Strat Job v/s Columbia MFE

[Avinash Shrivastava]

Hi All,

So I'm from Tier-1 Indian University, non-finance engineering graduate with good (top 10 in class although not great in absolute terms) academic performance. I recently joined Goldman Sachs as a strats in securities division. I have 1.5 years of experience from another famous MNC(although analytics profile and not IB).
Now I received an admit from Columbia MFE program and I'm not sure whether I should opt for it.
What'd be my ROI in terms of long term and short term ? I only applied to CMU and Columbia and CMU results are not out yet. I have to respond by 15th march.
Please suggest possible course of action.
Thanks all.

 

[financeguy]

GS without question over any program

 

[Baijw]

Definitely Goldman Sachs.

 

[Avinash Shrivastava]

I'm focussing on getting to the buy side. Would it be possible with Strats position or the MS?

 

[financeguy]

I'm focussing on getting to the buy side. Would it be possible with Strats position or the MS?

Neither one is necessarily a ticket to the buy side, but most MS students would love to land a GS strats job after they graduate so it seems like a weird thing to give up in order to do the MS program. Getting to the buy side is more about what you do once you're in the job that will enable you to be marketable for a transition.

 

[Aaron_Niu]

From the perspective of ROI: Short term, GS will simply be the better choice, but for the long term it's more complicated (time and tuition investment). At least, you will find an even better job when you come back from study, and I believe a solid foundation can help you a lot more for your long-term professional career in the industry. Voted for MFE.

P.s. I had some experience in forex market, which may be irrelevant here, but the moral is that, consistently, 95% of the investors in forex market lose their money and only 5% are making profits. The winners are who follow their own discipline.

 

[financeguy]

From the perspective of ROI: Short term, GS will simply be the better choice, but for the long term it's more complicated (time and tuition investment). At least, you will find an even better job when you come back from study, and I believe a solid foundation can help you a lot more for your long-term professional career in the industry. Voted for MFE.

P.s. I had some experience in forex market, which may be irrelevant here, but the moral is that, consistently, 95% of the investors in forex market lose their money and only 5% are making profits. The winners are who follow their own discipline.

I wouldn't take for granted that job after MFE >= GS strats job obtained before MFE. I think that's a debatable statement at best, and actually probabilistically untrue. I also think the correct comparison would be what job you can get after MFE vs what job you can get after a year (or two) in the GS strats team. I think GS is just clearly the dominant strategy from that perspective. Also, you can always work at GS for a couple years and then stroll into a MFE program if you feel like it - you can't pull that off so easily the other way around.

I'm unsure of what you mean about the foreign exchange market. Who thinks that and why?

 

[PepeQuant]

I am from MSSM. If your goal is to pursue academic, do your mfe and PhD after. Otherwise, GS Strats for sure. Most of MFE students do their MFE to get one of these dream jobs. It would be extremely weird to do the reverse.. besides whatever you think you are going to learn in your MFE will have little relevance for what you are gonna do on the job........

 

[Govind Pratap Chand]

Hi Avinash, assuming your strat job is at GS Bangalore office, I would suggest to go for MFE. If it were in London or NYC where you work closely with Traders and Structurers and actually are on the forefront I would have said otherwise. You did not mention your loc and I guess lot of people misunderstood. GS Bangalore office is still, well, backoffice.