University of California, Los Angeles - Master of Financial Engineering

Just graduated last December, working in asset management now. UCLA MFE is definitely a good program. The courses covers everything you should know for quantitative finance. Definitely comprehensive knowledge and top-class professors! The only downside might be the homework, which make my life during job search a bit more stressful (because need to take care of both side). Career service is nice, I always learn sth from my conversation with Amber. Resume book sending out to employers is very helpful, I actually got my internship through resume book. Alums are helpful and nice, most of them are willing to connect and share their experiences! Our opportunities is not limited to west coast, there are a bunch of people from my class working in NY or Chicago as well.

As a nerd focusing on techniques and taking courses, UCLA's MFE brings me a different experience, reshaping my mind. Students in this program usually come from very different backgrounds. And we are required to finish almost all the coursework as a study group. In the process, I realized my advantages and learned how to work with people from different backgrounds. Such practice is helpful since it simulates the real working environment in financial institutions.

The career office provides guidelines for job searches and many networking events. They hold workshops regularly to give suggestions based on students' personal experiences in job searching. They also build a brand in the financial industry, which enables me to find my internship and current job. Although they don't appear in the referral directly, I can feel the connection during the interviews.

To be honest, without much finance background, it's hard for me to maintain GPA in a fast-paced program, search for internships/full-time jobs, and participate in many networking events at the same time. In the short 15 months, I made many mistakes and wanted to give up switching to the financial industry. However, gradually, I am more confident to face the difficulty. I owned it to my friends in the class and the good suggestions from them, alumni, and the career office. Compared with before, I already became a person with the confidence to solve all kinds of problems at work. In the end, I want to say, even though the whole process is somewhat suffering, you can gain what you want.

Some background: I just graduated in December, I had no finance background before the MFE program, and I’m a social person.

UCLA’s MFE program was my first choice when I was filling out applications and I’m convinced it’s still the best spot for quantitative people who also understand that having fun outside of class is important. My classmates were so much fun and are super smart. We had parties every week and became great friends. I doubt you’ll see the same level camaraderie at Berkeley, and I’ll bet anything you won’t see it at Baruch.

The program takes you from 0 to 100, giving you everything you need to enter the finance industry with a solid job. I just signed my full time offer letter and will be making 3x what I was making 18 months ago. The MFE staff/team is very responsive and they put in a lot of effort. Most of them have been there only a couple of years and have made great changes to the program (e.g. moving away from R to exclusively Python, getting more interaction with other programs in the business school, etc.).

You’re not going to leave this program an expert in any one field, nor should you expect to. Instead, you will leave with foundational knowledge in many fields that quants are typically interested in (ABS, equities, options, risk mgmt, ABS, data science, etc.). If you can handle a tough workload, learn fast, and work well with others, it doesn’t get much better than this. And when you’re done with class, you walk onto one of the most beautiful college campuses in the world with a bright, sunny day.

Good luck!

Attending the UCLA MFE program was one of the best decisions I’ve made.

In terms of academics, you'll be learning from highly regarded professors: Rossi, Longstaff, Chernov, Lochstoer (just to name a few), who are top-notch in industry and research.

In terms of structure: the 10-week quarters go by very quickly. Classes start with the basics, but pick up fast. I recommend getting good at R as you'll be doing a lot of your HW with it.

Career services: you'll receive regular emails for internships/jobs and you'll meet with the MFE career services staff to go over interview topics/questions you may have. Leanna, Olga, and Amber are a delight to work with!

Overall, it’s a great program. The coursework can get heavy at times. But the professors and staff are invested in their students’ success and want to see them succeed. And the weather in LA isn’t too bad either!

A great program, especially for someone without a rich quantitative background. I had a traditional finance background (wealth management) and gained many quantitative skills throughout the program (although it was a challenging program given my lack of quantitative skills). Had a challenging time finding a summer internship due to my lack of quantitative experience. However, I was able to land a quantitative job upon graduation. Most alumni I reached out to through LinkedIn were very friendly and helpful and some of them even offered to refer me to their company.

2014 Graduate.
Easily the most valuable year+ of my life.
Professors and coursework align on learning skills that can be applied directly to the industry. Support staff is incredible, with a strong focus on ensuring you will have multiple job offers by the end of the program. Peers in the program are talented and driven. I still stay in close contact with several people from my cohort. Highly recommended!

