University of Minnesota Financial Mathematics program

I accomplished my Bachelor’s degree in math in UMN in 2017, and graduated from MFM in May 2019. As an international student, I found my job as a quant analyst in the United States within 3 mo. after graduation.

Could say the program provides us with nicely planned professional training. For example, FM 5011/5012 is a math prep course relating to probabilities, measure theories, matrix and some derivative pricing models. It's not very difficult for me but I believe it's the best math course for non-math majors to refresh their math knowledge. In addition to this,
my favorite course FM5021/5022 will basically build us with advanced financial math background. Although some reviews might say professors are using (definitely not copying!) materials from John Hull's book, I've learnt and got trained a lot relating to financial math models, including real programming, problem-analyzing and self theory-deriving, which is not taught by the textbook.

Have to mention a course, FM 5031/5032, which is a feature of MFM, is taught by 3 financial practitioners each semester, is absolutely a treasure for students! More in details, instructors are excellent - For example, John Dodson, who works in QRM at OCC, teaches comprehensive and excellent quant analysis insights. His lectures are never boring. In addition to this, 5031/5032 Homework is meaningful - I appreciate the instructors’ efforts making all of the real-world homework problems relating to statistical analysis, financial market and quant fin models. In this course, the homework is all programming-based. We are allowed to use any programming language we want but we have to compose very structural/detailed mathematical documentation for weekly homework. Thus, students are trained well in programming, documentation writing and teamwork. As far as I’m concerned, the homework projects will be very SHINY when you put them in your resume because of the variety and the depth. And I promise all of the quant interviewers are interested in our academic projects, and 95% of quant questions are covered by MFM courses.

Most importantly, frankly speaking, the placement of international students in the US is hard, especially in recent 2 years many companies in the US are not hiring non-green card or non-H1B holders. But If you are an international student considering joining MFM, don’t worry too much. We have alumni in Minnesota, Chicago IL, Texas, Atlanta, and some major eastern cities like NYC. They are so nice and willing to help. Our director Laurie is so helpful organizing alumni dinner, activities and Chicago trek. So, please, please go networking rather than stay at home and play video games.

In conclusion, I believe MFM provides everything-you-need for your quant career. But it’s always crucial that you must learn to make good plans and to challenge yourself while learning because your future can’t be guaranteed by a diploma - It still depends on yourself.

The MFM program at the University of Minnesota was an excellent experience. The opportunities both in the classroom, as well as networking, seminars and special projects, were far superior to my undergraduate university.

What initially attracted me to this type of program was the ability to differentiate within a highly competitive industry. On the academic side, there is a clear focus on developing programming skills, which is one of the first classes taken. As you make your way through the program, you learn specific things that are applicable to equity, fixed income, and derivatives. This gives you exposure to find out what you may be interested in post-graduation. Many employers put emphasis on new graduates having a particular interest, and not just saying they like "finance".

On the networking side, the career development team provides plenty of opportunities and is willing to connect you with the large, local alumni base. I was able to land a job after my first semester, in which multiple interview questions involved things I directly learned in class. Also, several people I interviewed with were familiar with the program, displaying strong brand recognition

To wrap things up, I feel I made the right choice in choosing the U of M. I would recommend the U of M specifically because of the competition within the twin cities for jobs. The MFM at the U is the only of its type in the area, which theoretically gives its alumni an advantage.

I am the 2nd-year MFM student and I will graduate this May. I think it’s time for me to share some of my points of this program.

