DISCUSSION on second rated MFE programs

[bigbadwolf]

It's extremely hard to tell simply from the course outline whether the maths content is advanced or relevant. "Computational Finance III" I suspect is more advanced than "Computational Finance II", but that's as far as it goes.

The syllabus is "generic." It would be helpful if departments gave detailed syllabi, along with names of books and papers to be used.

 

[Feng]

I did have received the survey on the Singapore program.
But still what do you know about the quality, reputation, placement and anything else about the current Chicago program? If you can provide information on other programs, I will be as grateful.

 

[Carl]

Dominic,

What are you views on Polytechnic's program?

Thanks

-carl

 

[Andy Nguyen]

approx 2.5 lac students appear for 2000 odd seats.

I had no clue what a lac is so after googling a bit, I got this entry that explains it. For the benefits of others who may not know Indian measure units.

lac
This one isn't actually new to me now, but it was a few months ago, and I think it's a neat example of unexpected cultural differences, so I'll include it.

"Lac" is an alternate spelling of "lakh," which in India is a unit consisting 100,000 of something, often 100,000 Indian rupees, an amount currently equal to about $2200 US. So house prices or salaries are sometimes specified as, for example, "Rs. 30 lakhs"--which is to say, 3 million rupees, currently about $70,000 US.

What I find most interesting about this is that in the US, we don't generally measure things in tens of hundred-thousand-units per se; we measure in millions instead. But I don't see any particularly good reason to have one of those units as a standard instead of the other; just a cultural difference (presumably rooted in history).
Oh, yes, and a "crore" is 100 lakhs; ten million of something.

 

[bobbychopra]

All of my information about the Chicago program is from talking to current students. I think current students have the most relevant information available.

You should be skeptical of everything you hear from anyone involved in the program. My reason for saying this is: NO ONE, NO ONE in their right mind is ever going to downplay their program. It would be like going to a restaurant and asking the owner if the food is good. No offense to Prof. Dan or anyone involved with the Baruch program.

Therefore, most of my information from Chicago was from talking to students. The students said the program was hard, but doable. They said they learned a lot from the program. Almost all of the students that I spoke to were part-time. They were able to already translate what they had learned in the classroom to relevant work. However, I did not get the opportunity to talk to the full-timers.

About placement, I am not that interested in placement rates or career services [I will answer why in a different post about this]. New York has plenty of recruiters who are looking to make money from placing you. If you have some experience working in the financial sector, then I don't think it is too hard for getting the job you want. I don't mean to be over-confident, but I am betting that my experience will help me secure a job, so I am not too concerned about the career center. The recruiters mentioned that Chicago is a good school and a MSFM degree is valued on the street, which is what I was concerned about.

I hope this helped

-- Bobby

 

[Feng]

Thank you bobby. I do get very useful information about Chicago's program from your post.

I agree with all you have said. Indeed your skills and abilities are what employers pay you for.

Yet in my case, I am an undergraduate international student with no prior working experience (apart from a few very short-term internships). What I concern a lot is whether I can find a job in US after graduation. Since "ability" are not so obviously seen by recruiters(since I have never proved it by taking a job), the school's reputation, their career services, their previous placement record are what I have to rely on.

Actually, I think contents taught by programs cannot be too different, and I can study the contents in the text book even by reading them by myself. Like someone on this forum has said in another thread, that the brand of a MBA is much more important than what is actually taught. I think this more or less applies to any program.

Of course I would study hard and develop my knowledge and skill. Yet for the high expenses(and also the time) I will have to pay, I would also like to get those peripheral benefits as much as possible.

 

[Gavin Walsh]

I am currently a Quantitative Finance student at Fordham University. I have read your many negative comments about my school and I felt compelled to offer you my humble opinion about the program, and why you may be receiving negative information about it.

There are many positive aspects of our program that are not shared by other quantitative finance programs in this country. I was accepted into six financial engineering programs along the east cost and I chose Fordham because it does offer something different. The majority of masters program out there are composed of 30-36 credits. For financial engineering programs this will be composed of a few math courses, some computer programming, and the rest of the courses will focus on risk analysis, derivatives, investment analysis, and interest rate modeling. Our program is composed of 55 credits, and therefore we are exposed to a wider array of financial products, and to more topics than other masters programs allow.

