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Large Number of International Students in MFE Programs

Well, a Canadian student is more likely to a have a mastery of English, so there's that.
 
Depends on which Canadians you're talking about. I did a road trip with some people to Montreal back in the day, and I wouldn't give a French Canadian a visa in a million years. Poutine is OK if you're drunk enough, but that's really all Quebec has going for it... those people do not like Americans
 
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I, perhaps, wrongly assumed that french canadians learned english and english canadians learned french to at least passable levels.
 
You seem to be very opinionated on the topic of Quebec for having done 1 road trip there. Anyways, yes anglophones and francophones do learn both languages well.

EDIT: Sorry thought both comments above mine were from you.
 
Just the French... I have no problem at all with the rest of the Canadians, but the French are total a-holes--



They just can't take it that America liberated 25 million Iraqis from a dictatorship, so they apparently have to boo our national anthem and be complete dicks to hammered American college students.
 
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Canadians can apply under the T1 visa which doesn't fall under the H1B cap madness. So that helps.

Anyway, managers typically just want the brightest talent that they can get. Regardless of visa issues. When I interviewed out of undergraduate in the US, the visa topic didn't come up until I had the offer. And that was the case both during the summer internship as well as starting full time.
There were also a good handful of MFE international students in my intern class, and the brilliant ones who had a decent command of English had no issues securing an offer.

Clearly I don't speak for everyone - but good managers want the smartest and most hardworking on their team. And that's basically it.
 
ADT said:
Anyway, managers typically just want the brightest talent that they can get. Regardless of visa issues. When I interviewed out of undergraduate in the US, the visa topic didn't come up until I had the offer. And that was the case both during the summer internship as well as starting full time.
There were also a good handful of MFE international students in my intern class, and the brilliant ones who had a decent command of English had no issues securing an offer.
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It's probably a more complex picture. For the best organisations looking for the best students, the visa problem doesn't get factored in -- just a minor nuisance. But as you move down the scale (the not-so-great organisations looking to hire), then it becomes more of an issue.
 
bigbadwolf said:
It's probably a more complex picture. For the best organisations looking for the best students, the visa problem doesn't get factored in -- just a minor nuisance. But as you move down the scale (the not-so-great organisations looking to hire), then it becomes more of an issue.
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"Best" is probably the wrong word. It's more like some combination of competence and having enough resources (HR, capital). A 3 man hedge fund is much less likely to want to go through the headache for example.
 
I am just curious. Top programs are always mentioned vs bum ones. But what is considered a top program ? Ex. top 10 in the rankings? What are bum ones?
 
Finance Applicant said:
I am just curious. Top programs are always mentioned vs bum ones. But what is considered a top program ? Ex. top 10 in the rankings? What are bum ones?
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Agree it's not clear what people believe is "TOP". CMU is first in the ranking, but school's reputation is far Princeton, MIT and Berkeley. Georgia's program is in top 10 but CMU's program director hasn't really heard of it (told me during the interview)...
 
Finance Applicant said:
I am just curious. Top programs are always mentioned vs bum ones. But what is considered a top program ? Ex. top 10 in the rankings? What are bum ones?
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It's subjective. CMU, for example, is a top quant program. Baruch is also (in my opinion). I'd add Princeton, MIT, Columbia, Berkeley. After that it starts to shade off. Many an argument could be had on whether a particular program is first-rate or not. One criterion for quality is placement and employment rates -- and these are often not available or not to be trusted.
 
This is the explanation I was given.

Java is easier to learn than C++, so the student can spend more time mastering program design principles and their applications to finance, and less time worrying about the nuances of the language. They also believe that it doesn't hurt the students employability... that employers would, generally, rather hire a student with a demonstrated proficiency in language A and have them learn language B if they have better long term potential than their language B proficient lower potential counterpart. If they did suspect it of weakening the students employability they would revert to C++. The idea here is that leaving a MFE program with a mastery of a certain language tells employers that you can contribute on your first day writing code in that language. Employers would rather hire someone who takes a bit longer to be productive (ie learn the programming language of preference) if they believe they will create more value down the road.

