NYU Tandon School of Engineering - MS in Financial Engineering

I’m a current MFE student (graduating May 2026) with a focus on energy. I came into the program from a finance undergrad with strong motivation but a clear need for deeper mathematical fundamentals, real research experience, and better industry access. After 1.5 years in the program, I’m very happy with my decision to come here. Below are what I consider the strongest aspects of the program, in order, though the lower points are not weak by any means.

1) Community & Culture

Beyond academic rigor, the professors genuinely care about your success and take a personal interest in helping you reach your goals. If you are proactive about your education, they respond exceptionally well -- guiding you toward the projects, topics, and skill sets that matter most for your career.

The cohort is also large and diverse. We are one of the largest across MFE programs ranked on QuantNet. You meet people with different backgrounds, strengths, and industry experiences. These classmates become your study partners, project teammates, and, eventually, part of your professional network. People here work extremely hard, and I’m confident I’ll stay in touch with many of them for years.

The programs administration team are equally supportive. They consistently approach student requests with a “How can we help this student get where they want to go?” mindset from the top down. Whether that means adjusting schedules to accommodate a job, helping with cross-registration, or advising on long-term career goals.

2) Academics & Research Opportunities

The curriculum is rigorous and flexible. Industry-practitioner faculty are extremely strong, and more excellent professors have been joining recently.

If you want deep theory, you can take multiple PhD-level classes that count toward the MFE. If you want practical quant research experience, opportunities are abundant.

You can also cross-register for courses across schools in NYU: Courant, Data Science, Stern, and others. This adds a huge amount of breadth and depth that many other MFEs simply don’t offer.

Importantly, the program is what you make of it. If you are genuinely passionate and actively involved in the subjects you came here to study, you will get enormous value. If you lose interest but still expect top outcomes, you might not have the same experience.

Many of the practitioner professors also go beyond teaching — they help students find internships, refer them for roles, and in some cases hire them for part-time or full-time work.

Professors who have made a particularly strong impact that I'd recommend students learn from are: Bouchouev, Ivan, Yao, Conklin, Shimko, Tang, Perry, Abousallah.

3) Careers

Career support is a real strength at Tandon, especially if you’re willing to put in effort and engage early.

Our careers director, Sara, works incredibly hard on behalf of the students. She supports networking, interview preparation, and overall positioning for competitive roles. The internal job portal she curates is excellent. Many of the strongest roles each year (hedge funds, banks, trading firms, quant/data science positions, and more) come through it.

I will be joining an oil major in their trading arm, which was a perfect match for my energy focus and research interests. I believe the program prepared me extremely well for this path.



The NYU Tandon MFE program rewards motivated, curious, proactive students. If you embrace the coursework, leverage the research ecosystem, and engage with the community, the return on investment is high.

I’m grateful I chose this program and would make the same decision again.

Since the MFE program is highly career-oriented, most applicants aim to secure strong job opportunities upon graduation. I will focus on the program’s career-support advantages:

1) Industry-aligned curriculum
The course structure closely mirrors real-world industry requirements. The program invites numerous practitioners from both the buy side (e.g., former portfolio managers at top hedge funds) and the sell side (e.g., MD-level quants, risk managers, and traders). The coursework is hands-on and project-driven, allowing students to build impressive, industry-relevant projects that significantly strengthen their résumés and improve their chances of receiving interviews.

Because many professors come directly from industry—and some even run their own firms—they frequently hire students as interns or even full-time employees. This direct access to industry practitioners is an invaluable advantage.

2) FRE Careers Technical Interview Mentorship Program
https://engineering.nyu.edu/academics/departments/finance-and-risk-engineering/employment-outcome/fre-careers-technical-interview-mentorship-program

I am also one of the mentors in this program. We provide free one-on-one mock interviews and interview preparation sessions for students seeking summer internships or full-time positions. Each mentor specializes in one or two technical areas.

This mentoring program helps students avoid low-level mistakes and, more importantly, narrow down the scope of their interview preparation based on specific job targets. Most mentors have many years of industry experience. As interviewers, we have spoken with hundreds of candidates; as interviewees, we have gone through hundreds of interviews ourselves. This depth of experience is extremely valuable for students, especially those who are new to the U.S. and just beginning their career journey.

My time in the NYU MFE program has been very valuable. The curriculum offers rigorous, technical courses for those who want to deepen their academic foundation, while also providing lighter-workload options for students who wish to focus more on job searching.

In addition, the alumni network is incredibly supportive, and many alumni are generous with their time and willing to share their career insights. In my own experience, I contacted alumni who had worked at the same company I was applying to, and their guidance on interview preparation and team culture played a key role in helping me secure opportunities.

Like many things in life, people can have different opinions about the same experience, and the NYU MFE program is no exception. I can only speak from my own experience.

For me personally, the NYU MFE program opened a door that would otherwise have been impossible to reach. Academically, the program offers a mix of professors with strong industry backgrounds who can bring real-world insights and connections, and others who are deeply focused on theory and dive into the fundamental logic of mathematical models, both perspectives are valuable depending on what you’re looking for.