A great program that teaches you theoretical knowledge and gives you applied opportunities. Amazing industry partners for the AFP project. A truly dedicated career office that is focused on providing tech skills, interviews, and resume workshops.

Great place. The classes are very practical and applicable-for me, I found the Derivatives Market and Computational Finance class most useful; the only caveat is the Quant Asset Management, as the professor does not teach the class in an easy-to-understand way. In terms of workloads, the Spring Quarter is going to be the heaviest, but that’s how you learn the practical staff. There are also a lot of helpful job searching resources-for instance, the workshops on quant interview and R/Python. In addition, the alumni network is also valuable-I find both my internship and full-time job thanks to its help!

All Faculties are world-class, Anderson is also prestigious and owns great resources and industry connections. The course is well-structured and provides practical projects align with the materials. Also, the program are heavily focus on students, any voice from student will be seriously considered and provide supports. You can see the program is trying to be better in every aspect. All in all, it's a great program and provides competitive edges for students to further their careers.

I am an alumni from the 2017 batch.

Faculty:
As it has been mentioned before, the faculty is top notch. Profs Longstaff, Ivo Welch, Lars Lochstoer, Peter Rossi are world class professors.

Structure:
It's a very packed degree, with a lot of things to digest in very little time + a summer internship. In my opinion, it's easier to absorb all the knowledge with previous experience either in finance, math or coding. Probably 2 out of the 3 would be enough to have a strong experience in the program.

Support system:
There is a good infrastructure around you. Industry professionals are invited to speak every week or so, you get mock interview sessions, resume preparation sessions, quantitative interview preparation sessions, networking events and so on. I've stayed in touch with the MFE Office and always received all the support I've needed.

For some of the students (me included), learning to connect and network takes some time, and it's hard to do this while staying afloat in your coursework. It's a very demanding 15 months but it's an experience I would definitely recommend!

Faculty:

The professors and faculty are world class. From Peter Rossi, to Francis Longstaff, to Ivo Welch, I've never had the privilege of learning from a more accomplished and well-respected group of people. The level of care they put into each of their lectures was abundantly clear and was leagues above what I experienced at my undergraduate university. They were easy to chat with, always accommodated time after class for additional questions, and, in my opinion, the main reason someone should attend UCLA's MFE program.


Coursework:

The coursework was expansive and quite rigorous. However, there is simply too much information to try and squeeze into a 15 month program. As a result of this squeeze, you feel like you're trying to drink from a fire hose. The flip side of this is that you get excellent exposure to a bunch of different subject areas in quantitative finance and, if you didn't truly have enough time to learn it the first time, you have the tools/materials/means to review it later.


Career Services:

A lot of the posts here are being hard on the MFE's career services, in my opinion. While it took me a nerve-wracking amount of time to obtain my summer internship (got my offer in late March), this wasn't because of a lack of opportunity. I must have had six or seven opportunities before winter break and I simply didn't perform in my interviews. While these were very competitive positions (Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, etc), it's not the career services' fault that I fell short. I suppose I could say that I wasn't properly prepared to interview but that falls more on myself than the MFE program. A counselor can only take you so far before you have to take responsibility for your own career.


MFE Office / Administration:

I can't thank the lovely ladies in the MFE office enough. Leanna and Elisa were always there to listen to my grievances, help me with petty (and major) problems, and guide me through the program. The amount of students, current and prospective, they have to manage is astounding and they each deserve a raise for all the work they put in.


- Class of 2019 -

I’m proud to be the UCLA Anderson MFE alumni.
I would not trade my MFE experience @ UCLA for anything else, and let me tell you why:
(1)well structured classes. From basics to extremely complex concepts - everything will be covered. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to test your knowledge working on various problem-sets. It’s laughable to read complaints about Fama-MacBeth and Accounting below. I’d bet those folks just never built a single trading strategy.
(2)team work. Significant part of home assignments are done in small groups. This allows exchange thoughts with peers, improve understanding of material (incl. Fama-MacBeth;) ), and strengthen soft skills that most quants are missing.
(3)ability to provide constructive feedback and be heard. If something is not right, just let administration know. They are there for you to help and make things right. Never hesitate to schedule a meeting with the program’s Executive Director or Career Advisor to discuss suggestions, go through your resume, practice answering interview questions or get advice on job/internship search process.

I’m thankful for help and endless support of members of faculty and administration.
It’s a true honor for me to be part of strong and successful UCLA Anderson MFE family!

