COMPARE UIUC FE vs BOSTON MSMF (Urgent help Required)

[kshitij dhingra]

Hey guys

I have received my admits from UIUC as well as BOSTON and would really like to receive help from experts to help me choose the appropriate course for me.I am a computer science undergrad from India and i am in a real dilemma to choose between the two.I have heard both good and bad about these programs and not quite sure what to do.Please give your valuable input about these programs in terms of the ease with which students get placed , salary levels and the way they would prepare me for further competition once i start working.

Please give all little information that you assume would me in making the correct decision and the attributes i mentioned for comparison are really important for me( Being an international applicant) and i would also like to request present or pass outs of these programs to comment as soon as possible because i need to pay the non- refundable deposits by the mid of February.

Thanks in advance

 

[moretodo]

UIUC in my opinion

 

[kshitij dhingra]

Thanks for your reply but it would be really helpful if you could elaborate on your reasons of going with UIUC and not Boston

 

[moretodo]

They have corporate sensors and UIUC is well recognized in Chicago which have quite a few prop shops and other finance firms. UIUC is definitely better than IIT and places better in Chicago.

 

[kshitij dhingra]

Okay and Do you have some information regarding the placement statistics of the UIUC program.They have not mentioned the average compensation of the previous classes anywhere on the website.If you to happen to have some general idea about this , then it could give a nice comparison with BU program.

 

[New Trader]

@moretodo !!! Do you have any information about the class size of these program? I've heard that career services are not that great compare to Baruch/CMU/MIT.

Having reviewed multiple programs, best programs tend to have smaller class size

 

[moretodo]

Okay and Do you have some information regarding the placement statistics of the UIUC program.They have not mentioned the average compensation of the previous classes anywhere on the website.If you to happen to have some general idea about this , then it could give a nice comparison with BU program.

No I unfortunately dont. Maybe someone else can help with this

 

[moretodo]

Yes, the career services is not that great! Its not a Tier 1 program. If youd like to choose a program based on best Career Services, my vote goes for UCB MFE.

 

[GoIllini]

Well, with a CS background, you're a better fit for the HFT firms and quant shops in Chicago which is a 2 hour drive away.

I say UIUC. With the caveats that you get thrown to the wolves on career services and getting help academically. But probably no more than you would at a foreign state-run school.

 

[kshitij dhingra]

Thanks a lot guys for your valuable opinion.
I have heard decent about the UIUC program but there is not much clarity about the boston program.Anybody who has some information on why Boston is not preffered over UIUC , even when Boston is ranked higher than UIUC.

PLEASE GUYS HELP ME CHOOSE BETWEEN THEM.

 

[New Trader]

They have a class size of 45-50 full time graduates (2013)..
Now, the placement stats goes like this:
1. 2011 (first batch) - 100%
2. 2012 - 93%
3. 2013 - 40% (Just graduate in December 2013). According to them, most get jobs within 3 months of graduation. The administration is still collecting data

I don't know how should I rate this 40% within 15 days of graduation.. Good or bad! May be you can help

This one UIUC?

 

[New Trader]

Yes

You also need to figure out what type of jobs they are doing? You don't have to be an Financial Engineer to be technology at Deloitte

 

[New Trader]

I have been checking LinkedIn profile, not found much

http://msfe.illinois.edu/students.aspx

 

[New Trader]

They don't have 2013 class profile, as such it is hard to find

All most all students come from China and India.

 

[diegosanaz]

Hello, I don't know anything about UIUC but I can bring some light into the BU program.

About placement, here is the link I am sure you have already seen.
http://management.bu.edu/files/2013/06/Class-of-2013-Employment-Report-website.pdf

For the recent graduates, I have heard they did a little better, although nothing official has come up yet. But since beginning December, about 50% of the class was placed.

I think it all depends on what you want to learn (and of course tuition costs). We are about 60 people in the program and there is one person dedicated to career services who has the resume book and is promoting us around. That and we had some optional seminars on how to interview, write a cover letter, resume, etc.

