University of California, Berkeley - Master of Financial Engineering

I came into the Berkeley MFE programme expecting world-class instruction, strong career support, and a collaborative student environment. Unfortunately, what I found was a disorganised, poorly managed, and at times, downright demoralising experience.

Let’s start with leadership. In just one year, the programme cycled through THREE executive directors. For six months, there wasn’t even a career services director—an unbelievable failure for a programme that advertises career outcomes as one of its main strengths. During this time, students were left completely unsupported at a crucial stage of their job search.

To make matters worse, the programme office, led by Diane, made life difficult for students whose ambitions didn’t align with the office’s narrow view of acceptable career paths. I’ve never seen an administrator act so openly against student interests. Rather than supporting students in their goals, Diane and her team seemed to actively discourage independence, even when students were working hard to secure top-tier roles on their own.

Academics: Promising but Poorly Executed

The coursework itself is interesting, and some professors are genuinely excellent. The problem lies in the delivery. Cramming such dense material into eight-week modules makes real learning incredibly difficult. There's barely time to absorb the basics before you're thrown into exams or rushed group projects.

Even more concerning is the culture around academic integrity. Cheating is widespread—and worse, tolerated. The system unintentionally encourages students to game assignments and collaborate unethically. There’s no incentive to learn properly when it’s so much easier—and more effective—to cut corners. Linda, who is supposed to uphold academic standards, seems largely indifferent.

Career Services: A Stunning Letdown

To describe the current state of career services as "non-existent" would be to offer an unearned compliment. Career support, at present, is a disaster. Several students who landed roles at leading hedge funds or quant firms did so entirely on their own. In some cases, the MFE office actually stood in the way. When Ann Marie was finally hired to lead career services, many hoped things would improve. They didn’t. She lacked even basic knowledge of the finance world—unable to distinguish between banks and hedge funds, unfamiliar with firms like BNP Paribas, and utterly unaware of what quantitative roles entail. She encouraged students to apply to unrelated start-ups in San Francisco, which felt like a complete misunderstanding of our goals.

The new programme director, Dr. Ananth Madhavan, appears more enamoured with abstract curricular reform than with the immediate and pressing needs of job-seeking students. His “long-term vision” may bear fruit someday, but it offers little comfort to the current cohort staring down fast-approaching graduation dates.

To her credit, Linda has an uncanny knack for securing placements—but only for those lucky enough to fall within her circle of favour. If you’re considering this programme, take note: success may depend less on merit and more on the quality of your flattery.

And let me be clear: the placement numbers the programme advertises are heavily manipulated, if not blatantly false. They are designed to impress prospective students and recruiters, not to reflect the truth.

Cohort and Culture: Competitive to a Fault

The cohort is undeniably smart. But the culture is cutthroat. Students don’t share resources, don’t help each other, and in some cases, actively withhold information to gain an edge. One student, for example, accepted a job in January but kept his résumé in circulation, gathering ten offers—each one taking away an opportunity from someone else. It’s every man (or woman) for themselves, and if you're expecting a collaborative or supportive group of peers, you're in for a rude awakening.

Final Verdict

Unless you have absolutely no better option, I would not recommend the UC Berkeley MFE. You’ll likely leave the programme frustrated, possibly underprepared, and without meaningful support in your job search. The teaching has potential, but is rushed. The career services are dysfunctional. The office politics are exhausting. And the community is anything but supportive.

If you're serious about a future in quantitative finance or asset management, I would strongly advise looking at other top programmes—Princeton, CMU, Columbia, or Chicago all offer better structure, fairer environments, and more reliable career support. Berkeley may have the brand, but right now, the programme is not living up to it.

Graduating this year. I used to keep quiet the last 10 month, until I learned that career person left this week, again, in less than three months working for nothing. Honestly, career service here deserves a 1-star rating (would give 0 if I could).

It’s shocking how the school and program selected an Executive Director and Career Director, only for both to leave after just three months. Maybe they just did a 3-month intern here or maybe this whole situation is just a lesson MFE is trying to teach their students (or anyone reading this):
1. If something is wrong, it’s probably even worse than you think—so take your time and walk away.
2. If you landed a job mainly because of MFE connections with BlackRock or some other partner on certain projects, you can be let go just as fast, market will speak and do the correction very swiftly.

Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the new Executive Director takes the same route to leave tomorrow—imho, it might be the smartest move to avoid further embarrassment. Former ED Linda kept begging alumni to give the class some jobs (clearly she did not trust this new ED) - I hope this will help me and other people (80% still got 0 offer).

I agree with almost all the negative feedback here, and those so-called positive reviews come from people the program privately reached out to, begging them to write something favorable. Just see how that backfires now.

I want to provide another perspective: I have repeatedly received misleading, useless, and annoying emails (30+ in total) from Sonia Moctezuma, the person responsible for student services. These emails include direct complaints toward students about low response rates and lack of class review participation—without ever reflecting on why students have lost trust in these processes. She has even issued threats that grades would not be released unless a subjective participation rate was met (after multiple begging). Ironically, even after this rate was reached, the grades were still not released until a month later. She is a despicable person who abuses her 'petty power' over students yet never considers why there has been so much negative feedback.

Additionally, she frequently sends emails without including necessary attachments (only to follow up with another email saying, "Sorry, I missed it!"—which has happened around 10 times). She also forces students to participate in useless events (even threatening them to turn their cameras on) and mistakenly sends emails intended for specific individuals to the entire group.

I am certain she will see this post—since students have been threatened not to leave any negative comments here—but I will speak out. Her complete lack of understanding of how a normal program should be managed has only further exacerbated an already terrible student experience—or perhaps this program is no longer normal, so to speak.

In fact, after the former executive director abruptly left the program without any notice or explanation in the middle of the academic year (l believe she worked in the program for less than four months), the program hired someone with no background in the financial industry. This person made fundamental errors in finance, repeatedly misspelled the names of well-known companies, and provided little to no career resources. Instead, all she did was encourage students to "network." l don't understand why our tuition was spent this way.

Piece of two-cents from the slide for MFE students:

1. Exploratory and Learning Outreach: based on reading you’ve done about the industry, finding people: SWE’s, recruiters (industry experts) to learn more about their background, gain industry insight, etc.

2. Proactive Target Company Outreach: after research, reach out to SWEs and recruiters at companies that excite / interest you to ask them about the company, the hiring process, how to prepare, etc.

3. Recruiter Follow Up Outreach: after you apply for a job, you message SWEs and Recruiters to talk about the specific role you applied for and insight about the company.

Looks like this person wasn’t even willing to spend five minutes replacing SWE with quants to 'fool the students.' Feel sorry for this—since this new career services person just lost her previous job before finding this one.

I’m a student just graduated from the class of 2024. I would say that this program is not worth it after Linda leaves. The new executive director quitted halfway and the former associate was promoted. But she has no idea about the quant industry and limited career connection. The whole career office provides limited support and service with the current students because their lack of industry experience and understanding towards the knowledge required in the financial markets. Everything becomes even worse when the job market performs bad in recent years. The only thing that the new director is doing is to seek jobs via LinkedIn and Handshake then email the students to apply for such positions. I would say anyone that holds a high school degree can do this job. When students approached her regarding the employment data she just bullshits. I really hope Linda to be back and save this program.