UCB MFE UCB Pre-Program Review

[ssk]

For Math Foundations, January 17 - March 15, 2012
For Stat, January 31 - March 13, 2012

Subject to change for 2013 admission year...

Hope it helps.

Thanks a lot. Do you have any idea about the C++ course dates ?

 

[Chashu]

I don't know the exact date for C++ but all the three courses are offered in Jan-March(before the new term begins).. Exact sched and more info will be available around Oct-Nov on their site http://mfe.berkeley.edu/academics/preprogram.html

 

[nightkid]

Thanks a lot. Do you have any idea about the C++ course dates ?

sorry, man, i didn't take the C++ course... hopefully someone that did can answer your question
or you can probably just email christina. she's very helpful.

 

[vtomar]

Hey guys, I have been asked to take the pre-program courses. Seems like there are 2 options: either take the courses online or attend the classes in-person. Is there any advantage of taking it in-person over taking it online? How many students take the class in-person? Or are most of the students taking the online classes ?

 

[costas]

Hey guys, I have been asked to take the pre-program courses. Seems like there are 2 options: either take the courses online or attend the classes in-person. Is there any advantage of taking it in-person over taking it online? How many students take the class in-person? Or are most of the students taking the online classes ?

Most take it online because they can't physically attend. If you live nearby and you can attend the classes I would highly urge you to do so.

 

[costas]

I had a totally different experience. I took the Math pre-program course and really liked the content that was taught in the course. The best part was the homework assignments which, if you do them diligently, were very pragmatic at times. If you do your homework properly you would get the most benefit out of the course. Moreover, the instructor was very helpful, always tried to answer all the queries. For me, not having the slides of the solutions was not really an issue. You get to discuss the homework on the forum and later in the lecture; so if you are following everything then not having a copy of the solution given by Prof. won't pinch you much. The only limitation that I find is that being an online student you can not take part in class discussions. Overall, I will rate the course experience excellent.

This is a very late reply and I do apologize in advance, but I thought I might as well reply for the sake of future readers of this thread.
What I believe Me.rahul is missing here is essentially putting himself in the shoes of other people who may not have the required time at some points to follow the course as diligently as they would want. For example, because I was working full-time while doing these courses, there were times that i could not spend the required time working on the courseworks (or interacting with others online in order to get some assistance/guidance). For me the assignment solutions would have been really helpful when I ultimately had the time to sit down and finish the coursework in my own time. For the course's price tag I don't think I was asking for much.

 

[ifeoluwa]

I had a totally different experience. I took the Math pre-program course and really liked the content that was taught in the course. The best part was the homework assignments which, if you do them diligently, were very pragmatic at times. If you do your homework properly you would get the most benefit out of the course. Moreover, the instructor was very helpful, always tried to answer all the queries. For me, not having the slides of the solutions was not really an issue. You get to discuss the homework on the forum and later in the lecture; so if you are following everything then not having a copy of the solution given by Prof. won't pinch you much. The only limitation that I find is that being an online student you can not take part in class discussions. Overall, I will rate the course experience excellent.

hi rahul, i really have some very personal questions concerning the berkley pre-mfe courses, i'm far away in nigeria, and hope to take the courses next year. its about some things i heard about a few lecturers in the program and some other issues which would not be okay to throw in the open. my e-mail is olayodeife@yahoo.com. thanks​

 

[vtomar]

Am currently taking Stats pre-program course and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. There is so much that you learn while doing the homework. Time Series Analysis, Descriptive Statistics, goodness of fit tests, ARCH, GARCH - they cover it all. And I am not done yet. Imagine all the above being taught in such a short period of time with homework that helps u explore and research more. The fact that the questions are open-ended gives me a chance of digging deep into the topics, reading various sources of information online, then compiling and making sense of all of it. If you are looking for exact straight to the point questions which is not how the real world is, I guess you are not gonna like it. Maybe that is what Sky is complaining about. And I still have 3-4 more classes to go.

 

[vtomar]

Also, I would like to point out that the topics I mentioned above (Time Series Analysis, ARCH, GARCH etc) are actually covered by other schools during the degree programs. One of the other reputed MFE schools I took a class at, had Econometrics as their first course in their MFE program and they covered the same stuff in 4 months (they only taught AR and MA basic models, did not even touch on GARCH) that I have learnt here at UCB MFE in less than 1 - 1.5 months even before the actual program has started. Imagine the amount of extra time we have on our hands now when the program actually begins to cover more material and dig deeper into the subject.

