have access to financial books and Bloomberg terminals.
- excellent faculty(that's an understatement) - a great mix of full time staff and industry professionals.

What are the weakest points about this program?
Nothing that comes to mind at this moment. I am sure that whatever it is, Dan is currently working on fixing it.

Career services
This is one of the best features of Baruch MFE. Dan has a no student left unemployed mentality. I applied to Baruch MFE (and only to Baruch MFE) because of the reviews that Dan got (on quantnet) and he did not disappoint. He is one of the hardest working and ambitious people that I know.

The way I see it is the following:
- the selection process is very rigorous and best applicants get admitted to the program (and the smartest among them accept).
- the program is outstanding in quality and in teaching students useful skills
- students go to interviews and leave a good impression with potential employers
- best fit students get summer internships and full time positions
- employers recognize the skill, hard work and can-do attitude of Baruch MFE students/alumni and come back for more

I can guarantee you that if you get accepted into the program and work hard you will have a good full-time job after (if not before) finishing the program.

Student body
The admission process is very good and it is easy to deal with smart and positive students. The program is very small and everybody knows everybody else. Many classes require team work. There is competition and cooperation and that makes the program better.
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