An example I was given is that an employer may say, "I will hire anybody that can program in Q-lang (or C# or C++ or Java or _____)," but such rigid hiring requirements are uncommon so it shouldn't be viewed to the detriment of the Java student.

I was told the ideal toolbox for the aspiring quant is proficiency in some combination of a low level preferably OO language (C#/C++/Java/...) , a computational language (Matlab/R/...) , and a scripting language (Python/...).

I'm interested to hear people's opinions. I'm sure @Daniel Duffy has an opinion :).
 
I'm pretty concerned about this too actually... I have VBA/Matlab/SQL down cold from my job but haven't had much exposure to C++, and as far as I know, Columbia MAFN barely covers programming at all, let alone C++ or Java...
 
CandyOates said:
This is the explanation I was given.

Java is easier to learn than C++, so the student can spend more time mastering program design principles and their applications to finance, and less time worrying about the nuances of the language. They also believe that it doesn't hurt the students employability... that employers would, generally, rather hire a student with a demonstrated proficiency in language A and have them learn language B if they have better long term potential than their language B proficient lower potential counterpart. If they did suspect it of weakening the students employability they would revert to C++. The idea here is that leaving a MFE program with a mastery of a certain language tells employers that you can contribute on your first day writing code in that language. Employers would rather hire someone who takes a bit longer to be productive (ie learn the programming language of preference) if they believe they will create more value down the road.

An example I was given is that an employer may say, "I will hire anybody that can program in Q-lang (or C# or C++ or Java or _____)," but such rigid hiring requirements are uncommon so it shouldn't be viewed to the detriment of the Java student.

I was told the ideal toolbox for the aspiring quant is proficiency in some combination of a low level preferably OO language (C#/C++/Java/...) , a computational language (Matlab/R/...) , and a scripting language (Python/...).

I'm interested to hear people's opinions. I'm sure @Daniel Duffy has an opinion :).
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I agree. Knowing a specific programming language isn't that important. A good programmer will always be able to adapt to any common language. I had 3 years of experience in Turbo Pascal in high-school. When I took C++ based computer science course that covered up to some OOP, I thought the class was a joke, because I had enough experience in other languages and was able to quickly learn C++. Especially with nowadays' internet resources, C++ code is so easily available, that you can easily figure out any syntax. I'm guessing the transition from Java to C++ is even easier than other languages...
 
Artur Spivacenco said:
... and was able to quickly learn C++. Especially with nowadays' internet resources, C++ code is so easily available, that you can easily figure out any syntax. I'm guessing the transition from Java to C++ is even easier than other languages...
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Correction, you were able to quickly learn a subset of C++. Also, you won't easily figure out the syntax in C++ and the transition from Java to C++ is not very easy. The other way around is a little bit easier.

I don't know how much C++ you know but from that comment, I would guess that is not that much.
 
alain said:
Correction, you were able to quickly learn a subset of C++. Also, you won't easily figure out the syntax in C++ and the transition from Java to C++ is not very easy. The other way around is a little bit easier.

I don't know how much C++ you know but from that comment, I would guess that is not that much.
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Obviously, it was implied that I learned a subset, I bet barely anyone hear can argue they know all C++. I'm not claiming that I'm a pro in C++, but every time I had a programming assignment in any language, especially in C++, I knew how to easily figure out the syntax using the online resources. C++ is one of the most widely used language, and you are wrong, there are ton's of resources online that help with the syntax. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree...
 
alain said:
Correction, you were able to quickly learn a subset of C++. Also, you won't easily figure out the syntax in C++ and the transition from Java to C++ is not very easy. The other way around is a little bit easier.

I don't know how much C++ you know but from that comment, I would guess that is not that much.
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Where do you envision the difficulties beginning? I consider myself to have a strong understanding of C++ including STL and design patterns (factories, observers etc) and I'm entirely self taught from a C, Matlab, Python background.
 
I took a course in C this semester. Based on my own experience I think that is probably the best language to start in. I forces you to really understand what languages like Java and C++ are doing behind the scenes.
 
I'm guessing the transition from Java to C++ is even easier than other languages...

I general, this guess is wrong, very:)

I had 3 years of experience in Turbo Pascal in high-school

That's good.
 
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