COMPARE CMU MSCF vs Columbia MAFN

[Zhenghao Li]

It's probably easier for you to explain how you think it works and then we can "correct" you to the "American style". I think you won't have much of an issue if you're European. It's mostly the Chinese students that have problems.

From my outsider view of Chinese networking, it seems Chinese consider just being formally connected the same as "networking".

For example, someone that never spoke to me, only knew me through a common friend and being in the same program, asked me to edit his very long statement of purpose to PhD programs. He also seemed to expect me to carefully help him plan out his options and strategy for approaching the programs. We never spoke to each other, but the impression I got is that if I were Chinese, I might actually do all this for him for some reason. I don't know why I would but then again I'm not Chinese. This happened to me several times.

As another example, I would often see Chinese students get excited that there was some alumni connection, and then when the alum would show up to meet us, they'd do everything basically to show they were not knowledgable about the industry, lacked passion or real interest, etc., but somehow they thought this alum would go the extra mile to help them get jobs. The idea that they needed to do something to impress him/her seemed to be foreign to them. They seemed to think merely being connected was enough.

I don't think what you said is "common" to Chinese. I'm a Chinese and I think what you described is weird too. It's probably because they're new to the U.S. and simply have trouble communicating with others in English. I went to an U.S. undergrad so I'm fine with that. Most of these people came from Chinese engineering schools with few "networking" experience so it could be just really hard for them to learn the "American way". I've been the same process and trust me it was hard. ToT

 

[JX.CHEN]

Hi, I am a fresh graduate student from mainland China and I have been admitted to CMU MSCF Pittsburgh campus. I know that this is a world-class program and my goal is to find a quantitative finance job in NY after graduation. But I really don't like the NY campus since it is not really a campus, but just like a career training institution.

Though finding a satisfying job is my first choice, but I also care about campus life since this will be my first and maybe the last time that I study in US universities. So I feel very hard to make a decision among this three. I will list pros and cons and hope you can give me some advice.

CMU NY campus:
Pros: good location, good career resources(events with alumni and people in industry)
Cons: very high cost, remote lectures (which I don't like), no campus

CMU Pittsburgh campus:
Pros: good career service, excellent courses and campus
Cons: bad location, have to travel to NY to find jobs, not good for students without full-time working experience

Columbia MAFN
Pros: brand name of the university! (I doubt that if people in finance industry exclude S&T department know about CMU....), a little bit cheaper than CMU
Cons: bad curriculum settings, no career service, no placement statistics.

HI, what's your final decision? I face the same situation now.

 

[MartingaleOpt]

Comparing MAFN and CMU, if your intention is to work in finance, the decision would depend on an honest judgement of your own skills. I was accepted everywhere (CMU, Courant, Columbia MAFN) and I chose MAFN because

1. The program was only 8 months, so I could also potentially apply for a PhD starting the year after (I ended up not doing this and am working full-time now for Quant Research at JPM)
2. Also, if I chose to work, I would get an extra 8 months of full-time experience compared to CMU which would be a huge difference in salary

That said, I would say that for the bottom 75% of candidates, they would do better graduating from CMU. For the top 10ish% you end up getting the same quality of jobs from both CMU and MAFN, with the benefit being that MAFN is shorter.
Also I would say curriculum-wise, CMU is *much* better than MAFN. I have a lot of issues with the core courses in MAFN to be honest (the electives are good if you choose the "right" ones, but Columbia also does not make it easy for you to take IEOR classes, for example). The programming component in MAFN is nowhere near as strong as CMU. But, if you are a strong candidate, these will not hold you back and you can just teach yourself all the requisite material to excel in interviews (that's basically what I did, teaching myself C++ and algorithms off Coursera).

 

[ferarg]

Hi I got admitted to both and would like an honest opinion about mathematics skills, and career progression at both. Also, how about outside careers outside US?