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FSU Job Placement for 2013 International graduates

Joined
1/31/14
Messages
81
Points
28
Below is an email I received from the program director at FSU. Hope this helps some students considering the program af FSU:

I can give you a bit more information -- but we don't have easy statistics to report, since we just haven't kept them previously. Now that we have a new Coordinator, Dr Ewald, we can start compiling more complete statistics on outcomes. Keep in mind that we are a math department, not a business school, so we don't have a lot of staff to compile records. It's mainly the teaching and research faculty who run everything in the program.

We have a growing group of alumni in NY and elsewhere who serve as points of contact for new grads. Also, Dr Ewald is expanding our efforts in connecting to companies that have had good experiences with previous graduates of our program. So there are good starting points for students to begin the job search. Except in the rather large Energy sector, where we've placed many grads, Florida placements are only starting to expand now, since many NY banks, e.g. Deutsche Bank, are opening quant offices in Florida due to recently changed tax laws.

The alumni web page gives a sampling of placements for graduates in the last few years -- also please check out the Interviews page, linked from that page. We've put a lot of work into trying to give applicants a sense of how our alumni view the program looking back.

To give you a bit more detail, we've started keeping better records in the last couple of years, and as an illustration I can tell you what happened to our students who graduated during calendar year 2013, and I'll just list placements for International students since you asked specifically about that:

List of positions obtained after 2013 graduation from FSU Financial Math:


Proprietary Equities Trader at Wall Street Trading, LLC.
PhD student in Statistics, FSU
Quantitative Equities Research Associate at Principal Financial Group
Analyst - ETF Trader at Deutsche Bank, Jacksonville, FL
Modeling Analyst, Citi Bank, Tampa
Research Assistant, KTB Investment & Securities Co., Ltd., Seoul Korea
Southeastern Data Cooperative, Atlanta, GA
Pricing Science Intern, Prorize LLC
Deutsche Bank, Jacksonville
Assistant Actuary, AIG
Marketing Analyst, Amica Mutual Insurance Company
Comrise (Big Data Trainee (HPCC Training)
Visiting Assistant Professor, Kentucky State University, Frankfort, KY (PhD)
Associate Quantitative Finance Analyst, Deutsche Bank (PhD)
Quantitative Associate, Wells Fargo, Charlotte NC (PhD)
Tenure Track Assist Prof, Roosevelt University, Chicago (PhD)
Southern Company, Atlanta (PhD)
Tech Software Developer, Yahoo!, Sunnyvale, CA (PhD)

Some of these are PhD grads (indicated), the rest are MS.


In addition to these, there were two additional MS grads for whom we don't have data, and that completes the list of 2013 grads (international).

As you can see, most grads do not return to their home country, though some do. The majority of positions are probably outside Florida. We have some good alumni in NYC. One recent (2014) student
was hired as a quant at Bank of America (formerly Merrill Lynch) in NYC.

To my mind, these statistics are less predictive of your own success than what you will personally be bringing to the table in terms of ability, dedication, and hard work. That's how our must successful students got their success...
 
Great Job dude. You are pulling in some really useful information about placements from these schools like FSU, Chicago, UCLA which contains useful information which people did not have earlier. Keep up the good work. Hopefully, the MFE applicants will be able to easily find these posts in future to get this information.
 
Yeah man no problem. I'm facing some serious decisions myself and it's very tough especially when little info is out there. I think many people including myself are kinda scared to pick the wrong school and we all shouldn't be and just try to follow our inner gut and passion rather than brand name, and school stats.
 
so are you going to FSU? or (still) Stony Brook?


Below is an email I received from the program director at FSU. Hope this helps some students considering the program af FSU:

I can give you a bit more information -- but we don't have easy statistics to report, since we just haven't kept them previously. Now that we have a new Coordinator, Dr Ewald, we can start compiling more complete statistics on outcomes. Keep in mind that we are a math department, not a business school, so we don't have a lot of staff to compile records. It's mainly the teaching and research faculty who run everything in the program.

We have a growing group of alumni in NY and elsewhere who serve as points of contact for new grads. Also, Dr Ewald is expanding our efforts in connecting to companies that have had good experiences with previous graduates of our program. So there are good starting points for students to begin the job search. Except in the rather large Energy sector, where we've placed many grads, Florida placements are only starting to expand now, since many NY banks, e.g. Deutsche Bank, are opening quant offices in Florida due to recently changed tax laws.

The alumni web page gives a sampling of placements for graduates in the last few years -- also please check out the Interviews page, linked from that page. We've put a lot of work into trying to give applicants a sense of how our alumni view the program looking back.

