Im a mechanical engineering student at a non-target, VaTech, but I am not 100% sold on working a mech. eng. for the rest of my life. So, I was thinking what if I went to get an MS in financial eng. at a target school. What would my job prospects be like? salary range? Would going to a non-target undergrad hold me back? (Ive read IB is very name brand conscious)
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You could honestly break in out of undergrad, why would you want to pursue a grad degree right away?
OP, your job prospects would be quite good. Depending on where you go, you would have a reasonable chance at getting into trading, FO quant work, MO risk work, risk consulting, asset management, research. Starting salaries depend entirely on where you go, but in MO risk, you're looking at about 90-100K all in to start, with a base salary of 75-85K. For FO quant, you're looking at 120K all in, and if you get into trading, you have the potential to make vastly more. Going to a non-target undergrad won't hold you back as far as getting into a good MFE program. You just need to have stellar grades in your mathematics and statistics courses (assuming you've taken the prereqs) and you need to get 800 on the GRE quant section (this is easy).
I'm sorry. I tend to look very far past the general path, exceptions are what I love to preach. It's my mistake.
How hard would it be to get into a school like Columbia for financial eng.?
What matters more: GPA, research, or experience?
what exactly does a quant do? could someone also give a day in the life maybe? thanks.
To the OP, it really depends on the school. Many schools have started offering new degrees (masters and such), and the honest truth is that they've done so in order to boost revenue (heard this from faculty myself).
The Columbia program looks solid ... though you could get a lot of the same information with a Masters in Statistics. (In many cases, if you understand the underlying math/stats/etc, the financial specifics aren't particularly complicated).
Also, I'm not really sure how some firms would view a masters in fin. eng. as compared to a PHD. At most places it probably wouldn't be an issue.
I have chosen the same path as you.
I have a bachelor in mech. eng, and it was very hard for me to break into finance (the only reason being there were NO finance-related companies recruiting at my school since it was an engineering school - note the distinction between engineering faculty and school).
I have then decided to pursue a masters in mathematical finance (equivalent to fin. eng). Most of the people in the program will end up in risk management, maybe one or two will become traders, and one will be at a hedge fund.
I have decided to go into IBD, was hard to convince my interviewers why i wanted to go into IBD after my masters in quant fniance. But I made it, so.
is an MFE enough to get into top quant roles out of school or would it be extremely difficult without a PHD?
Quants are PhD's. the designation is exclusive for PhD's. Some of them get irritated when master's call themselves quants.
This is how things generally work out because PhD's usually have much more intellectual horsepower than MFE grads. There are counterexamples though. A friend from my graduating class is a bona fide quant.
I dont think I would ever get a PhD, but Im interested in how a PhD could lead to IB. Can somebody expand on that?
I thought most PhD's stayed in academia or went into research?
how many years does it take to complete a PHD in financial engineering? 5?
So do these PhD's go into grad school with the intent of working in finance later?
If MFE's are not qualified to be quants, then are they taking the positions someone out of undergrad would?
No, they aren't. Undergrads usually don't have the same knowledge as a MFE grad. MFE grads will be proficient in stochastic calculus, more advanced, but common models, etc.
A lot of quants do not have PhD's in finance related fields. They will have physics, engineering, mathematics background. They then, adapt to finance.
If you're intention is to become a quant and you're currently in undergrad right now, would trying to get into a top PhD program be the best route? Major in something like mathematics/computer science/economics for undergrad then go to a PhD program for financial engineering/operations research/math/stats/physics/econometrics?
What do these PhD programs look for in undergrads? Obviously top grades in a math intensive major, 800 GRE Math, but what else? Professional experience? Research? etc etc.
PhD programs do not give a damn about work experience. They care a lot about your ability to do research, which, for quantitative fields, is especially difficult and requires a lot of intellectual horsepower.. One way of demonstrate that you may be a good researcher is to have research experience with a strong name in the field. Having top notch grades and a perfect quant GRE and an excellent subject GRE are prereqs as well. Keep in mind, getting into a top 5 PhD program for math or physics or CS is much much harder than getting into any MBA. You should work this hard only if you want to research. If you want to be a quant, go to Chicago's MSFM. You'll save a lot of time. If you're top5 PhD material, you're definitely capable of getting a quant job out of Chicago's program. As I said, a few students from my MFE became FO quants, and my MFE isn't even close to Chicago when it comes to quant placement.