We take several courses in economic theory (micro, macro, and financial theory), and we also take courses in fixed income analysis, portfolio management, M&A, and corporate finance. This offers us a chance to develop a much broader skill set that is not common in other programs. We gain these classes without the loss of our many traditional financial engineering courses including risk analytics, derivatives, stochastic calculus, credit risk, simulations, etc.

I will not say that Fordham should match up with many other financial engineering programs, because we simply learn something different. We do not study C++, which allows people (like myself) who carry out their undergraduate work in economics or finance a chance to learn the mathematics behind finance without studying C++ for several years prior to graduate school. Making the assumption that this limits our quantitative ability is incorrect. Most of us can rattle off the Ito’s Lemma along with the implications (as well as volumes of other probability and stochastic theory), and we can easily sit down and solve complex SDE’s for the development of financial models. Those who are not able to carry out these essential tasks can not do so because they have not personally put forth the effort; it is not a failure of the school. We implement these theories using somewhat simpler programming languages (MATLAB, SAS, VBA), but transferring our knowledge of these languages into C++ is a matter syntax.

While we happen to be in a new program, I think those of us who have put forth the required effort will experience exceptional success in this industry in the future. Those who can not put forth the effort in an academic program shouldn’t be trying to work on Wall Street in the first place. That being said, I welcome your (and anyone else’s) criticism of our program, because it gives me ample opportunity to convince my future employers otherwise.

 

[Tigga]

Gavin Walsh,
Your post is appreciated here. We want to have info from all side, student, faculty of the program to form an educated opinion on it. I think most of the comments about Fordham here is about its internship component and not its quality as it has not produced a single graduate yet.

While we are on this topic, can you also comment on the internship issue ?

And since you mentioned that Fordham is 55 credits which seems like it's much longer than most typical program (36 credits), I'd like to point out that Fordham is 1 year program as stated on its website

The MS in Quantitative Finance Program is a one-year program consisting of 55 credit hours. The curriculum is spread over three terms (fall term beginning in September, spring term, and summer term ending in early August). Refresher classes are offered in mathematical and statistical foundations, financial accounting, micro and macro economics, and introductory finance for those who need it during the summer semester before the regular program begins.
The fall and spring semesters each has 10 required half-term courses. Five courses are scheduled during the first half of each term, and a second round of five courses are scheduled during the second half of the semester. All 20 courses, 2 credits each, have been specifically designed for Fordham’s MS in Quantitative Finance Program. The summer term consists of an internship, which spans the entire term and counts as two courses, total of 6 credits. Students will also take a communications course and can choose two electives from among the regular MBA course offerings. Each of these courses is 3 credits. Corporate finance and mergers & acquisitions are two of the electives we recommend. Both courses are taught by faculty who also teach in the MSQF.
Course Details
MSQF Core Courses
All courses in Fall and Spring terms are 2 credits each
Fall Term – Module I
Financial Modeling
Applied Micro-Economics
Global Financial Markets
Basics of Derivatives
Introduction to Stochastic Calculus

Fall Term – Module II
Financial Statement Analysis
Finance Theory I
Statistical Inference
Equity Style Derivatives
Simulation Applications
Spring Term – Module I
Fixed Income Securities
Equity Portfolio Management
Financial Economics
Interest Rate Derivatives
Risk Management
Spring Term - Module II
Fixed Income Portfolio Management
Finance Theory II
Large-scale Data Modeling
Credit Risk Management
Applied Global Macro-Economics
Summer Term
Internship & Project Report
Verbal & Written Communications

So if you look at this, it has 3 semesters Fall, Spring, Summer while other programs follow Fall, Spring, Fall where Summer is used for full time internship which translate to 1.5 year long. So it appears to me that Fordham compresses all the courses into 2 credits mini courses. To be fair, I don't think saying Fordham has 55 credits mean it covers more things or anything much more in depth than other programs.

But as you said, we can't compare Fordham with others since Fordham may target different kind of job target than a traditional Financial Engineering which explains why it doesn't have C++.

Thoughts ?

 

[bigbadwolf]

To be fair, I don't think saying Fordham has 55 credits mean it covers more things or anything much more in depth than other programs.

But as you said, we can't compare Fordham with others since Fordham may target different kind of job target than a traditional Financial Engineering which explains why it doesn't have C++.

Sounds like it's an inch deep and a mile wide (which may not necessarily be a bad thing). They're doing well to call it an MSQF rather than an MFE, which would require a more mathematical, computational, and programming focus. The Fordham program -- only on the basis of the information you've provided -- appears to be closer to a master's in finance or a finance-heavy MBA.

