Rutgers-Newark MQF

[IlyaKEightSix]

I am not familiar with any program in Boston. If you're looking for an MS degree that you can use as a stamp on your resume, it shouldn't matter whether it takes 1 or 2 years, and the knowledge you'll get at any university program aside from perhaps the very finest ones that literally have practitioners teaching the courses and hiring students right out will be suspect at best.

Remember: universities exist to turn a profit, and the easiest thing for them to do is to take already existing coursework (stochastic calculus from the physics department, programming from the comp sci, bunch of stuff from econ/finance) and lump them all together and call it a degree. If you get into a top program that has classes taught by practitioners who teach you the skills needed to succeed directly at their company, that's one thing. But gift-wrapped data sets or daily closes downloaded from Yahoo Finance are a far cry from the real world compared to the ugly and dirty data you find in the real world.

IMO you need to find the best school that prepares you for dealing with the ugly data of the real world, because that'll most likely be your first job if you want to ever be a quant.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

The Director of Rutgers MQF program just notified Quantnet that they have made changes to the program, among them

• Required credits reduced to 45 from 48
• Duration reduced to 1.5 years from 2 years. As a result, students save one semester and 25% tuition fee, they mention.

I believe the 2 year duration and high tuition are some of the main complains from the students, as seen on this thread or throughout Quantnet. Their website still states the 48 credits and 2 years requirements as of now.

 

[Yike Lu]

Remember: universities exist to turn a profit.

I'd just like to point out that most universities are non-profit. Not that they don't want your money... but ostensibly the purpose isn't for profit, but rather to improve other aspects of the university.

 

[myampol]

The Director of Rutgers MQF program just notified Quantnet that they have made changes to the program, among them

• Required credits reduced to 45 from 48
• Duration reduced to 1.5 years from 2 years. As a result, students save one semester and 25% tuition fee, they mention.

I believe the 2 year duration and high tuition are some of the main complains from the students, as seen on this thread or throughout Quantnet. Their website still states the 48 credits and 2 years requirements as of now.

But, the catch is that instead of taking 4 courses for each of 4 semesters, the students now have to take 5 courses for each of 3 semesters in order to graduate in 1.5 years and receive the tuition benefit, as Rutgers only charges tuition for the first 12 credits taken by a student each semester, so the 5th course is "free."

http://studentabc.rutgers.edu/forms/tuition/FY11-12Tuition-Newark.pdf
(see column headed "22 -- RU Business School")

Obviously for someone who is not a New Jersey resident, a $56,000 degree looks more attractive than a $75,000 degree.
But to some this may still seem rather expensive, especially for a "state" school.

For those who do meet the requirements for New Jersey residency, the proposed change reduces the total program tuition from $44,500 to $33,400.

The issue is that the workload for four high-quality courses should be extremely intense. Requiring students to take a fifth course would suggest that some content might have to be "watered down", as there are only 168 hours in each week, some of which ought to be used for sleeping, and full-time students probably have enough on their plate already with 4 courses.

Frankly, their proposed second ("Spring") semester looks especially brutal, with Stochastic Calculus, Object Oriented Programming II, Financial Modeling I, Numerical Analysis, and Econometrics.

http://business.rutgers.edu/mqf/curriculum/core-courses
http://business.rutgers.edu/mqf/curriculum/elective-courses

I do hope the students are able to retain all the knowledge...

 

[rajanS]

I couldn't help notice. when i went to their website. i saw the following ad. The only problem is, there is a student lighting a fire from what seems like a chemistry experiment.
Answering industry demand. The MQF program addresses a relatively unfilled need for talented workers with a combination of quantitative skills and financial knowledge.

 

[Ken Abbott]

@Yike: Once, (just this once) I agree with Ilya. Whether or not a University as a whole acts as a profit maximizing entity, I think it's safe to assume that the objective function regards money in quant finance programs. Think about it: the students don't get much financial aid, the student often don't need housing, the professors are frequently low-paid adjuncts and some students are likely to get high-paying jobs and become financial supporters of the program. Universities use these programs as cash cows. That's why there are now so many. And even with so many, acceptance rates are still generally very low.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Just received this email from the Rutgers MQF program to follow up on their previous conversation about the new curriculum.

We have now updated our website. In particular, our new curriculum can be found in http://www.business.rutgers.edu/mqf/curriculum

This new curriculum reflects a number of important changes, after incorporating comments from recent surveys in quantnet.com.

1. Our program is now a 1.5 year program (as opposed to 2 years). Therefore, the overall cost is cut by 25%.

2. We reduce the number of core courses from 13 to 10. We greatly increase the number of elective courses, including courses that deal with financial time-series analysis.

3. We provide students a greater flexibility in selecting courses.