I just finished my degree here with a computational finance concentration and it wasn't what I expected. To be honest if you are really interested then you can learn a lot and go for a math or math finance phd easily. This is what the program is meant for. My intentions were to go work as a quant after and I can tell you it is almost impossible to get a job as a quant in a good bank after this. If you are a US citizen then you could definetly land a job as a "quant" in a mid/low tear bank (none of the good ones), and even tho you will probabily be doing some bulshit treasury stuff that anyone with a brain can do. If you're not an US citizen getting a job will be almost surely impossible, especially if you have no experience. The only guys who end up in WF, BoA are the ones that already where working there and are doing their masters part time. It's impossible to get in with this degree. All the big banks go for target schools and phd students so don't get your hopes up.
Now, being a more positive, I definetly learned different skills, especially programming and derivatives pricing. We used python, matlab and STATA but realistically you can get full A without learning any of them. I did MATLAB in undergrad and was commited to learn python here, so i got something out of it.
3/4 of the class is Chinese students who sit at the back and play videogames during classes (most of them, there are some brainy ones, but few), there are some indians who are usually the smarts one, and lastly there are italians who come from an exchange program (although they do risk management concentration). The italians are pretty chill and cool european kids.
Lastly, I came from a big state football university were student life was awesome. This school sports team are trash and there is NOTHING to do close to the school. NOTHING FUN FOR STUDENTS. Tailgates were kind of fun but there were always cops and students youre TA for drunk AF so I avoided them. if you want to party or at least have some fun, you are gonna need to drive uptown (about 25 min) or spend a $25 uber ride. Nightlife in uptown is good if you have decent money. Drinks usually $10 and cover $20. Expensive shit for a student. Everything I did was going to NBA games (hornets sucks so tickets were like $10) and play sports in city leagues.
I had fun times here but being a city guy and coming from a football state college I can firmly say im glad I graduated and I'm never comming back to charlotte.