As you say, the question of internships hasn't been addressed.

 

[Yuriy]

It might be that Fordham has a system similar to what CMU has, but a bit more complicated.

It is not clear how to equate credits of those 2 credit half-semester courses. I would say, those 20 courses, 2 credits each, should be equated to 18 credits. Adding 3 courses from outside and the internship, gives us 33 equated credits. But this is my personal calculation based on full-time load of what they list vs.our standard equivalent of 12 credit full-time load.

 

[Yuriy]

Sounds like it's an inch deep and a mile wide (which may not necessarily be a bad thing). They're doing well to call it an MSQF rather than an MFE, which would require a more mathematical, computational, and programming focus. The Fordham program -- only on the basis of the information you've provided -- appears to be closer to a master's in finance or a finance-heavy MBA.

As you say, the question of internships hasn't been addressed.

I agree. There is an introduction to Stochastic Calculus, which I think only gives a general idea about stochasticity. Normally, Stochastic Calculus is taught after a full-semester course in probability. Other courses are very similar to Baruch's MS in Finance.

 

[yuguang]

... Fordham's MSQF program at his Wilmott blog. He's doing us all a service. It would be nice if people could contribute the names of similar garbage programs.

Yet the students these institutions ensnare -- poor suckers -- are ill-served by the "programs" ...

I don't want to say you are offensive, but actually your words are.

I believe it came about first on GD as a current student there got pissed off about the quality of Fordham program...

I don't know who is pissed off, but he is only one of us.

Fordham is the first programme where I've received information that they are actually lying, ...

Fact: Some of us got interview opportunities from JPM under the help of the school, at least one got the internship offer. I am not sure whether the "complaining" guy knows that.

Gavin Walsh,
Your post is appreciated here. We want to have info from all side, student, faculty of the program to form an educated opinion on it. I think most of the comments about Fordham here is about its internship component and not its quality as it has not produced a single graduate yet.

Definitely you forget the words like "garbage", "suckers", "worst"...

Before knowing the fact, some people already rushed to the conclusion.

Sounds like it's an inch deep and a mile wide (which may not necessarily be a bad thing).

As you say, the question of internships hasn't been addressed.

You are so nice to say "may not be a bad thing". Knowing the fact or not doesn't prevent you saying "garbage" thing.

Don't bother.

We don't want to use this thread or Quantnet to badmouth any program but we want to point out flaws in the way prospective students approach these programs. I'm from Baruch so I'm biased by association but I'll add a few comments.

Sounds great. Unfortunately some people did so.

 

[bigbadwolf]

I don't want to say you are offensive, but actually your words are.

It may be scant consolation but I wasn't thinking of Fordham specifically when I wrote those words (I know nothing of Fordham's program except what I've read on this site). The purpose of the thread is (I hope) to cast a spotlight on unsavoury programs: this might help prospective students.

I see you're new to the forum; if you intend to remain here, you have the option of adding me (and others) to your "ignore list" so as to be spared the anguish of reading our disturbing posts.

Cheers.

 

[Tigga]

I think Quantnet is just too special to be a place for flame wars. We welcome both Yu Guang and Gavin Walsh here to contribute info they wish to share. We'll let anyone who interested in the Fordham program to judge and decide for themselves.

We need facts and the other student that started on this just posted this over at WM

Now we get a case of he said, she said. I'm glad that we get to hear from both side but hope to see more facts.

Hey more news.

Hey so now the firm we were going to do projects we are not going to do that. We emailed the firm and asked them if this is an internship.
They replied no. So now all of us know officially so no one can do and the faculty have also said that because it comes on our transcript.

So basically we are back to square one. One of our Professors has said he will be helping two-three depends on how we do in the
course he is teaching. Now barely 40 days left and no student is with an internship. Dont know what is going to happen....lol. I am trying myself also.

Want to say something About me.
((I just want to say I am pretty sound academically with a 3.85/4.0 gpa at fordham, spent a year doing masters in computer science at NYu, left it for this program and have
one year of financial work experience and also a management internship with the port authority last summer if that helps. I am very experienced in VBA,matlab and intermediate in SAS, very good communication wise. The fordham msqf program teaches you a hell lot of finance from finance theory to applications it teaches everything.even financial statement analysis and accounting. ))

 

[Tigga]

Someone pointed out to that student posts by Gavin and Yu Guang and here is his response

Hey......everything he saying is true....... no arguments... he is not talking about the internships but the program......
and he like me has said the program does not teach c++ but vba matlab sas.