To give you a bit more detail, we've started keeping better records in the last couple of years, and as an illustration I can tell you what happened to our students who graduated during calendar year 2013, and I'll just list placements for International students since you asked specifically about that:

List of positions obtained after 2013 graduation from FSU Financial Math:

Proprietary Equities Trader at Wall Street Trading, LLC.
PhD student in Statistics, FSU
Quantitative Equities Research Associate at Principal Financial Group
Analyst - ETF Trader at Deutsche Bank, Jacksonville, FL
Modeling Analyst, Citi Bank, Tampa
Research Assistant, KTB Investment & Securities Co., Ltd., Seoul Korea
Southeastern Data Cooperative, Atlanta, GA
Pricing Science Intern, Prorize LLC
Deutsche Bank, Jacksonville
Assistant Actuary, AIG
Marketing Analyst, Amica Mutual Insurance Company
Comrise (Big Data Trainee (HPCC Training)
Visiting Assistant Professor, Kentucky State University, Frankfort, KY (PhD)
Associate Quantitative Finance Analyst, Deutsche Bank (PhD)
Quantitative Associate, Wells Fargo, Charlotte NC (PhD)
Tenure Track Assist Prof, Roosevelt University, Chicago (PhD)
Southern Company, Atlanta (PhD)
Tech Software Developer, Yahoo!, Sunnyvale, CA (PhD)

Some of these are PhD grads (indicated), the rest are MS.


In addition to these, there were two additional MS grads for whom we don't have data, and that completes the list of 2013 grads (international).

As you can see, most grads do not return to their home country, though some do. The majority of positions are probably outside Florida. We have some good alumni in NYC. One recent (2014) student
was hired as a quant at Bank of America (formerly Merrill Lynch) in NYC.

To my mind, these statistics are less predictive of your own success than what you will personally be bringing to the table in terms of ability, dedication, and hard work. That's how our must successful students got their success...
 
Thank you man, this is very helpful, I'm most likely heading to FSU in the fall and haven't been able to find anything on placement except for the list on the program site with 4 graduates. Don't know why they wouldn't post this stuff themselves, I was very worried by the lack of information but this is reassuring.
 
I hate to tell you, but you made a huge mistake rejecting Stony Brook in favor of FSU. I wish I had seen your post earlier and warned you. That list of jobs you posted is jobs alums have got SINCE 2013, not the 2013 grads specifically. It is certainly not the whole picture. A decade ago, FSU grads were getting jobs simply because there were only a handful QF programs. Not the case anymore.

I bet in that propaganda email they didn't tell you that funded PhDs regularly leave voluntarily (me being one of them). About the program, only finance experience among faculty is the program director worked at BARRA for a year in 90s. There is zero practical finance in the curriculum... I mean zero. The funding seems like a good deal but it diverts serious time and attention away from your studies.

Take out debt and go to legitimate program. If I were you, I would get my applications to good MFE schools for 2015 as soon as the windows open. Worst case is you waste a year at FSU.
 
That list of jobs you posted is jobs alums have got SINCE 2013, not the 2013 grads specifically. It is certainly not the whole picture. A decade ago, FSU grads were getting jobs simply because there were only a handful QF programs.


Actually, these were students who graduated during calendar year 2013. But you are right for the most part of it. The program is more academically oriented. However, I think the students who got good jobs out of it must have put a lot of extra afford into their studies and career search. At the end of the day, we all know that knowledge and capabilities matter first.

Well and that's what I did. I rejected FSU and I'll join CMU's MSCF program in a month , their merit scholarship made my decision easier...
 
I can assure you those jobs are not 2013 grads. The 2014 class had 7 students...

Glad to hear you're going to CMU.
 
These were MS and PhD students. This info was provided to me by the program director and he specifically mentioned that these are students who graduated in 2013 (fall or spring).
 
Alright man, believe what you want. I personally know some of the people at those positions, and they graduated far prior to 2013.
 
Hmm interesting. Well anyways thanks for sharing your experience. I'm sure many would find it helpful.
 
DB has been downsizing its NYC office and sending a lot of front office jobs to Jacksonville to cut costs. I don't know if they are recruiting for FO positions at UF and FSU, but it's cool to see some FSU Financial Mathematics graduates are getting FO positions there.
 
They aren't recruiting out of FSU. No firms recruit at FSU for quant positions. We occasionally got emails from the PD about open positions.

And I'll remind you guys not to immediately credit the university for the placement. Correlation is not causality. I would only trust hard stats like the ones Baruch and UCB put out, not a cherry picked list of former students with the best positions.
 
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