• C++ Programming for Financial Engineering
    Highly recommended by thousands of MFE students. Covers essential C++ topics with applications to financial engineering. Learn more Join!
    Python for Finance with Intro to Data Science
    Gain practical understanding of Python to read, understand, and write professional Python code for your first day on the job. Learn more Join!
    An Intuition-Based Options Primer for FE
    Ideal for entry level positions interviews and graduate studies, specializing in options trading arbitrage and options valuation models. Learn more Join!

Columbia MSOR Few clarifications regarding Columbia MSOR

Joined
4/10/13
Messages
24
Points
23
Well the thread on Brauch vs Columbia MSOR went places where I have never seen it go on this forum. I am a current student of Columbia OR and if its not too irksome, I shall put in few of my words. I think there is no doubt that Baruch is one of the top FE programs around. Perhaps the credit should go to its director who, (if I am to believe the Baruch students and alumni here,) does an awesome job, something which I believe administrators at Columbia IEOR could never match upto. Also, from the description on the website the student cohort seems to be among the very best(though not the only best ones out there, as few of the Baruch students are inclined to believe). However, it does not help that few Baruch students pick on a program to claim that it offers 'inferior academic experience' . Like it or not, most of firms visit Columbia IEOR simply due to the huge reputation it carries in the quant finance domain and time and again they have been very satisfied with the quality of students. Moreover, for a firm which hires at Columbia IEOR, 99% of time, they do not distinguish between FE and OR students. What might tilt the balance in favor of FE students is prior experience and better understanding of the financial markets and not necessarily mathematical expertise and raw intelligence. From personal experience, a very big European bank came to IEOR to recruit interns and selected two- one a PhD holder MSFE student and the other being myself (from MSOR). Also, I currently have two offers from very big financial firms. My point was not to show off but a gentle request to know the facts before disregarding MSOR (or MSFE) as useless, second tier programs. My contention is not over placement (as there is no doubt that Baruch's is better but here too class size should be taken into account) but over claims of poor academic quality and generalizing on the lack of failure of few students.

To make few issues clear, MSOR is NOT a Financial Engineering degree. It is however, an excellent quantitative program, which can help you develop quantitative skills which could also be applied to the financial industry. Most of students who struggle or fail to get a job is due to the fact that most are fresh graduates from school ( and very smart too) but they assume a Columbia name and few courses on capital markets or derivatives pricing would get you a job as a quant. If you are coming to MSOR with the sole aim of being a trader or a quant, kindly get dispossessed of this notion. Understand your skillsets and the prior experience you bring with yourself and aim accordingly. The career service too, has improved significantly and there is sufficient support to get interviews and identify what is going wrong if you are not getting interviews or are unable to convert them. However, there is no individual spoon fed guarantee of a job or internship. Apart from the two positions I obtained above, I was interviewed for quant positions at firms like AQR, Blackrock (for both Portfolio Analytics group and the Financial Modeling group). Many of my classmates have obtained similar excellent positions which is not necessarily confined to the financial industry, though it is the predominant one. So the bottom line is: If you are smart and doing things right (academics, networking etc) you will end up great. There is a certainly some randomness factor involved in the process of finding internships and jobs but in the long run, it smoothens. If you take the pain of doing some research, you will find out that the alumni from MSOR is doing as good as any and you find many of them at top positions in big financial firms.

PS. I do not intend to start any Baruch vs MSOR debate. This was supposed to be an informative post aimed particularly towards applicants who are deciding or planning for graduate study at Columbia msor.
 
I like the post. It is one of the most informative thread I have seen in forums.
 
OP: A huge chunk of students at top programs are straight out of college, and placement of these "fresh out of undergrad" students at these programs is as ~100% as their "with-industry-experience" classmates. For example: see Baruch's placement stats for this demographic (not to pull Baruch back into the mix, but they actually break these out into separate stats).

What makes MSOR different in this respect?
 
Advait : I am a Columbia student ( though not MSOR), will graduate in May and I am about to join a NY based CTA. I am from India and the students that I talked about having multiple offers are all Indians on F-1 visa.
So, I don't think what OP posted holds only for US citizen or green card holder.
As per my interactions with them, all MSOR students are extremely satisfied with their academic experience and their job placements. Again my interactions were limited to Indians on F-1 Visa.
 
