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Anyone heading to Columbia Open House?

Vixus

Joined
2/11/11
Messages
24
Points
13
I was wondering if any of you were planning on attending the open house on April 7th. I will be heading down there from April 4-8 to check out NY and look at housing situation. I still have to make up my mind between Stanford and Columbia and I'm hoping that this visit will help me better decide if Columbia is the place to go. If anyone is heading down there, send me a private message and we could coordinate something and maybe even look for places together.
 
Hi Vixus

I'll start studying at Columbia MSFE this summer, but since I'm an international student there is no chance for me to visit the open house on April 7th.

Could you pls share with us the most interesting and important points mentioned on the open house?

Appreciate this.
 
feelko said:
Hi Vixus

I'll start studying at Columbia MSFE this summer, but since I'm an international student there is no chance for me to visit the open house on April 7th.

Could you pls share with us the most interesting and important points u could mentioned on the open house?

Appreciate this.
Click to expand...

Same for me, I will be there for the Summer term, but have already decided not to take the housing option "offered" by Columbia.
However, as feelko said, it would be really interesting if you could share some tips from the Open house to the quantnet crowd.

Thanks, and see you both there in July
 
feelko said:
Hi Vixus

I'll start studying at Columbia MSFE this summer, but since I'm an international student there is no chance for me to visit the open house on April 7th.

Could you pls share with us the most interesting and important points mentioned on the open house?

Appreciate this.
Click to expand...
same here!!! Please provide us with some useful insights, it will be highly appreciated.. Looking forward to meeting everyone soon!!!
 
I will try my best and report my impressions of Columbia. Just out of curiosity, where is everyone from?
 
Thank you, Vixus.

As for me, I am from Russia, and I hope I'll bring some diversity into the program :)

Regarding housing, I decided that during the summer session I'll live in International House ( http://www.ihouse-nyc.org/s/707/start.aspx ), mainly because it's cheap and located near Columbia.
 
I hope to be down there too. Do you guys think it's worthwhile to make any effort whatsoever to go down? What exactly is the purpose of the open house, in your opinion?
 
Hi all, is anyone of you also admitted to the NYU MAFN program? I plan to visit Courant this week (either Thursday morning or Friday morning). Anyone care to join?
 
@AlexandreH
- Sorry, my acronym is a bit weird. I meant "MS in Mathematics in Finance".
- I just arranged the meetings with Melissa and Prof Kohn on my own.
 
The Open House was informative.

Started with general session for all Engineering Graduate Students. Then departmental groups were formed. Our consisted of about 15 MSFE and couple of MSOR students. Prof. Kachani started the presentation helped by Adina Brooks. Prof. Dermain walked-in and answered quite a few questions about placements and the program curriculum.
Personally, I was impressed by Columbia University campus.
 
@mcgruber: hi.. it must have been a great experience at columbia for you, i'm sure.. but if you could please give details regarding placements that they must have told the students .. it will be of great help...

also share any other details if they could be of any use to members here... thnx alot! :)
 
OK... some important points

1) The department is in the process of hiring 2 full-time placement experts for MSFE in Spring 2011
2) The salary range on the MSFE website does not give the complete picture (this will be updated on the new IEOR website in the coming few weeks). The difference between Associate and Analyst salary levels was discussed. Top 10-15 % students (salary wise) got base salary of 120K-140K plus + bonus. Although no median salary was mentioned, the next group of students falls in 90K - 110k range. This group was the biggest. Rest were in 60K-80K band. The bonus % depended on the role and the firm.(This is what I inferred from the lengthy and sometimes divergent discussion. Others who were there, please comment if I am mistaken)
3) Out of 46 students who graduated in 2010, 5-6 got trading roles. A good number of others got related front-office roles. Some got developer-type and Risk Management roles. Very few got pure research roles as those roles are in the PhD territory.
4) Placement was easier for US Citizens/US Permanent Residents/Canadian Citizens more so if they had prior financial experience. International students from East/South Asia had some difficulty in getting placements.
5) Strong correlation with past work experience and placement out of MSFE and importance of individual personality traits were discussed.
6) Comparisons with Stanford and Princeton programs and how Columbia's MSFE is different from the offerings at NYU, Berkeley and CMU were also mentioned
7) Long-term impact of Columbia University's Ivy League brand combined with large and well-placed group of MSFE Alumni on one's career path and options
8) Weekly Financial Engineering seminars having industry practitioners as speakers and invitees provide ample networking opportunities for students
 
mcgruber said:
OK... some important points

1) The department is in the process of hiring 2 full-time placement experts for MSFE in Spring 2011
2) The salary range on the MSFE website does not give the complete picture (this will be updated on the new IEOR website in the coming few weeks). The difference between Associate and Analyst salary levels was discussed. Top 10-15 % students (salary wise) got base salary of 120K-140K plus + bonus. Although no median salary was mentioned, the next group of students falls in 90K - 110k range. This group was the biggest. Rest were in 60K-80K band. The bonus % depended on the role and the firm.(This is what I inferred from the lengthy and sometimes divergent discussion. Others who were there, please comment if I am mistaken)
3) Out of 46 students who graduated in 2010, 5-6 got trading roles. A good number of others got related front-office roles. Some got developer-type and Risk Management roles. Very few got pure research roles as those roles are in the PhD territory.
4) Placement was easier for US Citizens/US Permanent Residents/Canadian Citizens more so if they had prior financial experience. International students from East/South Asia had some difficulty in getting placements.
5) Strong correlation with past work experience and placement out of MSFE and importance of individual personality traits were discussed.
6) Comparisons with Stanford and Princeton programs and how Columbia's MSFE is different from the offerings at NYU, Berkeley and CMU were also mentioned
7) Long-term impact of Columbia University's Ivy League brand combined with large and well-placed group of MSFE Alumni on one's career path and options
8) Weekly Financial Engineering seminars having industry practitioners as speakers and invitees provide ample networking opportunities for students
Click to expand...
hey thanks...quite informative...good to hear that they will be hiring 2 placement experts....just in case if you can help with some details regarding the placement scene for Asian students, it will be very helpful...
 
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