What to choose? Msc MathFi Oxford or French Mphil in MathFi from Paris 7 (M2MO ex Dea Laure Elie)

[luckyslevin]

Being a student in one of French Grande Ecole I am currently having an offer from Msc Computational and Mathematical Finance and I have high chances to be admitted to the very technical quantitative finance MPhil M2MO ex. Dea Laure of Paris 7 Diderot. I will be happy if you can express your point on view on such an option.


The program of Paris 7 is more advanced from my point of view and, even though is not as well-known as the one from Oxford, may lead directly (speaking about positions in London) to more advanced positions like associate and, according to what I saw on linkedIn(biased source of info on this topic) may be sufficient to get in future positions like directors of quant divisions without having PhD due to high level of the material.


The program of Oxford is better known and may lead more easily to find a first job in top banks in London, but what about career evolution and the necessity of PhD.


I will be very grateful if someone can provide information/advice on this topic. Thank you a lot!

 

[amraj]

Hi,



I did this programme last year. We had 3 French students, all three of whom are now strats at Goldmans. They all studied in france before at places like polytechnique and had good quant experience behind them, and from what I remember, they all decided to come to Oxford for the brand name. The brand name will help you to land interviews all over the world (conditional on not performing terribly) simply because the Oxford is a big name that everybody has heard of. I’m not sure what you’re looking for in the programme, so I can’t comment on which programme is a good fit for you.



MSc MCF is not the most theoretical programme, but it teaches you a lot of useful skills for industry as opposed to loads of deep theoretical stuff which is too complicated to use in real life. They give intro level courses in things like machine learning and algo trading too. These are by no means sufficient to claim you know these areas, but they give you a feel for it and allow you to see whether you’d like to look further into each are during your career. The course doesn’t allow for you to become a master in one area, but gives you the opportunity to work on many different areas and gives exposure to the different underlying approaches. If your goal is academia, it is not the best programme. If you’d like to land interviews, get a job straight after the course(no more academia) and experience the Oxford student life, then go for it.



Personally, I chose it for the brand name, and also to have the Ox experience. It is very different to other unis and I enjoyed it. If you want to land a very technical quant modelling/pricing role, then maybe the French programme is for you. I don’t think this course covers pricing models in deep detail.



In terms of PhD: Don’t do a PhD just for the job. Our cohort entered a range of jobs including systematic trading fund(>3 people), IBs(~6 that I know), big four(~2) and related quant roles (class size is ~27). Many moved back to china to work in the quant world there. Approximately 2 went on to a PhD as far as I know. And that was to learn more, not for the sake of a job. You should be able to land an entry level job if you practise for interviews in advance (read course materials yourself before and practise brain teasers and c++! ) and then you can work your way up from there.



Sorry I couldn’t comment much about comparing the programmes, but I would say the Oxford one is strong. Let me know if you have any other questions related to the MSc MCF. Ill create a review of the course for applicants once I get time, as I know there’s not much info on the course online.



Amraj

 

[Philip_Mitterrand]

Oxford brand will have the advantage of being easily recognizable in Anglosphere and put you on the radar of recruiters. However, DEA El Karoui & DEA Laure Elie Paris 7 are the best quant programs in terms of alumni & course content may have a theortical bias. Both will lead to the desired path and maybe the focus must be which process you will enjoy the more than the outcome ?

Being a student in one of French Grande Ecole I am currently having an offer from Msc Computational and Mathematical Finance and I have high chances to be admitted to the very technical quantitative finance MPhil M2MO ex. Dea Laure of Paris 7 Diderot. I will be happy if you can express your point on view on such an option.


The program of Paris 7 is more advanced from my point of view and, even though is not as well-known as the one from Oxford, may lead directly (speaking about positions in London) to more advanced positions like associate and, according to what I saw on linkedIn(biased source of info on this topic) may be sufficient to get in future positions like directors of quant divisions without having PhD due to high level of the material.


The program of Oxford is better known and may lead more easily to find a first job in top banks in London, but what about career evolution and the necessity of PhD.


I will be very grateful if someone can provide information/advice on this topic. Thank you a lot!

 

[luckyslevin]

Thank you a lot for your answers.

About the MSc MCF, does it open the doors to associate positions, to the most quantitative divisions or in the case of doing MSc MCF it will be needed to have a PhD. Thank you a lot.