Master's in Industrial Engineering w/ focus on QF?

[UFklowery]

I am a student at the University of Florida and will be graduating this spring with a Bachelor's in Industrial and Systems Engineering. The program includes two OR courses, a Matrices and Numerical Methods course, two high level stat theory courses, and various programming courses. If I apply to the Master's program here it will be very affordable and I could focus on Quantitative Finance. Basically, I think my curriculum would be something like this.

1. Deterministic Methods in Operations Research
2. Applicable Probability Methods
3. Fundamentals of Mathematical Programming
4. Derivatives Securities
5. Stochastic Differential Equations and Filtering Theory I and II
6. Financial Risk Management
7. Asset Allocation and Investment Strategies
8. Study in Valuation or Fixed Income Security Valuation

I guess what I'm asking is, is this worth it? I consider myself pretty gifted in programming and OR.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

And then do what? Get an internship? Full-time job?
Your programming skill will be your key to jobs. Try to take more stats courses, less finance. Look for job area outside of finance such as data analysis, OR. What kind of employers are there in the FL area?

 

[UFklowery]

Well, preferably I'd get a full-time job. I'd like to move towards finance, I have some connections up north. And, I know one person who has gone the Quant route with only an undergrad degree in IE and had a starting offer of $85k. I'm not necessarily looking to stay in FL, but just looking around on the internet there are several firms that hire for Quant jobs like portfolio optimization in Atlanta alone.

 

[UFklowery]

Bump. Just got a 167Q/157V on my GRE. What kind of options do these scores give me?