UZH ETH - MS in Quantitative Finance

I mostly agree with the previous two reviews in this thread, so I will write my review as an addition to what has already been described there.

The biggest strength of this program is its broad curriculum, composed of highly specialized courses that allow you to go in-depth with the topics of your interest. There are about 80 courses available each year, and many more from other departments (such as informatics and electrical engineering) can be taken but are not listed on the main course list. A significant number of courses are taught by "professors of practice". These classes often consist of practical projects. 7 out of 17 courses I took were of this kind, and they were my favourites. In general, 16 out of 17 courses I took during my studies I would genuinely recommend to others.

This flexibility in curriculum is a double-edged sword. Poor course selection will spread one's focus across multiple topics, and the student will fail to specialize. The Swiss job market is highly competitive, so without a strong specialization, a fresh graduate may have to look for a job elsewhere.

The Alumni Club (ZQFA) is a central for networking and a very helpful source of information. One can get great advice on one's specialization, courses, industry trends, the job market, etc. Implicitly, the club serves as a career service, and it does so very well.

Aside from the highly competitive local job market, another drawback of this program is that exams at UZH are held in June, while ETH offers some exams in early June, but most are in August. Therefore, the program offers less time for summer internships. Nonetheless, many of my peers secured summer or off-season internships, mainly in London, and later landed full-time jobs at those companies.

The PMP program is an excellent opportunity for future portfolio managers. Three teams of students manage a real portfolio (around 2 mil. EUR AUM, the last time I checked), and take the whole set of courses for portfolio management.

Another great specialization is in actuarial sciences/insurance mathematics. ETH Zurich and Zurich in general are among the world's leading insurance hubs. All of my peers who specialized in this field reported exceptionally positive experiences, especially those who landed a job in Zurich.

Last but not least, if you are interested in an academic career, UZH and ETH should position you well for almost all major areas of research in quantitative finance.

The program is overall well-rounded and fast-paced but very flexible. It can be finished in 3 to 10 semesters, probably most students take 4 or more, especially if can't find the job they want or want to pursue a phd and want to further specialize in an area.

We can divide the courses in 2: ETH and UZH
ETH: very theoretical courses, with great variety of electives/external electives available (you can take courses from other departments, so you have access to MATH/CS/..., even electrical engineering department if you want to do a course on power trading for example)
UZH: level of teaching of core courses is lower, however most of applied stuff you'll do comes from seminars/3 credits courses found here or assignments you get at ETH courses. Good amount of practitioners from different parts of finance.

Being part of UZH also gives you access to apply for the PMP program www . cpm . uzh . ch , which is great especially for starting to get experience and obtain contacts with the industry.

Regarding events ETH is especially great as there are many events with prop trading companies and hedge funds all around the years. Though the chances of getting a interview out of them is very limited even if you were to win them...
On the other side I can recommend UZH finance club which hosts free brown bag lunches with important companies all around finance (PE/IB/AM/Banks and Central banks/...)

This said, especially the first semester doesn't give you free time to prepare for internship applications adequately and the career services aren't specialized for our masters. You still have access to ETHgethired and UZH services though. I can vouch for the first one in particular to get a first contact with smaller swiss hedge funds that advertise their positions there (which only hire from EPFL/ETH most often).

As mentioned by others, Switzerland makes it hard for non-Europeans to work after graduation, however is still possible with some work and luck.
In general, for quant positions, especially after the merger ubs-cs, Switzerland remains small in terms of opportunities, but very rewarding. Except for commodities, where Geneva is a major hub (though in that case, EPFL master may be a better alternative due to proximity).

Overall happy, and would choose it again, considering that by working part-time during my masters, I paid both tuition and living expenses.

Overall I must say the program gives you a lot of flexibility in what you want to pursue. From what I've seen, most people are mainly mathematically inclined and tend to focus on stochastic analysis and machine learning subjects. The univeristies offer a lot of selection in these areas. The main drawback I would point out is if you are not from Switzerland or the EU, you most likely will have to relocate after finishing the program (very few I know managed to get fulltime positions in Switzerland), but this is also mentioned in the QuantNet descripiton of the program so wont go into detail here. Overall, very happy with the program.