Specialized Masters in Quantitative Finance

[Snehasish Das]

Hi,

I would like to know more about the Specialized Masters in Quantitative Finance at the Brussels School of Economics and Management, Belgium.
It is their first year they are launching this course. Experts in the field could you tell me how good is this course in terms of its structure compared with the MFE courses of LSE or Berkeley? How important is it to do a MFE course from a very well reputed institute in comparison to a fresh and new institute like Brussels School of economics and management? Since its their 1st year, it is hard to judge the job opportunities that would follow after this course? Experts please advice that taking such a risk of just doing this course in the hope of getting a job after completion of this course...is it worth it?
Appreciate your inputs at the earliest.

http://www.areyoureadyforchange.be/quantitative-finance.aspx

 

[Ole Bueker]

Course overview looks fine to me, I don't recognize any of the faculty members, but most likely they all have connections to companies in Luxembourg / Brussels and so on - so I guess your job prospects don't look bad if you are trying to find a job there (and I know there are quite some asset management firms in Luxembourg as we've done work for them).
If you're more interest in working in London / NY then it will be quite hard because your program won't be recognized as much (since its new and quite far away) but that shouldn't be too big of a deterrance if you ask me. You could also try to find work with some of the big regulators there.

Maybe Frankfurt /Zurich could also be a choice for you, not too far away.

 

[Snehasish Das]

Thank you for the advice Ole Bueker. Appreciate the input. But you gave me a sad news, I was hoping to be able to move to some job located in London/NY after completing this degree. What would you say are the chances of being able to move to London/NY after a year or two of work experience in some asset management company in the Europe? In such a case would this degree be irrelevant or would only the work experience count?

 

[Ole Bueker]

Hm that's very hard to tell - if you're lucky / good enough you can work for a big enough employer in Luxembourg who has offices in NY / London so you could just transfer - but I do not have enough knowledge to answer this unfortunately. You could try looking for some companies that might be interesting for you in the area and see if they have offices in NY / London as well

Another option could be to contact the University directly and get into contact with their Career Services.

In general its not quite easy to switch from an unknown program to NY / London in my opinion - there are already many applicants from MFE programs there that have better contacts plus the competition is harder. I'm pretty sure though having a good working experience at another employee is a very strong signal to future employers so transfering after a few years might be possible.

And I think in your first 3-5 years after graduating your degree is still highly relevant, after that period people tend to focus more on your work experience.

Hope some others with more experience can join the discussion as my knowledge is rather limited, but still I'm happy that I could help you!