On the career side, we have Sara, who provides thoughtful career guidance and organizes events that connect students with alumni and help us better understand the industry landscape. I’ve even heard from alumni who said that Sara is one of the main reasons they still stay connected to the program. She truly builds a sense of community that lasts beyond graduation.

I’m genuinely grateful for this program personally. Of course, no master’s degree alone guarantees an ideal job, you still need to find your own direction and put in great effort. But if you’re looking for a solid ladder to help you climb toward your goals, NYU MFE is definitely a great choice that can make a real difference.

I actually come from a DS background rather than a traditional quant path, and the NYU MFE program turned out to be an incredibly valuable experience for me, which might be helpful to students with similar profiles who want to explore data science roles within the finance industry.

The best part of my FRE experience was definitely the career placement and alumni network. I found my summer internship through an internal posting on the FRE Net (thanks to Sara’s help!) — it was a financial DS role that gave me hands-on exposure to modeling in a real business context. Later, my full-time opportunity came from a referral by a senior classmate, who also guided me through the preparation process. Without this program and its community, I truly wouldn’t be where I am today.

That said, it’s important for future applicants to keep realistic expectations. Securing a full-time role in the U.S. is competitive and not something any program can guarantee. But compared with peer-level MFE programs, FRE does a solid job providing access to opportunities and mentorship for those who are proactive.

Overall, I’m deeply grateful for the program — it opened the door for my transition from data science into the finance domain, and gave me the foundation for the career I have now.

NYU FRE has amazing career support and a solid academic foundation. From day one, we had access to workshops, resume reviews, and mock interviews that really helped me prepare for the job market.

The courses are practical, and professors bring valuable real-world insights. Overall, the program has prepared me well for my future career.

- variety of electives to choose from.
- the placement coordinator is really supportive and helpful.
- academic advisors are great!
- cohort is quite competitive.
- the department encourages participation in multiple events
- having the option of taking Courant courses is unique to NYU

NYU FRE has the best career service! The program is somehow designed for preparing for work, which I really need.

During the Bootcamp, we work on technique interview related questions with professors. And we are asked to attend career workshop before the first semester, which is highly helpful for international students to understand how to find a job in US.

Sara, our career advisor, is super professional and sweet. Whenever I have career related question that bothers me for a long time, she can always help me out! Also, we have proficient resources for job hunting, including mock interview (both behavioral with Sara and technique with alumnus) , career workshops, templates of CV/cover letter/thank you letter. She also organized us to prepare for interview questions for share. I was impressed by the time when I made a mock interview appointment on Friday, and I was reached out by an alumni in only several hours. So efficient! Our alumnus are also super helpful and they are willing to share!

Feel proud of FRE!

I would like to share a few things for incoming or prospective NYU MFE students!

1. We have a large number of courses you can choose from for each semester, like machine learning, derivatives pricing, risk, quantitative trading, portfolio management... I want make it more specific, for machine learning, we have different courses like Machine Learning for Finance, Advanced Machine Learning, News Analysis.... If you like trading, we have Algorithmic and High Frequency Trading, Active Portfolio Management, Fixed Income Quantitative Trading, Quantitative Trading Strategies, Quantitative Equity Investment, and etc. I believe you will find the courses you like! These courses are all taught by professors from industry with senior title.

2. We have two Career Websites. One is by NYU, the other one is by MFE department. Most of the time, we use our department career net. Our career replacement director, Sara, is the most helpful career director I have ever met. She organizes many on-campus recruiting events for our students, post many "only for NYU MFE student" jobs, provides helps from resume to interviews, literally, everything. She is not only helping you with job findings, but also "pushing" you to find a job. If you do not apply jobs through MFE career net, she would send you an email to understand why and she would be more than willing to help you with any problems! She even contacted many international companies, like securities company and funds in China to give more opportunities to students who want to work outside US.

3. The third one is for students who would like to apply for PhD in the future. As we all know, most of students get a MFE degree and then go to the industry. But it is not uncommon that MFE students in our department decide to pursue a PhD. We have capstone research projects, thesis, industry research opportunities, and other research opportunities which can equip you with a strong research ability. I really appreciate Professor Carr's time and helps! It was an honor to be his student! He helped me with everything regarding my PhD application. For this semester, he is working with 4 students who apply for PhD. We all got offers, like Johns Hopkins University, NYU Courant, University of California, Santa Barbara, Boston University, and University of Utah. Without Professor Carr's help, we could not even make this happen! So I would say, our department is not only helping students get into industry, but also providing numerous helps to students who want to get a PhD!

I would like to share my experience not as a NYU MS FRE student but as a NYU Tandon School of Engineering international grad MS student from another program. Last 2017 Spring semester I took Corporate Finance at the FRE Department, it was a really great course that I highly recommend, the Professor is a master on the topic and with tons of practical experience of real cases and advisory experience to financial institutions around the world, he taught us how to really apply financial thinking and tools to real cases and CFO's challenges.
I believe important to share this really positive experience, as a student who is trying to pursue a career on investment banking and project finance, I am convinced that through the practical expertise taught at the NYU FRE Department students are really wining what we should be looking from our graduate experience, real world tools and skills in order to succeed on our future careers.