Irina (Class of 2017)

I am a UCLA Anderson Alumni from the MFE program class of 2016. Overall the program was stellar. Excellent professors and great guidance for our careers. We had industry professionals come give talks on a weekly basis. The staff was great as well. Elisa Dunn — the Executive Director of the MFE Program — was extremely helpful in assisting me to learn about various industries, develop my career and get a feel for the quant industry as a whole. Leanna Cortez — the Associate Director of the MFE Program — was also excellent in guiding the program and coursework. All the staff were professional and there to help. The professors were phenomenal. A lot of them have invented the knowledge they were teaching and were super clear and concise. In terms of landing a job, some people think that the career services should hand them a job. But that's not how it works. They were there to give the students opportunities and it was always up to the student to take advantage of those opportunities. I do agree with other posts with respect to Python over R and I think this is one of the parts in the MFE program that they definitely need to change. When I graduated companies only wanted Python and not R. It really helped to understand the theory and having gained the ability to program helped too. There is no way I could have gotten to where I am today without having this experience on my resume and learning the skills that were taught during the program. Highly recommend this program to advance your career and get into the company of your dreams.
Jason C. Mercurio

I graduated from the UCLA Anderson MFE Program in December of 2018, and enrolled in Fall of 2017 directly following my undergraduate studies. It was a challenging program for me, because I did not have an extensive programming background and my mathematical abilities were not the strongest. However, I had other strengths in my application that the admissions committee considered, and by their faith and trust in me I was admitted.

Not surprisingly, the program was a challenge for me. After the first quarter, I was automatically placed on academic probation as I did not meet the GPA requirements in order to stay enrolled in the program. Once this happened, the Executive Director, Elisa Dunn, immediately reached out to me in order to help me work through this challenge. We spoke together extensively and we devised a plan that I would execute in order to improve my grades. With the help of Elisa and through hard work and determination, I was able to improve my grades and get off academic probation.

Later in the academic year, I encountered a different challenge. This time, the issue was related to the UCLA administration (unrelated to the MFE program) and this threatened to jeopardize my ability to stay enrolled in the program and graduate. I reached out to Elisa again for help, because I had few other people who could help me in my complicated situation. Again, Elisa worked tirelessly to help me resolve this situation and did everything in her power to advocate on my behalf to the university. With her backing, I successfully overcame this obstacle too.

In addition to Elisa, the rest of the staff, including the head of admissions, Leanna Cortez, and the director of career services, Sheila Benko, are incredibly helpful in supporting and advocating for their students. They are truly on your side and want more than anything to see you succeed. Your performance, good or bad, reflects profoundly on them. As a result, there is a true alignment of interests in the program. I was taken aback by the depth and breadth of the lengths to which the entire Anderson MFE staff will go to help you.

Aside from the incredible staff, I want to make particular note of my incredible experience with the Anderson alumni. What is special about the Anderson experience is that you are exposed to a business school legacy that goes back over 80 years. As a result of this legacy, I was able to meet with Anderson alumni (MBA and MFE) in various cities around the world, including New York, San Francisco, and Sydney (yes, Australia!). I found that upon emailing alumni using the Anderson alumni database, almost all were willing to meet with me at a moments notice and eager to help. It is this common bond among all Anderson alumni that is perhaps my most favorite aspect of the school.

It goes without saying that the faculty, courses, and students at UCLA Anderson are world class. That is why I have focused my review on the people in the administration and alumni community who truly made an impact on me.

Positive Quantnet reviews from the previous years greatly affected my decision to choose this program back in 2016. A year later after graduation, I can confirm I made the right decision.
The curriculum is intense and rigorous. The program adapts its curriculum reflecting current market situations and practices. The AFP projects are carefully selected and reviewed by industry participants and professors. The projects certainly help one to stay on top current expectations and practices of current financial market. Although the stress of class schedule and home works is overwhelming, perseverance certainly pays off.
You are mostly on your own in terms of career search. But the program usually provides necessary counselling. It also arranges networking events and career trips in major financial cities. For many of those who don’t have enough experience in their resume, a great internship experience is vital. For many, securing an internship is very tough. But the Executive Director of the program will very frequently check on your internship search, motivate you not to give up and will continuously push you to the right direction. In my opinion, this was very helpful for my own career search.
Lastly, I loved every aspect of LA. At least for me, the events , the surroundings and the people always affect my wellbeing. Only a few miles away from the beach, I couldn’t ask for a better location.
Overall, my experience was great!