I am talking about the internships and the capstone of the program and no student in the program has an internship.

Please read his post carefully before replying and understand the issue of discussion.

He said no student has internship. Yu Guang said at least one student has internship from JPM. The program has only 8 students and I find it's hard to believe that current students will have totally contradicting information.

Now imagine how hard it is for prospective students to find out real info about the Fordham program. If he talks to one student, he will hear nobody got internship. If he talks to another, he will hear some got internship. So the chance of him making the right decision will be based upon which student he talks to ? No wonder prospective students, headhunters have absolutely no reliable data to work with.

 

[bigbadwolf]

I agree. There is an introduction to Stochastic Calculus, which I think only gives a general idea about stochasticity. Normally, Stochastic Calculus is taught after a full-semester course in probability. Other courses are very similar to Baruch's MS in Finance.

I agree. This is what someone posted here:

The program is well structured. It has good amount of mathematics and finance involved.Most programming happens in Matlab. But I think learning Stochastic calculus in 7 1/2 weeks is virtually impossible so we learn whats required so that's a flaw with the program.It happens with many subjects. According to our Professors they want to give as much information they can in one year and then they are like you basically learn in finance when you start working. They are right but the problem is its January 12 and no interview no firm has come yet.

But one flaw the program definitely has. It's that they don't do any C++. But I have had programming experience so it's okay for me. But just look up any Quantitative Finance job, what they ask understanding of models,derivatives, etc......some matlab and 90% cases C++. The professors knew about this but they said how can we teach more . As it is everyone who comes for their first lecture says we are overboard and its really hard to finish this in 7 1/2 weeks.

The reason Baruch gets good jobs is that their students are good in C++. And many in some cases go into Algorithmic trading . That is more coding than anything. This program does lack that but we do learn Matlab ,VBA programming to a moderate extent( for a programmeer its nothing ..its for economics guys) excel modelling ,a little SAS in Spring.

I reiterate that what distinguishes an MFE from any other program is the concentration on theory (stochastic processes, PDEs, optimisation, theoretical numerical analysis,theoretical ideas behind simulation), computation (numerical methods, algorithms), and hard-core programming in C++. These are essential. Other things may be nice-to-have but not so crucial.

 

[DominiConnor]

The OP does indeed describe himself as someone who complains, and in my position I get this all the time from many sources.

So could you respond to the issues raised ?

1: how many students have got internships ?
You were promised these, yet I'm told this has gone badly wrong.

2: What have the faculty said about this ?

3: Did your lecturers really tell you that "transferring our knowledge of these languages into C++ is a matter syntax. "?

If someone told me that when I was interviewing them, I'd pause and let them try and make sense, some managers would end the conversation there, and I know of several would would quite literally laugh at you.

4: How do you perceive the utility of a course in accountancy in a QF program.

"I will not say that Fordham should match up with many other financial engineering programs, because we simply learn something different."
You're going to apply to banks, they are going to see MSQF, and think you're some sort of entry level quant. They will therefore interview you on this basis.

 

[DominiConnor]

says "Fact: Some of us got interview opportunities from JPM under the help of the school, at least one got the internship offer. I am not sure whether the "complaining" guy knows that."

I'm sorry, is this supposed to be a defence of the program ?
You were all promised internships, one got an offer ? That's a dismal performance even without the promise. Tigga quite rightly points out that there is confusion about 1/8 or 0/8

I personally don't care. When someone calls something a "capstone" or an integral part of the course, I expect 8/8. OK, in the real world, one student might blow a fuse and become unemployable, but anything less than 7/8 when such promises is failure either in integrity or competence.

Up until this point I had concerns about viability of information sources, but now that other students acknowledge the lack of C++, the internships failure.

The professors ask "the professors knew about this but they said how can we teach more" ?
When asked why no C++? You make the course longer, you hire a C++ teacher (I'm one, but not interested). Actually there is space, lose the accountancy for god's sake.
Rather than deliver the internships they promised, they could instead deliver the C++ course they should have had in the first place. That's not cheap, and would cut into their profit margins, so ain't gonna happen is it ?

Saying algorithmic trading is "just coding" is not right, nearly all the jobs in this domain require a serious ability to code, true, but signal processing, market microstructure, hardcore optimisation, time series analysis, and a whole pile of other stuff.