1. Academic: The top reason I chose this program 2 years ago is that almost all the teachers or instructors are from the industry. Some of them are option, future traders, others are head of quantitative research and analysis, etc. These make our courses both theoretical and practical.
FM5091/ FM5092, we used Matlab (now is changed to Python), C# (GUI is powerful) to price both European options and exotic options. At the end of FM5092, we had to build an option portfolio management GUI. Also, we discussed financial markets for 30 mins each lecture. It’s really nice to know the insight of an experienced exotic option trader.
FM5011/FM5012, the most mathematical courses in the program. We learned measure theory, stochastic calculus, risk neutral measure and portfolio optimization. Math is the thing you never feel it useful until you need it. Thank for these two courses, although I already learned some of them during the undergraduate, I refreshed and consolidated the knowledge.
FM5021/FM5022, courses related to math in financial derivatives. My understanding of derivatives was superficial until I took these courses. Besides, I learned Greeks of options deeply, which is super helpful in hedging and option trading.
FM5031/FM5032, my favorite course in the whole university. The courses are very practical and let you know what quant can do in insurance company, option clearing house and asset management company. The courses are challenging, but it’s really interesting and I learned a lot from the instructors.
Also, we are flexible to choose any courses related to Math, CS, Stats, Econ, Finance and Management from other departments. And if we meet the requirement of specific department, we could get a minor.

2. Career development: I don’t know other programs’ career service, but our program’s is perfect. Laurie Derechin, who’s executive director of our program, is really really helpful! She wants all of us to get the job after graduation, and she spares no effort to help us with resume, interview and life. Based on her effort, our alumni are united. I got a lot of help from our alumni through coffee meeting, FMA meeting, MCFAM seminars and winter workshop. Networking is the key to find a job, and all the alumni are resources.

3. Location: As lots of alumni said before, we are the only MFM program in Minnesota, so we don’t have that many competitions as east coast or west coast. Minnesota is also the best place to live. Don’t be afraid of the cold. I’m from south east of China, and I don’t think the winter here is colder than my hometown…It’s just longer…

That’s all I want to share for now. I’m still trying to get a job now, but I’m not upset since I know I will have a happy ending with all these solid trainings and help from teachers and alumni.

I graduated from the MFM program about tow and half years ago. Here is my unbiased testimony for the MFM program.

1. Academic
In my opinion this program has a very strong academic curriculum with a perfect balance between theory and practice. The program starts with solid math preparation on topics including stochastic calculus and extensive programming in C# in the first year. These classes will help you build a solid foundation on the math theories and programming skills which will benefit you in a variety of positions in the financial industry. I am still benefiting from a lot of the concepts I learned from the math and programming class today as a quant. In the second year of the program it will teach you how to apply the math theories into practice. You will be taught about almost all the financial derivatives you can name, bond, future, forward, swap, swaption, MBS, etc. And believe me you will be asked a lot of questions about these financial products depending on the role that you are interviewing. Most of the teachers (if not all, especially in the second year's class) are either from industry or have extensive experience working in the industry. Some of them are quant modeler, some of them are very experienced traders. By simply talking to them will get yourself a lot of market insights. Another good thing is that the program also have a winter workshop available during the winter break which I personally like it a lot. You will be able to have exposure to some very interesting practical projects like CCAR, hedging strategy, fixed-income modeling, even machine learning, with the guidance of an industry practitioner. This is a perfect time to strengthen your understanding about those theories and apply them to solve real-world problem. One thing I want to remind all the prospective students is that don't be afraid of talking to the teachers. All of them are super nice and helpful. What's more important is that they are all very experienced, often times you will find that most of your concerns about study/career development will be resolved by just talking to them.

2. Career Development
I am sure a lot of prospective students may have concerns about the location of UMN. Sure this is not New York, but the flip side is that you won't be easily distracted by the "fancy" things going on out there. There are also quite a lot big companies headquartered in Minnesota as well - U.S. Bank, UnitedHealth Group, Cargill, Best Buy, Travelers etc. The executive director of the MFM program, Laurie Derechin, provides valuable career advice and works diligently to help student to find a job. She is super nice, always there to help. I constantly "bother" her for career concerns even after graduation. She will patiently communicate with you, help you to figure out your career path and connect you to the alumni from industry. She will hold seminars and mock interview practice sessions regularly to get students comfortable with real interviews. She will send out recruiting information regularly and push students to apply for the jobs. I can't say enough about how much she cares about the MFM students. Personally, I got an internship at a big bank through the recruiting information she sent out (every MFM students will receive the same recruiting information!). As far as I know, a lot of students find their jobs or get job offers through the internal recruiting information and the opportunity is not only limited to Minnesota area. I would suggest the prospective students to pay more attention to the internal job information and be more active because there is a much higher probability to get an offer from there than applying yourself because typically the recruiter has some connections to the MFM program or Laurie herself. I think the MFM program pays a lot of attentions to the placement of their students and as I said above, Laurie is a super helpful resource to talk to if you have any concerns regarding career development.