I am a recent graduate from this program (Dec 2017). I highly recommend this program to serious students of Quantitative Finance and Financial Engineering.

The program picked us up from a very basic level of knowledge - basic regression & portfolio theory and over back breaking homework and quizzes brought us to the level of cutting edge research in the field.

Below is my expanded rating of the various aspects of this amazing program:
1. Curriculum - 4.5/5 Great depth offered in the area of equity and derivatives, but only 1-2 courses in Fixed income and credit
2. Duration - 5/5 My program was 13 months long - ideal for someone wanting to get back to work quickly
3. Faculty - 5/5 It is an honor to be taught by Prof. Schwartz, Prof. Longstaff, Prof. Lochstoer, Prof. Panageas and Prof. Kraft.
4. Workload - 5/5 Almost kills you, but ends up making you much much stronger.
5. Industry exposure 4.5/5 - The program director and admin staff go to great lengths to invite professionals to share their insights with us and organize visits to various financial centers to interact with professionals. These interactions greatly helped determine what I wanted to do as my career.

I am currently a student graduating in December 2018. The program recently got expanded to 15 months, I am just one quarter in the program. I am going to give you all of the honest reviews, what I like and what I don't like - trust me there's no lying on Christmas.

Things I like:

1. The education quality is absolutely great. I probably learned more material than my entire 4 years of undergrad. Professors love their subjects, treating every moment of teaching you with great enthusiasm. Class are competitive - you really have to work hard to get an A if that's your standard.

2. The career office, they are trying hard to help you. Yes, I am still looking for an internship, but I don't think spoonfeeding you an internship position is part of the responsibilities of any program. When you see those negative reviews about the career offices, they are probably dreaming of landing an internship without going through interviews- Nah too unrealistic. We have interview workshops regularly, networking events, open houses regularly. Rest is on you.

3. A lot of support - I can talk to program executive director anytime I want. She will work around her schedule to meet me one-on-one. The career advising associate director lent me her office for my phone interview once. Tell me how many programs do that!

Things I don't like that much:

1. Not that much flexibility in course selection. More electives would be great. I really enjoy data analytics, I really hope I can take more machine learning courses. But anyway, I am learning it online by myself, it is all good.

2. Possibly locations, maybe we are at a little disadvantage of locations compare to programs in New York, but it's not a killer. We just have to have a little more phone interviews than those people in New York.

3. We could have the program start a bit earlier. Big banks/tech companies recruit early in September, but our program starts in late September. I have to walk into Morgan Stanley test without learning stochastic calculus - not a fun experience.


Ok, what I am trying to say is, this program way exceeded what I was hoping for. I did not have a great experience during undergrad, this program is all I could hope for. Now it's up to me to make the most out of it.

About me: graduated recently from 2016 batch. will start my job in Jan in complex securities valuation.

My colleagues have already given a comprehensive outline of the program. I am going to add what I think makes UCLA MFE Program special and what needs to be improved.

What’s special about the program:
1- The admission process is one of the best: smooth, professional and friendly. Depending on your background, there will be one or two rounds of interview.
2- It’s a business school! Having access to such a rich network is extremely invaluable and goes a long way for job placement. (As a rule of thumb, programs offered by business schools usually require GMAT rather than GRE) Networking is an essential part of job placement.
3- It’s Los Angeles! If there is a heaven on earth, LA is it! Great Weather, Friendly people, lots of space, delicious foods, diverse culture. these will smooth your transition into a new country and improve your quality of life while studying.
4- Considering the variety of jobs looking for MFEs and extreme competition to get those, it is really beneficial to know what type of job you are looking for upon entering such program and to create your own brand from the very first day. UCLA MFE prepares students best for quantitative asset management, valuation and advisory, data analytics, risk management and statistical arbitrage roles (which mostly have python/R/Matlab as core programming language.) If you are specifically looking for jobs requiring C++ such as High-Frequency Trading, then it may not be a good option.
5- Faculty is definitely an advantage. Even mentioning that you have worked on your applied finance project with well-known names in academic and industry such as Professor Longstaff makes you stand out among other applicants in an interview. Professors such as Daniel Andrei, Levon Goukasian are so dedicated that you can reach them anytime with your questions (even after graduation).
6- It’s 13 months! (it can be an advantage or disadvantage!!) a trade-off between higher program intensity and lower cost of living and opportunity cost.
7- This program helps you to build on top of what you already have: if you do not know anything about derivatives, it will teach you the essentials. If you know the basics, you can get an in-depth knowledge of derivatives. And if you are already an advanced user of derivatives, you will have a chance to work on various models, understand their dynamics and hone your coding skills. So COME AS PREPARED AS YOU CAN!