Currently student here. Someone asks to name some students who go to bb. Here is the situation. We have Barclays Capital, Goldman Sachs, Moore Capital, JPM. That's just what i have known so far.

About the courses, i would say some of them are great and some of them are easy.
Programming: Financial Computing(C++), great course taught by great professor. Algo Portfolio Management, which requires high level R language and relevant portfolio knowledge. Fixed Income Quantitative Trading, use python to write trading strategy.
Math: Stochastic, Continuous time finance are really great and important course for quant.(btw, CTF is taught by Peter)

This program is definitely in progress since peter came here and we got a lot of opportunities in career. And recently Sarah was invited to be our career mentor who was responsible for campus recruiting at Morgan Stanley.

I would say it's a great program overall.

I am recently graduated from NYU Tandon, and I would like to share some point of views.
Pros of the program:
1. The program has four tracks, and the curriculum is well diversified, so you are free to choose the classes and areas you are interested in. Mostly, I took courses related to quantitative finance, covering area like stochastic calculus, numeric methods, asset pricing, programming labs, etc. And they are adding some new courses each semester.
2. There are many great professors in the program. I took classes from Agnes Tourin, Andrew Papanicolaou, Song Tang and so on. Their lessons covered useful knowledge needed in quantitative finance. Also, they are very responsible and kind to help and answer my questions.
3. The program has a new placement director Sara Tomeo before I graduated. She is very resourceful and experienced. She shares many information and opportunities about internship and full-time jobs.
Cons of the program:
1. Since the program has four tracks, and the curriculum is diversified, it might not be enough if you want to focus on a specific area. Also, there are not many math courses, so you have to choose from other departments.
In conclusion, I think the program is improving.

I am a currently enrolled student. I would like to share some views.
Pros.
1, Ever since Peter Carr came to Tandon, he keeps inviting people with industry experience came to teach lessons, like Edith Mandel, Pierre-Yves Guillo etc.
2, New placement director Sara is resourceful and experienced. She keeps us informed with multiple internship / full time job opportunities which is hard to find in internet. Many students have found internship this year with the help of Sara.
3, Some professors have amazing teaching skills which explain widely regarded complex knowledge in a very understandable way. Especially Prof. Tang’s C++ class.
4, Classmates are talented. Again, since Peter Carr joined us, the admission becomes more selective. Most students from China are from ‘985’ or ‘211’ university with background like mathematic, physics, computer science, etc. Students from Tsinghua, Peking, Fudan and SJTU are common seen here.
Cons.
1, Like most programs, there are some curriculums which are too theoretical.
2, It’s a traditional MFE program with traditional curriculums. Personally speaking, it would be better if more Data-Science related courses were added. Like Hadoop, Storm and Spark etc.

In conclusion, the program is rising. Welcome aboard.

Below is an email from a professor at NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering.

1. How many full-time students and part-time students will be enrolled in this program(2014 Fall)?
We try to have between 75 and 90 new students each fall. Sometimes there are more, sometimes fewer. Almost all are full-time — perhaps 90%.

2. How is the diversity of students like? How many are Chinese students?
Students right now come from (I think) 23 countries. As we look for students with the highest mathematical abilities and China has a wonderful mathematical education for young people there are a lot of students from China — right now, about 1/2 of the student population.

3. How is the placement of international graduates?
Job placement depends mostly on the strength of the economy. Things have been getting better each year since the crisis of 2008-9, but we are not yet back to the days of 2007. Our top international students generally have good job offers, and some have multiple offers to choose between. Our average students usually get good jobs too. The students who graduate with the lowest grades or who have problems presenting themselves in English or as professionals take longer time to get employed. As a rule, students don’t tell me everything about their situations so what I am writing to you is a summary of anecdotal data and not the results of statistical analysis.

I am a second year student in this program. It has been changed a lot. Sto Calc is now one semester's long (3 cr), tracks and courses are more flexible. Lab courses and topics/practice courses are well organized and diversed. NYU resources are fully opened to us. Most poly FE students got on-campus interviews from those big names. Many international students (at least half) secured summer internships in New York area including BB and top consulting firms. I am super confident that the program is within one of the most valuable programs.

The MFE program provides a great opportunity for learning the skills required to add value on day one to any trading floor on the street.

What do you think is unique about this program?
While the program teaches both theoretical and applied financial engineering, there is a strong preference to focus on the latter. I found this is unique and proves to be exceptionally beneficial when entering the workforce since you will be able to hit the ground running on day one.

What are the weakest points about this program?
The program is still undergoing a transition to become NYU's school of engineering. This transition is not quite finished, but should be done soon.

Career services
You will have access to the standard NYU career services.They use both the career services offered by the program and by networking. They typically end up on trading floors on either the buyside or sellside. Some go into a career of risk management, some go into trading and some go into quant modelling.

Student body
The students are smart and competitive