From my perspective, take it with a grain of salt:
- Poor career service
- Teaching quality is shoddy at best and highly variable (especially Professor Smirnov's introduction to mathematical finance class - don't even bother going to lecture as he won't actually teach anything. Far better off studying on your own).
- IMO it's more important to have good TEACHERS than "star" professors. We are talking about a one year Masters program, not a phd, and it's better to get an education.
- Lack of quant-level programming makes it hard for you to be hired even as a developer (you can finish the program with just a cursory knowledge of VBA. MATLAB can work) - lack of flexibilility on the professor's part in accepting of other more industry-level programming languages.
I've seen very few people get decent 'quant' related positions from this program - most end up in MO/BO-roles.
Luckily I am a part-time student so I don't (yet) have to worry about finding a job, but I feel sorry for many in the program (especially from China/India) who are blowing 30~40K for the Columbia name.
This isn't consulting/investment-banking where brand often matters more than substance. You need to know and learn the material inside out, both from a theory and an applied perspective, to even have a shot at being a quant. I'm not sure if this program provides that... Obviously I can't say anything about other programs but from hearsay it seems like Baruch is an excellent combination of both.