I don't know if this information is helpful.

Good luck making your decision.

 

[drahmah]

I'm a student in UIUC. Maybe I can help you with your frustration on what to do with your deposit money Ask me any questions and I'll try to answer it as honest as I can. I don't know much about the placement stats for the graduating class btw.
- I just heard JPM technology, BP, Shell, insurance companies, etc. 2013 grads apparently did the best, so the market must be getting better.

I also don't know much about the Boston MathFin program, but I heard some rumors that a Chinese student there (could be either phd or ms) got placed into Citi (think it was strats modelling). So they're probably doing something right (even if that person is an outlier).

Overall, my impression is that BU and UIUC are very similar in standing: solid tier 2 schools.
- I didn't apply to BU because of the higher tuition+living costs.
- I also tended to trust schools where the FE program comes from the industrial engineering department. I think I was clever to make this decision - the program has a pretty strong "engineery" feeling because half of the coursework is taught by IE professors. (It wasnt my idea to get a MSF so I'm happy that they're actually differentiating).
- Boston is probably better for asset management opportunities, and Chicago is better for trading opportunities.

 

[drahmah]

1. I think our program mainly uses only C++, R, Excel, and Matlab. Less exposure to programming is not a problem at all. Your experience will probably put you at the "more experienced at programming" half of the class. Some people come in with close to zero programming experience, and are still able to do well. The reason to this is as follows:
- There is a programming bootcamp you can attend before your first semester starts, which will pretty much cover all the pre-requisites of C++ you need to know.
- The core courses don't require very heavy programming. The finance professors allow us to use R, Excel, or Matlab for the homework and projects, but the examples are done in Excel - which means you can do the entire course with just Excel.
- The philosophy of the department seems to be that if you only want to do programming in your career, then you're probably pursuing the wrong degree.
- I could be wrong. I'm just starting my second semester, and it seems that we may do more programming this sem too.
- As an aside, you may want to review linear algebra. That seemed to be our professors' largest concern.

2. If you want an Algo-trading job, then you'll probably need to focus more on programming than other students. The majority of the students will probably go into risk management type jobs. I think the opportunities are there if you're intent on algo trading though:
- One of the corporate-sponsored final projects that you can choose entails building a trading algorithm using parallel processing on the Maxeler FPGA platform. There is a Maxeler machine in the MSFE student lounge, and you program your code on it. If you are very curious, then I have the paper that was written for this project by last year's team of students. The sponsor for that project is the CME, so you will have to go to Chicago every week if you're on that project.

3. At current, I would say the most opportunities are in proprietary trading. About a third of the 300+ companies that came to the engineering career fair last year were either prop-shops or in that industry. UIUC also has strong ties with the big 4 accounting firms so they make regular appearances at the business career fair.
- You cant wait around for opportunity to come to you though. A lot of the recruiters at the fairs do not even know what "financial engineering" or "quantitative finance" even is. You have to be able to communicate what you can do for them and how your skills can be useful to them so that you can make your own opportunity.

4. I don't know the answer to this. Traditionally, I believe that industry link-up would mean the strength of alumni connections. In that case, it would be very small as only 2 classes graduated ahead of us. As such coming to UIUC in no way ensures that you will get great connections to jobs like at Princeton, CMU or Berkeley. I see it as a ticket into a competition. You're paying for the chance to self-improve and compete, and the competition against the 40,000 other students on campus starts when you get here.

 

[PrakharT]

1. I think our program mainly uses only C++, R, Excel, and Matlab. Less exposure to programming is not a problem at all. Your experience will probably put you at the "more experienced at programming" half of the class. Some people come in with close to zero programming experience, and are still able to do well. The reason to this is as follows:
- There is a programming bootcamp you can attend before your first semester starts, which will pretty much cover all the pre-requisites of C++ you need to know.
- The core courses don't require very heavy programming. The finance professors allow us to use R, Excel, or Matlab for the homework and projects, but the examples are done in Excel - which means you can do the entire course with just Excel.
- The philosophy of the department seems to be that if you only want to do programming in your career, then you're probably pursuing the wrong degree.
- I could be wrong. I'm just starting my second semester, and it seems that we may do more programming this sem too.
- As an aside, you may want to review linear algebra. That seemed to be our professors' largest concern.