Advait : I am a Columbia student ( though not MSOR), will graduate in May and I am about to join a NY based CTA. I am from India and the students that I talked about having multiple offers are all Indians on F-1 visa.
So, I don't think what OP posted holds only for US citizen or green card holder.
As per my interactions with them, all MSOR students are extremely satisfied with their academic experience and their job placements. Again my interactions were limited to Indians on F-1 Visa.

Congratulations on securing a job offer! One of the interview invites he got, I did as well only to be told in one of the final (or the one before; I'm not sure) interview rounds that they'd like to decline my application due to immigration issues. Hence, the query.
 
shadefaliam Are you an US citizen/perm. res. ?
No none. This being the first time I have ever stayed in US for more than a month, I am as international as it could get. None of the above firms had any restrictions on visa or residency eligibility, at least not while I was interviewing. However, one of the firms which ended up extending me an offer had a 'case by case policy' regarding visa sponsorship. During the super day interview of this firm, I met another Chinese student from the UCLA MFE program who I learnt later, was given an offer too. Hence, I am more inclined to believe that visa is not an issue for the major firms around. Regarding AQR/ Blackrock, I got both the interviews through IEOR and when applications were invited, there was no mention of visa restrictions, which is usually clearly spelled out right in the beginning of the process if a firm is not sponsoring.
 
are there any Columbia IEOR undergrads in this program? I graduated from Columbia's undergrad Engineering and Management Systems (IEOR dept.) program and I'm wondering if it is easier or harder to get accepted. I am probably underqualified but I'm wondering if that might be a slight boost for me.
 
The difference between Columbia MSFE and Columbia MSOR is there, although there is a lot of overlap. As an MSOR student, you can get an internship offer from a major bank, but MSFE students have a more specialized, targeted, and rigorous curriculum. I think the biggest difference is the courses they take, and while the topics may be similar, I can say from personal experience, that they are not similar in scale, scope, or difficulty at all. The difference in level is obvious in classes shard by MSFEs and MSORs.

Many employers are blind to this difference, but many that are not. As an MSFE student, you get many employers coming to you without you having to do anything. Many of the positions I am talking about are not advertised at all, and these employers are only after MSFEs. MSOR students generally are not told about these positions, and have to do most of their job searching on their own.

That being said, the MSOR program is huge. There are about 4 times as many MSOR students than MSFE students at Columbia. It is impossible to know everyone, but the MSOR students that have taken the time to speak with me are very impressive. The department won't hand jobs to them on a silver platter, but with a little effort, they should have no problem finding jobs. @shadefaliam is a great example.
 
The difference between Columbia MSFE and Columbia MSOR is there, although there is a lot of overlap. As an MSOR student, you can get an internship offer from a major bank, but MSFE students have a more specialized, targeted, and rigorous curriculum. I think the biggest difference is the courses they take, and while the topics may be similar, I can say from personal experience, that they are not similar in scale, scope, or difficulty at all. The difference in level is obvious in classes shard by MSFEs and MSORs.

Many employers are blind to this difference, but many that are not. As an MSFE student, you get many employers coming to you without you having to do anything. Many of the positions I am talking about are not advertised at all, and these employers are only after MSFEs. MSOR students generally are not told about these positions, and have to do most of their job searching on their own.

That being said, the MSOR program is huge. There are about 4 times as many MSOR students than MSFE students at Columbia. It is impossible to know everyone, but the MSOR students that have taken the time to speak with me are very impressive. The department won't hand jobs to them on a silver platter, but with a little effort, they should have no problem finding jobs. @shadefaliam is a great example.

I second that. For careers particularly in finance, there should not be an iota of doubt that MSFE is a superior program. The number of MSOR students claimed by your post seems a bit inflated though. The last time I knew, there were about 15o students in the program.
 
I second that. For careers particularly in finance, there should not be an iota of doubt that MSFE is a superior program. The number of MSOR students claimed by your post seems a bit inflated though. The last time I knew, there were about 15o students in the program.

that's insane considering how the program i'm in has < 6 doing masters. What's the placement record like for MSOR?
 
I second that. For careers particularly in finance, there should not be an iota of doubt that MSFE is a superior program. The number of MSOR students claimed by your post seems a bit inflated though. The last time I knew, there were about 15o students in the program.

You're right. The numbers I've heard are between 150 - 180. Probably increasing every year. I just like to exaggerate. =)
 
Back
Top