What kind of job experinece helps improve chance of admission to MFE

[Anil]

Hi Everyone!!

I have a real important question and I need a response asap. I will be greatly obliged if any of the quants out there can advice me.

I am planning to pursue an MFE from a good college like Baruch. I am currently pursuing a Master's in Electrical and computer Engineering and will graduate in this May. I have two questions.

1. Currently I have some job offers one of which is with a premier bank and
others technical. Will my experience at the bank be considered more valuable
than those in technical companies and demonstrate my interest in finance better?
In other words, if I work for a technical company now for a year and apply for
the program will it hamper my chances of admission.

I have a good GPA at both Masters (3.86) and Undergraduate (First Class Honors
equivalent to 4.0) and have 7 years of post-undergraduate work experience in
software development.

 

[DominiConnor]

Spending $$$ and a year of your life on an MFE will convince many managers that you are interested.
Obviously experience in an investment bank is good, retail banking will not help at all.
You imply that you are in Britain, and given that British retail banks are run by shambling morons and staffed by the undead, that is not a great badge to get on the CV.
You certainly won't learn anything useful there, and you might catch whatever degenerative brain disease causes people to work for them.

Being abject cretins, retail bankers don't the technology that will be useful to you in an IB.

The technical job may be better, depends whether it uses your maths and programming.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

You imply that you are in Britain, and given that British retail banks are run by shambling morons and staffed by the undead, that is not a great badge to get on the CV.
You certainly won't learn anything useful there, and you might catch whatever degenerative brain disease causes people to work for them.

I thought Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead are really just scary movies dramatized by Simon Pegg. Now, it turns out he just plays the real lives of everyday British folks. There are real brain-dead, walking zombies in British banks. Scary.

 

[Anil]

No, I am not in Britain, I am in US. the bank job that I was referring to is in NY city and I know for sure it is not retail banking. But How far I will be from the quant activity is not very clear. a fair chance will be developing trading systems..and will this experience help in an MFE application..I am not intersted in the tech jobs because they wont use my quant skills....

..my current degree is from a top engineering school in US. and I want to know how could I build the experience component to improve my chances with a top MFE program..

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Since you get a job, I think you should def check out what that job entails: what will be your roles, what products, what languages, who you interact with.
Samething for the tech job. Then we will be able to tell you which one is more relevant to your future career, or MFE application.
Being with an IB is not always relevant. I know people who are with tech firms and build skills that can be instantly applied when they move over to finance.