MFE program advice for new hire

[Inooy]

Hi, I’m a 2020 may graduate who’s working as a full time actuary in big4 company. I recenlty doubted lots about my actuarial career and am thinking of applying to 2022 MFE programs next year my career change opportunity. Here’s little background of me:
-Graduated from UCB (3 years early graduation)
-undergrad gpa 3.49
-working as an actuarial associate in big4 company (<1 year)
-passed several actuarial exams: Probability, Financial maths, Investment markets, statistical risk modelling

I’m very much concerned about my low undergrad gpa. Have some Bs, Cs from important Stats and Maths courses (Lin algebra, multivariable calculus etc) and would like to get advice on how to cover up these as those are the ones which I’m genuinely concerned the most.

Also would 1 yr of experinece in actuarial career seem useless for the admission? Should I stay at least 2yrs before applying? I know for sure I don’t want to work in actuarial career for sure but in Finance career, but I just wonder if MFE programs require more work experiences..

what should I work on to prepare myself better as a competitive candidate despite unimpressive gpa and lack of work experience..

any advice would be very appreciated.

 

[EverythingPOINT]

If you are considering MFE, I do not see any programming experience above and I suggest you may hit the ground running by picking up a programming language (Once you get some hands on and get serious, then you should consider the C++ course here on quantnet).

As for the profile evaluation, I will leave it up to the pundits to guide you.

 

[Inooy]

If you are considering MFE, I do not see any programming experience above and I suggest you may hit the ground running by picking up a programming language (Once you get some hands on and get serious, then you should consider the C++ course here on quantnet).

As for the profile evaluation, I will leave it up to the pundits to guide you.

I do have experience with python, R, vba and SQL, though it was mostly from college/work. Will taking C++ course from Baruch's Pre-MFE seminar step up my game? It costs $1450 for each so I just wanna be sure that it'd be worth it..

 

[EverythingPOINT]

I do have experience with python, R, vba and SQL, though it was mostly from college/work. Will taking C++ course from Baruch's Pre-MFE seminar step up my game? It costs $1450 for each so I just wanna be sure that it'd be worth it..

That's a good start then. Talking from personal experience, after my undergrad in engineering, I told myself that I can do C++ programming. But it turned out that I did C programming with minor syntactic variations; no OOP nor generic programming. But the C++ course from Baruch's Pre-MFE seminar on quantnet is a fine coursework and structure of assignment questions is gold standard. Overall I think the cost is justified considering this is an official certificate course and likely to be considered by most schools as programming prerequisite completion (provided one has some exposure to Python).

 

[Inooy]

thanks so much! Do you think I should also supplement my low GPA with their linear algebra course as well? I'm genuinely concerned about my low gpa + poor performance in some of the important courses

 

[EverythingPOINT]

Based on a handful of admission information sessions I have attended this year (You should consider registering on all the school websites as people ask all sort of questions and I found these sessions helpful), the expectation is to have at least a B in the Math/programming subjects or back it up in SOP. I did not have any GPA issues so I cared less about it but instead I had GRE scores to worry about, so I cannot be of much help there.

Numerical Linear Algebra course at Baruch is amazing as I learnt not only the theory behind the decomposition methods and solvers, but also implemented several applications. It has definitely improved my competency. I think Baruch pre MFE seminars will improve your chances, but I strongly recommend writing to schools asking not about the entire profile evaluation (expect a standard response then) but about your specific concerns.

Let's see if we can get experts to comment on this post and guide your better.

 

[Inooy]

Based on a handful of admission information sessions I have attended this year (You should consider registering on all the school websites as people ask all sort of questions and I found these sessions helpful), the expectation is to have at least a B in the Math/programming subjects or back it up in SOP. I did not have any GPA issues so I cared less about it but instead I had GRE scores to worry about, so I cannot be of much help there.

Numerical Linear Algebra course at Baruch is amazing as I learnt not only the theory behind the decomposition methods and solvers, but also implemented several applications. It has definitely improved my competency. I think Baruch pre MFE seminars will improve your chances, but I strongly recommend writing to schools asking not about the entire profile evaluation (expect a standard response then) but about your specific concerns.

Let's see if we can get experts to comment on this post and guide your better.

thank you so much I really appreciate it. As you've suggested, I'll attend as much as info sessions + ask schools regarding my gpa concerns. And will definitely check out Linear algebra course as well. Seems like I should spend a lot for next few months..!