COMPARE MSc Finance or MSc Mathematics and Finance at Imperial College London

[Swayum]

My goal is to work in the hedge fund industry as a trader. Looking around, hedge funds seem to want computer science graduates mainly, they don't really seem to care much about your financial knowledge/experience. I come from a Maths and Economics undergraduate background, so I don't know much computer sciency stuff. Which course do you think is better at Imperial?

Mathematical Finance: http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/mathfin/admissions/msc/programmestructure

Or straight Finance http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/business-school/programmes/msc-finance/studyprogramme

I think content wise, Mathematical Finance is better, but there are no statistics on employment or anything like that. Plus I think the Imperial Business School (where straight Finance is taught) is a better 'tag' and will have a better career service. Straight Finance is playing about 20% of people into the buy-side, which is quite good for a course with 200 people, no?

 

[tfors]

didn't you answer your own question? Take the one with most programming courses in it.

 

[Swayum]

didn't you answer your own question? Take the one with most programming courses in it.

I answered my question in terms of which content is better, but then I bring up the fact that I have no idea about the careers aspect of the course, hence the dilemma...

 

[DominiConnor]

I'm interested in what has led you to believing that HFs want mostly CS grads ?

You're right that Imperial has the worst careers service of any British university, actively seeking to piss off people who would find jobs for their grads. The only reason I don't say "worst in the world" is because North Korea has universities and so the business school cannot help but help more with careers.

As for "tag" AKA branding, personally I rate the math finance course higher than the business school one, which ironically means you do the better course with worse careers help, lots of the decisions you make at this level are going to be like that. Of course I look for certain types of people, a different recruiter for different types of jobs might think different.
To be honest, many employers will not actually know or care about the differences between the courses.

Also you need to separate the sort of person who does a course from what it equips you to do, a particular problem with all types of finance masters.

 

[Swayum]

I'm interested in what has led you to believing that HFs want mostly CS grads ?

Well, I did a few Google searches for hedge fund jobs in London, and virtually EVERY single job that didn't require industry experience was aimed at people with extensive programming knowledge. I've done a C++ course and I study Maths + Economics (having also covered quantitative finance + probability for finance courses), but I can hardly develop low-latency, algorithmic trading strategies...

You're right that Imperial has the worst careers service of any British university, actively seeking to piss off people who would find jobs for their grads. The only reason I don't say "worst in the world" is because North Korea has universities and so the business school cannot help but help more with careers.

I don't think careers services matter that much in the UK, to be honest. I study at LSE, which you would think would have a top service, but there are virtually no jobs advertised through our service that are on the buy-side. Even sell-side jobs at LSE are obtained through online applications, without much help from the careers service. I don't think any of my friends who have jobs at investment banks bothered much with the service at all. I'd have access to it in the future anyway even if I did go to Imperial.

As for "tag" AKA branding, personally I rate the math finance course higher than the business school one, which ironically means you do the better course with worse careers help, lots of the decisions you make at this level are going to be like that. Of course I look for certain types of people, a different recruiter for different types of jobs might think different.
To be honest, many employers will not actually know or care about the differences between the courses.

Also you need to separate the sort of person who does a course from what it equips you to do, a particular problem with all types of finance masters.

I see. I think I'm leaning more towards Maths + Finance right now, but I'm going to go talk to one of my LSE professors tomorrow and get his thoughts.

An alternative option is to do Computer Science at Imperial:

http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/computing/teaching/pg/mcs

The advantage here is that I have the complete package on my CV: Maths + Economics + some finance + Computer Science. I would get to study some very interesting stuff doing Computer Science, but the course doesn't seem to be very mathematically rigorous. Also, there's only 1 finance option.

I just don't get why there are no proper computational finance courses in the UK, something like Baruch's MFE would be perfect, but it just doesn't exist in the UK.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

I just don't get why there are no proper computational finance courses in the UK, something like Baruch's MFE would be perfect, but it just doesn't exist in the UK.

Are you sure?
A lot of applicants from China/India probably never heard of Baruch MFE until they come across these forums. I imagine it's possible that some lesser known programs in UK may be doing something of interest to you. I probably would have never heard of them before, living in this side of the pond.