Last but not least, I want to say - don't limit yourself. There is a lot of things you can do. If you set up a clear goal, establish a step-by-step plan and stick to it, you will eventually get there. You can read market news every day, join a quant club and do some modeling projects every week, meet and talk with a industry practitioner every month, sign up the CFA and FRM program. The point is that the resources that the MFM program at UMN is more than enough to help you achieve your goal, but eventually it's yourself to define who you want to be.

I graduated from the MFM program back in 2015 and thought it was a great program to help launch my career in the financial industry.

Before joining the program, I didn't have any experience in finance, but had the technical skills necessary for modeling and programming.

The MFM program bridged that gap, and helped me learn about various financial concepts and subjects (option pricing, portfolio management, risk management, etc.. Also, the program provide a way to practice my programming and analytical skills in a controlled setting, but with real world examples and projects which I could use to impress interviewers.

I secured a job during my second year of the program at a large regional bank in a Capital Markets risk management team, and have since moved on to a Quant role in the credit risk department.

The programming skills honed during the program helped build a great foundation for the work I'm doing now.

I graduated from U of Minnesota's Master of Financial Mathematics (MFM) in class of 2018. I enjoyed every bit of it -taught by top-notch industry practitioners and faculty, I gained a lot of in-depth knowledge in areas such as: Derivative pricing , Quantitative risk management, Fixed income,MBS, Stochastic Calculus,Non-linear Optimization, Data Modelling, Markov Chains and programming (Python, MATLAB ,C#) etc.

The program also offers fantastic career development services through student workshops, 1-on-1 career advising and a vibrant alumni network.

MFM prepared me adequately to take on my first job as a front-end Quant pricing electricity derivatives. I get to build quantitative models in VBA and python. Knowledge about derivative pricing, counter-party credit risk and montecarlo simulation have also been pivotal in excelling in my job.

The time I spent in MFM program is one of the most valuable experiences in my life.

The most impressive parts about this program is people. It is a smaller group of people comparing to other programs. We built a close connection in our alumni community and current students. The first two jobs I got are through alumni's connection. People in this program are nice and supportive. Also, advisors and professors are very supportive too. They are more like friends than teachers.

About coursework, one of the nice parts is it is continuingly updating according to the industry development. Technical-wise, I learnt python, C#, Matlab here. In financial math area, I learnt stochastic calculus, basics of option pricing, fixed income, risk management. We also learnt some machine learning related topic in the financial area.

You can even discuss your opinion with the advisor for the program. Advisor will listen to everyone's opinion and make the most appropriate decision and design.

I hope someone who is suitable for this program can find the right place. I believe it will be mutual beneficial. I know this program is not at the top of the ranking list. But it is definitely a good choice for some people. It has great reputation in the industry, especially around Midwest area. Most companies know about this program because there are very limited number of similar programs. It is also relatively cheaper than other programs but with good quality of course content and professors.

One of the highlights I liked the most about the MFM program was the breadth of the curriculum. The program covered a wide range of topics, from risk management to stochastic calculus and financial modeling (the most fun in my opinion) and, of course, quantitative finance. Given I had little background in finance, I appreciated the opportunity to explore various aspects of financial mathematics to make myself more well-rounded.

The program had a strong emphasis on practical applications. The inclusion of real-world projects gave me the chance to apply the concepts I learned to what can be seen in the workplace. This made the courses more engaging and relevant to my goals. Going through the program equipped me with a robust set of skills and knowledge that have been instrumental in my career. I gained a deep understanding of financial markets, derivatives, and risk management techniques.

The program emphasized quantitative skills, including programming (Python, C#, and SQL), advanced mathematics, and statistical analysis. These skills have been crucial in my day-to-day work, as they enable me to analyze complex financial data and understand sophisticated models.

