First of all, I'll assume people taking this course will already have a degree. In your degree, you must have had to do some sort of project, and for those looking to do quant work I imagine would have been theoretical or involved some coding. Therefore, you have the perfect opportunity to practice your
C++.
I can comment on this as someone who have reviewed close to 2,000 applications for a US-based MathFin program. I don't know if your own experience with
C++ is indicative of applicants to UK MFE programs but from my experience, the number of applicants who are exposed to the right amount of
C++ is far and few.
We have a huge number of applicants from China/India, most of them have done zero or little programming. Those that listed programming in their transcript, was taught C, SAS, Java, EViews. Even those with a CS/Engineering degree don't necessarily get exposed to
C++. While
C++ is the universal language in quant finance, very few students got exposed to it at the undergrad level. It's the case in Asia and even in the US.
The number of math courses these applicants took outnumbered the programming course they have. When it comes down to the programming admission requirement, having one
C++ course in the transcript is make-or-break for many of these applicants.
And when these applicants come looking for a local university to learn
C++, there is none available. There are few online offerings. The ones available are either too expensive or teach the generic kind of
C++. This is the audience that we are helping, not someone who has a few years to self learn
C++ and practice till perfection.
As I ask our members before, the crucial question is "what do you plan to do with this training/certificate". If you take it and never use it again, then may as well learning it from a book. For most of the people taking this, they will go on and start their MFE program with a newly learnt skill and a working code base that give them an edge in their study. And for people like
ItaUK, he can take the skills and work on finance projects and have something tangible to show to his future employers.
Our course takes people with zero programming experience so it certainly won't make them world-class
C++ programmers in a few months. What it does is giving them the competitive advantages they need to compete with thousands other MFE applicants and job seekers.
It all comes down to the question of given a
limited amount of time, how you
maximize your chance, either to get admission into a top MFE program, or to gain a foothold in the industry.