 

[Applicant MFE]

Hello, I am currently taking the 3 preprog courses. Before taking the 3 courses consider if you will be working full time because like Costas said it will be hard to finish all the assignments on time. The math and stats are good but nothing out of this world, they don't deliver the homework solutions and the assignments are not as real world financial problems as I was expecting.
The C++ is a very intensive and complex coursework for people who has not knowledge about the topic. My experience hasn't been quite positive since I didn't have experience with the topic at all and it is easy to get lost. So I think it is not a beginners course work.

Any way you can always learn new things.

Good Luck

 

[ssk]

Hey all, I am currently taking all 3 of the pre-program courses. Just to give you a little background of myself: I come from an Engineering background with no finance experience.

C++:
I have always used MATLAB and am fairly good at it and had taken a C++ introductory course before this class. The class starts fairly easy. But as they warn you from the very beginning after the first half of the class the assignments get very very very very very (can't say it enough) time consuming and somewhat complicated. Its something like someone else mentioned here earlier that they teach you how to do 2+2 and then ask you to build a software !!! Its not impossible but very challenging. I myself am not a big fan of coding I tend to look at it like a calculator in a math class ! So the second half of this class is just another level of programming that if you are not fairly good at C++ expect to spend 30-50 hours on each assignment and still fail at getting the correct answer !

Stat and Math:
They are offered by the same professor. The concepts are not hard at all if you come from a math or engineering background. The assignments are reasonable and gives you room to do extra work and research if you are interested in the topic. A lot of people here had issues with typing up their assignments in Latex or something else but I didn't have any issues with that since the graders comfortably agreed to accept handwritten assignments as long as they were legible. I usually do each assignment in 3-5 hours.

Overall, the graders and TAs have been helpful. The chat rooms offered to the students were also very helpful and people tend to want to help one another.

Given the fact that classes are pass/fail reduces the stress a lot. In C++ they say that as long as you attempt (correctly or incorrectly) to solve each problem on the assignment you will get your certificate.

in Math and Stat they say you need a B or better to pass but given the not so difficult homeworks it should be easy to get a B.

I dont think I could have done a full-time job and taking all 3 classes at the same time but thats just me and I need to get my 7 hour/night sleep

Hope this helps

 

[Arda Ugur]

Hi Everybody,

I am new to the forum and will start with a little background. I have background in engineering. It has been more than a decade since I took statistics, calculus and differential equations, linear algebra and numerical methods. And no prior knowledge of Stochastic Calculus. Would like to take Math Foundations pre-program course at UCB MFE, since I intend to apply in 2014.

Can anybody advice if it would be possible to go through this course and do well such that it would look favorable in my application?

Also, is there anybody who would have lecture notes from previous years, if so could you share them? Thanks in advance.

Regards,

A.

 

[ankchat]

@Sky @Chashu @ssk

hi, I applied to MFE this year and got a hold decision and was asked to complete a series of courses ( Machine learning and maths on coursera + pre-program). I have deffered the consideration for next year. However, could someone please reply urgently on if I am ready to take these courses and is it realistic to expect that with effort I can manage good grades.

Please note: I am looking at making a complete change in my line fo function.
I haven't used advanced maths in over 6 yrs now. i am on strategy consulting science so again, don't use hard core mathematical finance. And i have no coding background. i know SAS and I know Excel VBA.Not a computer engineer.

Having said that, I really want to be ready to be able to apply to these courses. In summary, please tell me

1. pre-program courses started 10 days back. However, due to technical glitch executive team has enrolled me now. I would need to pay up today or tomorrow. Given my background, which course should I target (given time investment that they require and i would have to work extra hard)? i am working individual.

2. COursera courses on machine learning and other maths courses - (for machine learning they said andrew ng), but for others do you have any recommendations on what are good courses?

- Linear Algebra
-Numerical Analysis
- Partial Differential Equation
- machine learning (andrew ng)
-course in C++/matlab/python/r ( it says and, but i am not sure if I have money to do all of them)

I really do want to build this profile. And I will be very honest. The fact I applied at the last moment (Nov) and got a hold decision, made me hopeful that my cv has some value and that is why it was considered. I hope it is not the case of college giving everyone hold in hope of just gettting more admission prospects to these courses.

Any other colleges that I can apply to preferablly in Jan 2017 itself to be considered for fall session.