What can be improved:
1- Career services: Considering the number of students, career services department is understaffed. The program deserves an image and footage at least as good as the program itself. Career services team needs both HR and technical members to introduce the program and its students’ qualification. A well-structured program without a proper marketing and presentation.
2- The program should have started earlier in October (which is starting now with the current batch) to equip candidates with requisite math, statistics, programming and finance essentials in the first quarter. We needed more time to digest all the materials in the econometrics course in our first quarter.
3- More flexibility on electives.

Going back, I would definitely choose UCLA MFE in my top three. If I could bet on school future rankings, I would go long this program as I believe it to be greatly undervalued in quantnet ranking.

About me:
Graduate from 2016 batch with work experience in Banking and Risk Management. Currently working in Financial Services/Accounting.

Program Experience:
Personally, I found the UCLA MFE experience satisfying and enriching. Having considerable experience in the field of banking, I was expecting to gain skill-sets for asset management and other industries such as consulting, Fin-tech. MFE courses and projects gave me the flavor of most of the career paths available for a financial engineer.

Some Plus points:
Faculty:
UCLA MFE faculty is world class. It was amazing and very exciting to learn from professors such as Prof. Rossi, Prof. Schwartz, Prof. Longstaff, Prof. Goukasian and others. Classes such as Fixed Income, Computational Finance, statistical arbitrage taught me practical application and issues with theoretical finance concepts.

Program Structure:
The program schedule is very hectic and definitely not for the weak-hearted. The program is supplemented with weekly finance seminars and group activities that helped us widen our knowledge base and perspective. Courses such as Computational Finance, Fixed Income, Quant Asset management provided a lot of hands-on experience for financial model building, model validation/calibration, valuation, and backtesting, which was immensely helpful in our internships. The majority of courses required coding in R/Matlab or Python.

Career Services:
UCLA MFE has the dedicated career service. I felt that career service is understaffed considering the total number of students and the vast variety of career paths. Career services regularly provided us with openings/opportunities with frequent workshops on skill enhancements and guest lectures from successful finance professionals. This year most of the openings were in Risk, valuation and Fin-Tech. There were opportunities for networking with LA-based firms in the form of guest lectures/seminars/events. But it definitely takes effort from student side as well to get a job/internship. In my batch, Students with good tech skills (programming) found it easy to secure an internships/jobs in an early phase. Most of the top banking internships get finalized by Jan/early Feb, so it might be hard to target these internships as most of the relevant courses are taught in 2nd and 3rd quarter.

Los Angeles:
There is no place like LA. More I traveled to other places, more I loved LA. Amazing weather, amazing neighborhood (Beverly/Hollywood) and a great campus.

Some things which can be improved:
Career services team is bit understaffed and sometimes it is too much work to handle full-time jobs and internships of 2 batches simultaneously.
Less exposure to Python which is now used almost in every quant role.
There is less flexibility with electives and program structure.


Final Verdict:
UCLA MFE is definitely an amazing program and greatly undervalued in Quantnet rankings. The program is very receptive to feedback and some of the changes that we suggested are already being incorporated. I am pretty sure that with a growing alumni network and proactive changes, UCLA MFE will be one of the top programs in next few years.

About me:
Graduate from 2014 batch working in asset management.

About the program:
Faculty:
Faculty is great and world class.
Job Markets:
Unique value proposition in the Job markets in So Cal area. Most of the students in my batch got into risk management, valuation and asset management business. On the target lists for most buy side mutual funds as UCLA Anderson ranked top in asset management. Sell side (wall st.) recognition becomes stronger in recent years through alumni connections but still hard to compete with other ”Ivy League” schools. So if you are targeting BB banks, not the program for you unless you are recent wall st job leaver or PhDs!
Classes:
Relative easy class as comparing to PhD level classes but with a lot of hands on experience. Small group projects every quarter. A lot of finance papers to read. I personally found it great and this helps me a lot in my current job reading some sell side research papers and develop trading strategies.
Life:
Sun, beach, palm trees and chill only if you got an offer right after the summer intern (Joking). 15 mins drive from Santa Monica beach! 5 mins drive from Beverly Hills! And no winter!

To sum up:
Great program and definitely undervalued in recent Quantnet ranking.