Also, I'm intrigued that none of the staff have taken the trouble to explain this situation publicly.
Most of it's students have found my blog, and it is not exactly the case that I'm unknown in this market.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

I agree. This is what someone posted here:

But I think learning Stochastic calculus in 7 1/2 weeks is virtually impossible so we learn whats required so that's a flaw with the program.

But one flaw the program definitely has. It's that they don't do any C++.

The reason Baruch gets good jobs is that their students are good in C++.

I feel compelled to share my experience with the Baruch MFE program after reading that.

My MFE education actually started during the summer when we took 4 refresher courses (C++, Linear algebra, Calculus, Probability). C++ refresher is an one month course (2 days a week, 3 hours a day). For people who never program before, there wasn't much of "Hello World" kind of exercise and the pace was fast. By the 3, 4 lecture, we were coding bond pricer, discount cashflow, etc. By the end of the C++ refresher, were were doing things that you would expect to see in the real course. I would suggest people who don't program for a living to really take it up a notch just to keep up with the pace during refresher.

The refreshers start in early June and lasts till late August just before the Fall semester starts. During the math refresher courses, you need to do exercises using the C++ code you build in the C++ refresher to solve it. Think of all the exercises in John Hull book (Black Scholes, option pricers, etc).

The last refresher course is Probability where you got a taste of what is to come in the Fall. The semester I refer here is real semester (16 weeks), not mini-semester.

C++:
I took 4 courses (3 credits each): C++, Numerical method, Financial Instruments, Real Analysis in the first semester. Even though there is officially only 1 dedicated C++ course but all the exercises of the first 3 courses are done in C++. In some case, we did more coding in other courses than in the dedicated C++ class itself. At one time, we had to build and expand our code base till it got around 5000 lines or so to solve all kind of stuff. That was in the Numerical method taught by Prof. Stefanica.

The current students seem to do more than we did in our year. Besides the Mark Joshi book, they also used Aboslute C++ by Walter Savitch, Duffy's book, and the Effective C++ series by Scott Myers.

I also heard that they did a bit of Excel add-in XLL and a bit of VBA so definitely they do expand the material accordingly.

I also had to use C++ in Numerical Method 2 class and Interest Rate class in 2nd and 3rd semester respectively.

So when people look at Baruch program, they only see one C++ course and don't realize how much we do in our program. Not counting the refresher, a Baruch student has to code in C++ in 5 courses throughout the program. I don't know of any program out there that teaches or forces the students to use C++ as much as we do.

Stochastic Calculus:
The first semester would be calculus-based probability. The second semester would be stochastic calculus. Besides the main books we use (Shreve volume I and II), we also use Measure, Integral and Probability by Marek Capinski, Peter E. Kopp, Probability Essentials (Paperback) by Jean Jacod, Philip Protter.

Anyone taking the courses would tell you that the treatment is rigorous and intensive. These two courses are the ones that most people fail or drop out of the program entirely.
Yes. Seriously. I know people have failed or dropped out of these courses. Most happens to part time students who find it extremely difficult to keep up with these demanding courses. I also know of cases where they use their 2-3 weeks of vacation time to stay home and study for this course final exam. If any part time student thinks that they can just walk right in and devote the same amount of time, energy required for this class as a full time student, they are in for a rude awakening. Or they do drop out quickly.

In these courses, passing grade is a cause to throw big parties. Grade inflation is non-existent. It's so hard and demanding that some have nightmares.

I think most student will agree that these 2 probability + stochastic calculus are among the most demanding of all courses. The faculty is of a no nonsense mindset so there is no cut corner there.

Now, in light of what happens elsewhere, I hope you have a sense of what we are going through to earn the reputation of a hard working, serious and rigorous program.

 

[bigbadwolf]

Stochastic Calculus:
The first semester would be calculus-based probability. The second semester would be stochastic calculus. Besides the main books we use (Shreve volume I and II), we also use Measure, Integral and Probability by Marek Capinski, Peter E. Kopp, Probability Essentials (Paperback) by Jean Jacod, Philip Protter.

Choice of books is good. Shreve is the best I know yet for teaching and learning stochastic methods in finance. Capinski and Kopp is excellent background reading for Shreve, but principally designed for an undergrad course in rigorous probability (there are two other books by Capinski -- "Probability Through Problems," and "Mathematics for Finance" -- also meant for an undergrad readership). I also have Jacod and Protter: a concise book, well-written, but I don't like it: short on motivation. Better ones around.

These are the books that should constitute the backbone of an MFE course in stochastic.