2. If you want an Algo-trading job, then you'll probably need to focus more on programming than other students. The majority of the students will probably go into risk management type jobs. I think the opportunities are there if you're intent on algo trading though:
- One of the corporate-sponsored final projects that you can choose entails building a trading algorithm using parallel processing on the Maxeler FPGA platform. There is a Maxeler machine in the MSFE student lounge, and you program your code on it. If you are very curious, then I have the paper that was written for this project by last year's team of students. The sponsor for that project is the CME, so you will have to go to Chicago every week if you're on that project.
- Emily is currently negotiating with the Computational Science and Engineering department so that MSFE students can register for CSE courses and pursue the CSE option certificate next semester. This will open up the possibility for students to register for more advanced CS courses like machine learning, data mining, etc...

3. At current, I would say the most opportunities are in proprietary trading. About a third of the 300+ companies that came to the engineering career fair last year were either prop-shops or in that industry. UIUC also has strong ties with the big 4 accounting firms so they make regular appearances at the business career fair.
- You cant wait around for opportunity to come to you though. A lot of the recruiters at the fairs do not even know what "financial engineering" or "quantitative finance" even is. You have to be able to communicate what you can do for them and how your skills can be useful to them so that you can make your own opportunity.

4. I don't know the answer to this. Traditionally, I believe that industry link-up would mean the strength of alumni connections. In that case, it would be very small as only 2 classes graduated ahead of us. As such coming to UIUC in no way ensures that you will get great connections to jobs like at Princeton, CMU or Berkeley. I see it as a ticket into a competition. You're paying for the chance to self-improve and compete, and the competition against the 40,000 other students on campus starts when you get here.

Thanks a lot. This was a satisfactory reply to my answer. Do you mind sharing placement stats as in, the average compensation that MSFE students receive, if you have an idea about it?

 

[drahmah]

Sorry, I don't know the compensation/placement stats. It will probably depend a lot on which industry, country, and the relevant work experience you already have for that job:
- Some students want to go back to their home country after graduating - where the salary is much lower than the US, but they can stay with their family.
- In the U.S., companies cannot discriminate pay just based on the school you went to. This means that if company A hires you, company A will not pay you a much lower salary than the MFE from CMU just because you went to a lower ranked school.

If compensation is very important to you, then I suggest you target a specific company where analyst and associate-level jobs offer that compensation level, and then see which program/location will give you the best chance to get into that company.

 

[maoshouse]

I have recently been admitted to the UIUC MSFE program and I have few questions. Please see if you can answer them:

1. How much programming is needed before joining the program? I have done my B Tech in IT but my job exp for 3 years was in Analytics where I used SQL, SPSS, and Excel. I am revising C++ right now

2. Would less exposure to programming be a problem in this program as I've heard that most people join Algo-trading jobs which need heavy programming background?

3. Are opportunities in hedge funds, asset management companies, quant finance, etc. are there?

4. How do you rate industry link up of this program?

Thanks

1. Honestly, I think you're all set. If you have taken an intro level as an undergrad, this will be just a review of old concepts. I know some of my classmates (I was in the 2013 class) elected to take the undergrad datastructures/algo class (CS 225) as an elective to really iron in the basics.
2. Less exposure to programming is a problem for anyone who wants to join an algo firm from any school.

3. Yes, the classes from mine and previous have gone pretty much all of the fields you mentioned.

4. Not sure, I though I'd say it's pretty solid. I do know that the program invites a lot of people from Chicago and schedules talks and seminars. The practicum projects provides industry exposure as well.