The MFM program has been pivotal in preparing me for my current role in the financial industry. I enjoyed the program's practical approach and focus on real-world applications. Additionally, the program fostered a collaborative learning environment. Group projects, semester-end presentations, and discussions with fellow students allowed me to develop strong teamwork and communication skills. These skills have been indispensable in my current role, where effective collaboration and clear communication are essential.

The quality of instruction in the program was high. My professors were accessible in office hours and willing to provide guidance and support outside of class. I really appreciate the industry experience they bring into the classroom.

My experience is quite positive. The program's comprehensive curriculum, practical approach, and high-quality instruction have equipped me with the skills and knowledge necessary for a successful career in finance. I highly recommend it to anyone applying to graduate quantitative financial programs.

What I enjoyed most about the MFM program is that it promoted the environment for growth. I especially enjoyed relevant industry projects and class discussions. The program gave me the foundation needed for the job that I got after graduation. Even if I came across a new concept, using the foundation that MFM built for me I could learn new concepts on my own. Financial modeling and coding were especially very helpful.

My 3 favorite things about the program were.
The project-based approach in most courses, incorporating vital quant skills like programming, and mathematical finance modeling. I remember working through majority of problems sets that utilized or required those skill sets. This effectively equipped us for roles in the quant job market.

The curriculum was also well designed as it exposed us to various asset classes and their function within portfolios.

Finally, the combination of theoretical and practical models, often taught by industry practitioners, greatly enhanced my learning experience.

Great instructors and faculties won the five stars in my review. Every one of them that I came across during my time in the program was very supportive, helpful, and accessible. They provided me great guidance and supports both academically and professionally.

In terms of the coursework, I personally felt like it's a great combination of quantitative skills, math, finance, programming and more. Most of the stuff - financial modeling, coding, analysis, etc. that we learned are relevant and applicable to my current role in the finance industry.

Very strong alumni network in the Twin Cities and throughout the US

Would recommend

It's a great program with excellent instructors and atmosphere.
First, the courses setting is very comprehensive, which is suitable for students from different backgrounds. And I also gained a lot projects experience in the program.
Second, there are many meetings and chances to broaden contacts and give students more knowledge about the industry, and also it has specialized career fair and workshop. All of them could be very helpful if students plan to find a job after finishing the program.
Third, the instructors and people in this big family are quite nice! They are willing to share and provide help.

One thing I want to highlighted from our program is the interesting and rigorous curriculum. I developed and grew my knowledge in many perspectives: financial derivatives pricing, risk hedging, portfolio theory, statistical modeling and programming. These are what I have not originally contemplated when I entered into this program. Our professors also provide research opportunities to let me to practice my quantitative knowledge and explore my interests in a deeper level. All of experience support me to explore my real interests and strengths and prepare my career path.

Another thing I want to mark is our program career support. Our program director and professors are really nice and supportive. They help students to connect with the alumni with different quantitative fields, share the working opportunities they know and invite various industry practitioners to share their working experiences and research interests. They hope each of us to succeed in the future and provide as many as opportunities for us.

I really recommend our program!

MFM program in UMN provides the opportunity to learn quantitative finance skills directly from industry professors around Minnesota and Chicago area. It holds weekly seminar on Friday evening which invites distinguished academic professor such as Steve Shreve and quant finance professional such as Peter Carr. Its student club Financial Mathematics Association (FMA) invites alumni and practitioners to come to communicate and network with current students. FMA also holds quant finance career fair and networking event each year. MFM program provides a lot of opportunities for students to participate in projects with professors or industry. There are few I must mention here. The winter modeling workshop holding each year is a 10-day workshop on Financial Mathematics Modeling every winter between Fall and Spring Semesters.Students will work in teams of up to 6 students under the guidance of a mentor from the financial modeling/trading sector. The mentor will help guide the students in the modeling process, analysis and computational work associated with a real-world financial modeling/trading problem. A progress report from each team will be scheduled during the period. In addition, each team will be expected to make an oral final presentation and submit a written report at the end of the 10-day period. The others are like several nationwide/university/CME group trading competitions, IAFE academic case competition and so on. The directors make lots of efforts in career placement. The program is improving day by day.

