Baruch College - Master in Financial Engineering

Attending this program has been one of the best decisions of my life. The cohort is small, with fewer than 30 people, allowing you to engage directly with brilliant professors. The alumni network is extremely supportive, and the career support is excellent!

Unparalleled career support compared to any other program I know. Students don't lack interview opportunities from top prop shops, hedge funds, to investment banks. Small class so everyone knows each other.
Some courses have high workloads and students need to balance themselves between coursework and interview preparation.

We have amazing courses taught by excellent instructors. The smaller class size allows everyone to get to know each other. Alumni, faculty and staff are super helpful and caring.

Really like the Microstructure course taught by Prof Taiho Wong, learnt a lot from this and try to implement some ideas in the crypto market and it's no suprise that these ideas are working

We have faculties with rich experience in either the academia or the industry, successful and helpful alumni, and the most competitive students.
(Also the tuition is half of a certain comparable program.)

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.

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.

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”.

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

Emphasis on strong technical skills. Overwhelming amount of work. Fantastic career services.

What do you think is unique about this program?
Its emphasis on developing hard skills: strong familiarity with a large number of programming languages (C++, Python, R, VBA, Matlab, Unix) and methods from statistics and applied math. The curriculum also does not sacrifice a thorough review of financial concepts or advanced mathematics, like stochastic calculus. I was able to put a lot of great stuff on my resume and had a strong foundation to pursue in my career the areas I found most interesting.

What are the weakest points about this program?
It expects students to absorb a large and diverse amount of material in a short amount of time. Often it felt difficult to master the small number of things I cared about when I had to tackle so many topics. You can still be very successful in this environment, though, if you set aside enough time and take charge of your education.

Career services
Fantastic. Most of my interviews came through personal connections with faculty and alumni rather than recruiters or career websites. Career services are not limited to getting people their first placement. I have heard many stories of alumni finding their second jobs through the Baruch MFE network as well.

Student body
A diverse range of students. The students are also very hard-working and ambitious. This creates a great, competitive atmosphere that really pushes you to be the best you can be. People are, at the same time, very friendly and civil with one another. I think this is because of the small size of the program and the frequency of interaction with other students.

The program has the ability to change lives.

Unique about this program
The personal attention given by the program director is something I have not seen at any other school. In addition the commitment of the alumni to help grow the program is outstanding whether it is in monetary terms or in terms of employment opportunities. Not only do the alumni assist from the outside, they come out to the events that are organised by the program. A really good friend that I made after coming to this program was someone who graduated before me. There are MANY great qualities to this program but that is what I think might be a bit unique although many schools have great alumni who help out a lot. The usual.. great placements..great job opportunities are not unique because all the top 3-4 programs provide this.

The program not only prepares you for a wall street career by giving u education but also psychologically.

Weakest points about the program
This question is a bit strange in my opinion. There was nothing that I would say I "hated" or would consider "worst" but there were some things that could be improved. The question before should have been what is "good" about this program. The two part stochastic calculus requirement can be a bit cumbersome on students who are not really interested in becoming heavy quants. It would be nice to have the first part as requirement and the second as optional. The course when I was taught was by a very mathematically oriented person leading to very minimal real world examples in my opinion. The course is taught in a three professor rotation so maybe the other professors are great.

From what I have heard this is something that is actually being looked at. Other than that I really have no complaints about this program. I was treated well, I was helped whenever possible with any queries and I made some great friends in the program.

Career services
This is probably the best thing about the program. I was someone who had no finance or business experience before I came here. I was an engineer and had mostly engineering experiences. The placement services in my mind are outstanding. I had several internship interviews and offers through the program although I chose to go with an offer that I attained myself.
The way the career services primarily works at Baruch MFE is through Dan Stefanica. We get emails around recruiting season and a few during the off-season with jobs from alumni/contacts/recruiters/firm hr/etc. The email usually asks us to send our resumes to Dan and then he takes care of it. There were students in my year who got interviews to position they never even applied to. It is a true "placement" system. You send your resume to Dan and you show up prepared for the interviews.
We now have companies who have made us a target program and the MD's come and try to recruit us personally with talks and presentations. Dan also hand picks students who he knows will succeed so if you get the interview you most likely will get the job because the program prepares you well.
When I was there, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan came onto campus and gave us a talk for their quant program. We went to UBS and got a presentation from them.
I am told now that many other quant programs of different firms are coming on campus to recruit us and the procedure has got a bit more structured where we have to apply on their website and the resumes get sent through Dan and the university recruiting system.
The best part is that, the jobs are not just entry level positions. Several jobs at senior level are sent out too since as an alumni you are put on the mailing list and anyone can apply even 5 years after graduation. Hedge funds, software and technology companies, investment banks and prop firms are all part of the firms that recruit with us now. There were a few students who got full-time positions through the career services within the 2nd semester in the program and switched to part time. There are people who are working in algo trading,research, risk management, software development, etc from my year.

