Master of Financial Engineering for M&A IB?

Hi everyone, 


I am a French student at a European top tier 1 school and I would like to spend my junior years of M&A in the US. To be able to work there, I need a visa so a STEM degree basically. 

What do you think about Berkeley's Master of Financial Engineering? Is it possible to work in IB with this degree? Or are students from this Master always hired in sales, trading or structuring? 

Otherwise, appart from financial engineering degrees, which type of STEM degree would you recommend for international students?


Thanks for your help!

 

Just recently completed my financial math degree and am starting a job in IB. I don’t think it really helps that much to be honest, at least it’s not the path of least resistance (an MBA would be much easier). The stuff you’ll learn in Financial Engineering is very not related to the banking job (learning about mathematics of financial options vs building slide decks and excel models). It’s a pretty challenging degree so unless you’re super interested in the mathematics, I wouldn’t recommend it. With that being said, it’s still obviously a good degree and can separate yourself from other candidates. IMO just not worth all of the pain.

 

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