MS Finance vs MBA vs MFE?

[Tianyu Li]

Thnx for sharing your experience. Out of curiosity! you have MBA, MSF, you are now going to have MFE. What would you additionally get from MFE which you didn't get from MBA or MSF. You might say, you would deal with models. How could one person deal with all three as u said, would that be even possible?

I am trying to pursue MSF or MFE since I dont have enough experience to pursue MBA, any of your inputs would be appreciated.

Come to my self, I consider MBA+MSF a "prerequisite" of MFE, which helps me to get necessary knowledge from a financial perspective. So I can concentrate on a more quantitative MFE experience (like Baruch). My MSF is a joint degree of my MBA so both together only took me 14 months to finish. But more importantly, they give me an idea of what is going on in the world of finance, and help me read Wall Street Journal more easily.

I would suggest you to look at every program's curriculum and then make your own decision. If you have less working experience, I won't suggest you go to an MBA because you cannot learn much from that. MSF or MFE? It depends on where is your true passionate. But from my part, an MSF is a little less competitive in the job market.

 

[alain]

My MSF is a joint degree of my MBA so both together only took me 14 months to finish.

14 months? where? I was under the impression MBA take over 3 years to finish.

 

[Tianyu Li]

14 months? where? I was under the impression MBA take over 3 years to finish.

I finished my MBA in China. Like many European MBA programs, it is a 1.5 year one. Most of the American MBA will take you 2 years and give you an opportunity to choose your concentration. But an European MBA is more focusing on general management so the program is relatively shorter.

 

[Ameya Khaladkar]

I am MBA fin. from a tier 1 Bschool in India. Currently working as a business analyst in an IT company. I Did Mechanical Engineering from reputed institute. I was good in Maths from early days. Curriculum of MFE feels truly enriching. Any advice on risk return perspective?

 

[MarketMan]

How about this: if we want to work on convincing people to do something, we get an MBA, if we want to work with CAPM-like models, we get MFE [/QUOTE]

LOL --> truth

 

[MichaelLewis]

Skip the MBA - it's a fully depreciated asset in my mind. The future is all about having a deep skill set. The MBA doesn't provide deep skills in anything. Instead, it provides you a glimpse into a lot of different subjects and, by the time your done, you have forgotten everything you learned because you only scratched the surface of 10 different topics. I have an MBA and it's pretty much useless.

 

[edgerr]

If you run through various quant finance or finance forum, you find that people asking the same questions:

1. Which QF program is the best?
2. Can I switch career?
3. Can I get a job after graduation?
4. MBA or MFE or CFA?

I think many people like to think "may be" using quant finance route to enter trading. Secondly, finance jobs are harder to get. Networking and relationships are very important to succeed in Finance. In this case, new grduates want to get higher pay and the job outlook has to be sexy. So, Quant Finance obviously looks sexy indeed.

However, I think we need to draw a line to ask ourselves honestly what do we want to do or want to be in the next 5 years or the rest of our life. My personal point of view is that Quants are well suited for rocket sciencetists. This is a fact. Even a top notch MFE program can't beat any Phd in rocket science in terms of maths. So, C++ programming comes in. If you are good in C++ with some maths you learns from MFE you may or probably break into the field becomes a junior quant.

Frankly speaking, I still believe that quant finance is a practical subject. We learn almost all neccessary tools during undergraduate from calculus, d.e, pde to analysis. Phd is very focus on a particular reasearch in a specific areas. You won't be surprised that undergraduate also covered stochastic calculus, probability and stats in details. These goodies can actually do the QF job.

With due respect, I think MFE is just like MBA. A career switching tool for engineers or technical personnel. Quants spend more tha 60% of their time to do programming. Another kind of programmer job in finance perspective.

Being a trader, you really need guts, not everyone has it. Similarly, even smart people they can't do programming. So, you need to know what really want in finance otherwise you will just wasting your time like I do in the first year. Personally, I think do something to get into the door is more important. Princeton program to me is one of the best. Second choice may be LBS Master in Finance. However, Baruch program will prepare you a job in view of the location, great contents, best course director I have ever seen to go all out to help students...so think firsst.

Cheers and best of luck.

Hi!
Can you guide me as to what should I do in my situation?
I want to become a quant!

Currently,my programming skills are not good.

But I'm reading problem solving with c++.I can't solve any programming projects now.

How can I solve these projects?!

 

[Michsund]

Take QuantNets C++ for Financial Engineering.