CMU MSCF CMU Undergraduate Computational Finance

[NickTri]

Hey Quantnet forum,

I was recently accepted into the CMU - Mellon College of Science and I am planning on majoring in Computational Finance and maybe minoring in business or computer science.

I just wanted to know how CMU's undergraduate program is regarded by employers and if it is a good choice for an aspiring quant.

I appreciate your comments

Thanks,

Nick

 

[Dibbs]

My personal opinion : CMU's program is probably the best one in this field. If you would like to become a quant. I don't think you can go wrong with CMU !! Congrats on the admin.

 

[thefamily]

I think I'm going to be your classmate next year. PM sent.

 

[Connor]

CMU is a good school, congrats.

My concern is limiting factor of computational finance. Can you get a job outside of finance with it?? Thus I would recommend the minor in computer science because it compliments computational finance but also broadens your range of skills for other potential jobs.

 

[atreides]

Where did you read this?

A lot of reading around the internet makes it seem like the only way to grab a high-quality trading position is the highly-coveted BSCF program and thus, I'm kinda worried about that 10 student cap per year...

 

[atreides]

wallstreetoasis I think. Maybe it was just some ranting IBanker...

If the program has a cap of 10 students a year.. there are a lot of people doing S&T, so the rest had to come from somewhere.

You probably don't want to limit / pigeon-hole yourself by doing a CF bachelors, because you may be interested in other things four or five years down the line.

 

[Avgasian]

Thanks for the reply! True, at the moment I have my heart set on finance but I'm torn between banking and trading, which I understand are two entirely different beasts. What would you suggest instead for a degree that demonstrates a desire to succeed while maintaining flexibility?

Some choices I'm looking at:

BSBA + computer science minor <-(this looks the most attractive to me, as SCS is AMAZING)
BSBA + computational finance minor
BSBA only along the Finance track

 

[Connor]

I would question the BSBA. Business Administration without a concentration isn't very useful for anything in my opinion, and a degree in Finance-only doesn't make you very competitive.

You should ultimately study something that interests you, but I will say in my opinion business overall (finance, marketing, operations, etc) has become more quantitative and is likely to only become more so.

 

[tylor]

why would an undergraduate degree in computational finance be bad? doesn't it get you the same placement the master program would? i guess you could argue that you would have less options if you didn't enjoy the computational finance work, but i don't think that would stop me personally.