I chose to go work for an investment bank for my internship out of several offers, where I was given a full-time offer for after graduation. I worked as a trading assistant at a hedge fund during the school year before I went over to the bank. There were two more in my year who got part-time jobs at financial firms in their first or 2nd semester.

The program has great career services and I can only see it getting better.

Students
I spoke about the student body above. I have been fortunate enough to make some good friends. The two friends that I hang out regularly since I graduated include one who was in my year and another who graduated before me from the same program. There was a lot of competition between students in my year but I am sure that is everywhere.

Learned about the program from Quantnet

I am a recent graduate of the program and thought I would provide my perspective in the hopes of informing prospective students as well trying to improve the experience. The program's strengths revolve around a very committed academic environment. Students work very closely with one another and have constant interaction with professors. Professors are always available and have a very good sense of how students are developing through the program. To me, this is what really separates Baruch’s program from its peers. There is a constant push from professors to improve, and I get the sense that professors take great pride in their students' development. This is aided by a relatively small class size and stands in contrast to many other MFE programs where professors sometimes view teaching as a tertiary concern.

The course selection is well done. There is a basic pricing and programming class, and two semesters of numerical methods (monte carlo, trees, pde's, every possible way to decompose a matrix...). The numerical methods courses are very C++ heavy, and I learned to love the cruel mistress of objected oriented programming. There are more topical courses, such as risk management, structured finance, and market microstructure. The largest departure from the standard MFE curriculum is the two semesters devoted to probability/stochastic calculus. This tends to be more than other programs do. While perhaps somewhat theory heavy, it does give students a very strong mathematical background, and with the addition of Gatheral to the faculty, allows students to fully appreciate stochastic volatility. The more topical courses tend to be taught by industry professionals, who then often recruit promising students for positions.

Placement is good. There are plenty of statistics on this, and I don't think they need to be rehashed here. I will say that career services tends to be somewhat informal, with much of the actual placement coming from the program director, Dr. Stefanica. The advantage of such an arrangement is that he has a very good sense of a given student's strengths and interests and is therefore able to place students in appropriate positions. I think as the program continuous to mature this process needs to be formalized and perhaps some of the work shifted to another professor or dedicated resource, as the current process seems hard to scale.

I have only one major complaint about the program, which is the lack of a formal statistics/econometrics class. This may be changing soon with a statistics class added as an option for Fall 2011. There was a three-day stats seminar that many students attended, but I don't believe that one can really absorb such a topic in 10 hour marathon sessions. For prospective students, I would try to learn this outside the program.

Excellent students and faculty

I believe the quality of the students and faculty represents the core strength of the program. From my experience, the students are intelligent and competitive but not to the point where it hinders collaboration. I truly felt that all the students from my cohort were willing to take the time to help one another. It's easy to see that the faculty enjoys teaching and are there to ensure that students really learn and acquire skills needed for employment.

Reviewer's background:
My educational background was originally in electrical engineering and materials science. I worked in the semiconductor industry for a few years before deciding to enroll in the Baruch MFE program in the hopes of switching my career to finance. I chose Baruch since I felt that it provided the best value, given its high job placement rate and low tuition. I was also very impressed by the fact that the program director was genuinely interested in the success of his students.

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
I entered the program straight out of undergrad in finance, with 2 years of part-time experience in consulting. My math and programming knowledge was coming mostly from high-school.
GRE: V450, Q790.
I studied full-time in the program from 9/2009-12/2010

Why did you choose this program?
Strong syllabus, good location, low tuition.

Tell us about the application process at this program
Application process was smooth; everyone I had to contact was very nice. The online application tracking system is very helpful

Does this program offer refresher courses for incoming students? How useful was it?
Refresher courses are very useful. I kept referring to my notes from refreshers throughout whole program.

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
The course selection is very well structured, if not that flexible. Since I am coming from financial background, my favorite classes were those which concentrated in finance more that math or programming. Two very best classes were Pricing of Financial Instruments and Structured Finance.

Tell us about the quality of teaching
Teaching is done by both practitioners and academics. All professors were available to help students, regardless of whether they work in the industry or not. Mostly I was using Lecture Notes, taken or provided by professors. Lecture notes provided in Probability and Stochastic Calculus were very helpful

Programming component of the program
Mostly C++, some VBA. We had a separate class for OOP in C++. Also program offers many weekend workshops where students can pick up basics of other languages

Projects
Everyone in the program has to do a Capstone Project, which depending on the student's preferences can involve more programming or research. Project can be done individually or in groups.

Career service
Career service is amazing. Professor Stefanica is doing great job of placing his students for both internships ans full time positions.

What do you like about the program?
There are many great things - curriculum, professors, students. The thing I like most is that MFE students have a separate library, which has all the necessary books and where we could all study together.

What DON'T you like about the program? What changes would you like made?
Some of the courses are taught by multiple professors, which makes material less structured. As I mentioned, there was little flexibility. If you were a FT student in my year you had no choice for first two semesters. I know it is changing now, and I think it's great.

What are your current job status?
Research analyst