Minnesota Center for Financial and Actuarial Mathematics (MCFAM) where MFM program is landed in held a successful summer symposium Modeling Risk in Banking and Insurance: Catching the Next Crisis at July, 2013 which was also endorsed by IAFE (http://iafe.org/html/MCFAMJuly2013.htm). Students and practitioners came together for an intensive three day symposium which looked at the broad overview of risk taxonomy and regulation and then delved deeper into specific risk modeling areas for both banking and insurance. In addition to the detailed sessions on risk modeling, risk leaders from Securian Financial Group, US Bank, Wells Fargo, The Travelers Companies and Allianz Life participated in a panel discussion to pinpoint the impact of new regulation on their businesses, including the challenges and open issues.

The courses in MFM program include FM5091, FM5092 which are Computation, Algorithms and Coding in Finance; FM5001, FM5002 which are Preparation for Financial Mathematics; FM 5011, FM5012 which are Mathematical Background for Finance; FM5021, FM5022 which are Mathematical Theory Applied in Finance; FM5031, FM5032 which are Practitioners Course. Most of students will complete all the coursework in two years. Besides all the financial mathematics courses, students have access to almost any course in department of mathematics, finance, economics, statistics, computer sciences and so on.

For application, the deadline is Feb 1. And first round offer will be sent out on Mar 15 and second round at May 1.

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
Bachelor Degree on Telecommunications Engineering from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China.
Working Experience: No working experience.
GPA:87/100
Revised GRE: 314
IELTS:7.0
Enrolled:2012

Did you get admitted to other programs?
Yes

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
Reputation of the university and the reasonable tuition rates.

What alternative sources of info you used to learn more about the program?
Quantnet, Friends.

Tell us about the application process at this program
Application is straight forward. No paper documents are needed until you are admitted. Waiting list is applicable in this program.

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
Course structure in this program is kind of rigid. No elective courses are available. But students can minor in other majors, like Management , Statistics, Computer Science etc.

Tell us about the quality of teaching
Good. The instructors are experienced practitioners from the realm quantitative finance. And some of them may only focus on a specific field of the industry instead of having round knowledge of quant finance like full time professors.

Materials used in the program
John.C Hull - Options, Futures, Derivs Stochastic Processes - Lawler

Projects
The modelling workshop here is of great value, in addition to other course related projects.

Career service
Our executive director has great connection with the industry and she is always very happy to help us in finding an intern and full time job. Every week, we have some training on improving interviewing skills.

What do you like about the program?
Good overall. The faculty is working hard on this program. Classmates around you are excellent, many of our who are already have jobs and you could learn a lot from them. The finance industry in Minneapolis is quite competitive.

What DON’T you like about the program?
Course structure could be improved. No electives, not enough diversification. And now students only need to take 8 courses to graduate while 10 to 12 is the normal number for a graduate program.

C# instead of C++ is taught in the program. Almost all the core courses rely solely on Matlab, instead of object-oriented programming languages. C# is taught in the first year and then is kind of abandoned in the second year.

The program is new relative to others and more connections with the industry could be built in the future. But the program is making its effort towards that goal.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
Improve course structure. Strike a balance of the numbers of practitioner and that of full time professor in the instructors team. More connections with the industry.

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
Intern at a software development company now. Seeking a full time job in the coming year.

This review was submitted anonymously

Did you get admitted to other programs?
Yes

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
Reputation of the university and the math dept, and comparative lower tuition rates.

What alternative sources of info you used to learn more about the program?
Quantnet, forums and alumni.

Tell us about the application process at this program
Application is quite simple and twp essays are needed. No paper documents are needed until you are admitted.

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
All courses required are set and no elective. However, students can choose an emphasis, includes Economics, Statistics, Computer Science, etc. Normally, three additional courses in specific area can even qualify you to gain a minor several course requirements are satisfied.

Tell us about the quality of teaching
Good. Most instructors are experienced practitioners from the industry and very nice to answer questions and to share those hands-on experience. Besides knowledge of quantitative finance from the book, those industry professors can bring more practical perspectives and tell you more about how those theories are implemented in real practice. Some of them are particularly focus on a specific field and bring their expertise which inspires and benefits students a lot.