What sort of research should you be doing as an undergrad? Could you give any ideas/examples? Like what would be good topics within econometrics, math, or comp sci?
Also, are the characteristics that MFE programs look for basically the same as a PhD program minus the research? I would presume that the main difference is that MFE programs look for students who have professional experience while PhD programs look for students who demonstrate strong research abilities.
As for the research, it should ideally be related to the field you want to go into during your PhD. For example, if you know (not that you can ever know for sure) you want to go into quantum field theory for your PhD, there's not much sense in doing your undergrad research in cosmology. I can only suggest research topics about math, because I was planning on pursuing a math PhD, but for that I would need to know a lot about you. All I can say, again, is that you shouldn't do a PhD if you only want to get into finance. It's not worth the hard work. With much less effort, you can get a quant job from a much easier path.
Is Financial Engineering dead? (Originally Posted: 04/01/2011)
I was considering doing an Ms. in financial engineering after 3 to 4 years of work experience (Bs. Finance). However, how are things looking for Financial Engineers?
From what I understand, they develop trading strategy and algorithms, but a handful of people told me that it is more of a "glorified application developer" type of job?
Would I be at any disadvantage for already having a master's degree (if I do decide to get the MS financial engineering) when I apply for a top 5 MBA?
thanks
I think that question is best answered with another question:
Has Wall Street decided to stop finding new ways to make money?
But seriously, though, how many masters degrees do you need? If you want to get an MBA, go get an MBA.
Agree with above- once you get an MBA, the only thing you'll get out of the prior Masters will be a whole lot of debt.
It's a degree that you have to time carefully. You want to have some experience working in finance full-time first. And you want to be ideally in a situation where you can dictate your terms- where you are in a position to start up your own hedge fund or money management firm if you can only find something as a developer.
But absolutely, if you work in trading, it's a great degree to have that will pay for itself. But outside structuring, the jobs you can land with it are typically on the trading side and therefore mutually exclusive with an MBA. Quants do not have MBAs. They have MFEs and PhDs.
ahaa I understand it much better now.
Thank you IlliniProgrammer, Tar Heel Blue,Jqbuyside!
Is financial engineering dead now? (Originally Posted: 03/24/2014)
Hi. We (IM/AM) are screening resumes for internship positions, and surprisingly many guys are from various financial engineering programs (uchicago, stanford, mit, georgia tech, etc.). The seniors guys say that financial engineering is almost dead now in the industry. What do you guys say?
interested to hear as well
What the hell does that mean, "financial engineering is dead"? Did CMEX shut down? Did real estate parcels stop getting bundled? Did HF trading get banned? Et cetera.
I'm not trying to be sarcastic, but what the hell does it even mean, that it is dead? It doesn't make any sense to me.
Uh, no.
interestee here
interestee here
interestee here
Financial engineering is a large chunk of what investment involves.
You could run an argument that highly structured products are dead, but that really only applies to particular categories (eg MBS^3).
Take a look at the employment reports for the Masters in Financial Engineering programs at MIT/Berkeley/etc. Berkeley literally has a 100% full time placement rate every year. Is financial engineering dead? No.
Nope. I don't think so. I shall be joining the GEORGIA TECH MS -Quantitative & Computational Finance (Financial Engineering), Hope things improve in the next 2-3 years. :)
Financial Engineering (Originally Posted: 09/29/2006)
I remember being on north campus (Michigan) in the media union wondering what the hell that strange room was for with all the stock tickers on the walls....what I didn't know then was that this cold dark room was used for the financial engineers.
All I know is that it was always empty...
I remember thinking how silly and strange a major that must have been, and continued walking back to join my fellow bleary eyed chemE's as we attempted to simulate a three effect evaporator in excel (read: do shit that in excel that would cause many of my coworkers' heads to explode)....but I digress....
So, what is one to make of this strange beast "financial engineering"? Anyone go through it as an undergrad? A friend of mine has a son who wants to go to the big block M to be an engineer and he was asking me about it the other day.....I didn't really know what to tell him about it.
Any input?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_engineer
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