University of Toronto - Master of Financial Insurance

The MFI program at UofT is a highly diverse program with students from actuarial, mathematics, statistics, computer science, and engineering backgrounds. The program's strong reputation makes admission highly competitive, but the experience in the program makes the entire process rewarding.

I have had several recruiters and hiring managers ask why I am interested in quantitative roles instead of insurance, given my background in financial insurance. The insurance component of the program is maybe 20% or less. The majority of courses are centered around pricing theory, institutional derivatives, time series analysis, numerical methods for finance, data science, finance and insurance risk management, etc. This structure gives graduates the ability to pivot across the finance, insurance, consulting, and fintech industries.

Moreover, we have an industrial seminar series where experts with decades of experience in the finance and insurance sectors deliver 2–3-hour lectures on important topics. There is also a professional development course where students are trained in communication, leadership, public speaking, stakeholder engagement, networking, and effective interviewing strategies.

There are extensive career support services and networking opportunities. The internship and outreach coordinators are always available to review resumes and applications, including conducting mock interviews that help better position students to land roles in the industry. We also have a strong alumni community with rich experience that provides mentorship to current students. In fact, the program is designed to help students optimize every opportunity and training. Graduates work at banks, consulting firms, and insurance companies.

If you want strong career-pivoting ability in the finance and insurance space, the MFI program is a great place to start.

The MFI program's name is slightly misleading: The 'insurance' in the title would maybe lead you to believe that it's an actuarial science program, but in reality the coursework is more suited to a financial engineering / quantitative finance degree (Actuarial science is only 1 course in the entire year).

The coursework is difficult. The more theoretical courses (Like mathematical finance, machine learning, etc) have a thorough amount of theoretical depth for the class content, while focusing on the application of theoretical concepts for assignments.

The professors are some of the best you'll ever be taught by: They are leading authorities in their respective fields and don't only have experience in academia, but in the industry as well. If you're struggling with coursework, the professors are more than willing to take time out of their day to assist you, which great helped my time in the program.

The career services are not a 'get a free job' pass. They give you the tools and set up as many interviews for you with their contacts as possible. You still very much have to look for your own opportunities and grind internship applications, but the internship coordinators will be more than willing to help.

Employability after the program is mostly what you make of it. Most people get jobs in banking, portfolio management, risk or data science. Even though the degree helps a ton with employment, you still need to make an effort in networking, applying and learning additional skills.

The students admitted into the program are generally intelligent and hardworking. Most of them are nice, and a lot of them will most likely be lifelong industry connections.