Materials used in the program
John.C Hull - Options, Futures, Derivs Stochastic Processes - Lawler

Projects
Many course projects, traditional in the quant finance field, are required and they are all arranged in a very practical sense. In addition, the winter modelling workshop brings in some currently popular projects for students to investigate and is indeed valuable.

Career service
Great career service with one-by-one mentoring and the directors are always there and very helpful in providing valuable advice. Regulary weekly career workshops are held to prepare students to be more competitive in job hunting. They are trying to connect with industry practitioners and start arranging important networking event in the field of both actuary and quant finance. Regular yearly netwroking event, winter modeling workshop are good examples. And the recently help risk management symposium is quite successful, with involvement of many successful practitioners as speakers and very well-designed speech contents covering most popular risk mgmt topics in both the actuary and bank sides. We can witness that the placement quality is improving.

What do you like about the program?
Overall, it is a good program especially when comparing the quality/price ratio. Directors and faculty are passionate, with their continuing effort to improve the program. We can see the great improvement and the growing reputation of the program, so great potential is one of the biggest merits that worths our particular attention to the program. Many intelligent classmates including those part-time students, some of who are already in the industry, and it has quite a good reputation in the finance area of Minneapolis.

What DON’T you like about the program?
Course structure is not flexible and the location may be a disadvantage for the program. So more efforts to expand its reputation in a brader area are needed. In addition, more oop language based practices are needed for students to implement the quant finance knowledge.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
Provide more course selections in order to let the students design a more flexible course structure. Also the names of courses should be modified to specify content of the course.

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
Summer intern in a small company participating in derivatives valuation. Start seeking full-time position in the coming year.

A nice program with instructors who are experienced practitioners from the industry. And during the study period, the program will offers you a lot of opportunities to learn from reality and participate in activities

Did you get admitted to other programs?
Yes

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
Good reputation of the university and math department, low tuition rates.
What alternative sources of info you used to learn more about the program?
Quantnet, US News.

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
No elective courses. The courses during the first year is probability and programming. They are useful enough. I can select courses from other department to enhance quant background.

Materials used in the program
John.C Hull - Options, Futures,
Derivs Stochastic Processes - Lawler
Implementing Derivative Models-Les Clewlow and Chris Strickland


What do you like about the program?
I leaned a lot of useful theories and practical skills from this program. There are plenty of projects to improve our skills and we can easily find instruction when we participate IAFE competition can other events. The weekly seminar is definitely a wonderful event that professors and practitioners will bring us the cut-edge topics.

What DON’T you like about the program?
The first year course is not tense enough.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
Provide some data source and a financial engineering lab for students to get closer to the market in order to understand it would be better.

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
Summer intern in a trading company in Chicago Board of Trade.
Looking for a full time job next year.

- What did you enjoy most about the MFM program?

Overall, the most enjoyable part of the MFM program is the professors. The conversations had outside of class often led to a lot of new insight not present in the traditional classroom discourse. Ultimately, the greatest strength of the MFM is the professors they employee and the personalities they have.

- What skills and knowledge did you gain that have been valuable in your career

Outside of general knowledge of quantitative finance as a whole, I can't truly pinpoint anything in specific. I use most of the general theoretical knowledge gained in the program routinely, though it does mainly relate to XVA.

- How has the program prepared you for your current role?

The program has prepared me for my current role well. The in depth knowledge of financial instruments and their machinations leads to an easier understanding of complex topics and allows an easier transition into the workforce.

- Course instruction quality

Overall course instruction quality was great! While there were some courses where I don't feel I learned as much as I could of, I believe that that would fall on me. The courses are tough, but the instructors are more than willing to make the extra effort.

There are no full-time professors teaching in this program.All the lectures taught the courses do not have renowned publications in quantitative finance, as a consequence, most of the courses just treat basic ideas and lack of depth some of them are even overlapping! See one of the course website below
http://math5022spring2014.weebly.com/
No courses specializing in credit risk and financial time series are offered,which seem to such a big issue in current quantitative finance world.