Hello!
I currently work as an investment analyst in Asset Management. I have recently been offered admission to a masters program in financial economics in the Netherlands.
Basically, I wanted to know if going for a masters degree makes sense in terms of career advancement or would going for a CFA be more prudent.
Cheers,
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you can find your answer by defining "career advancement" in at least 3 different dimensions.
My long term goal is to become a PM. Currently I work at a boutique asset/wealth management firm and want you eventually move to a bigger firm.
Essentially I wanted to know which of the two would give me a better chance of getting foot in
If you already know who have those jobs, why would you sit there and ask me?
My opinion is that you shouldn't quit a decent foundational job for a non elite degree. if you must study then do a T15mba, if not relevant then CFA whilst you work would seem to be good too.
Usually CFA is done on top of full-time work Fyi. Many CFA required joba will kick you out if you fail a number of trials or cannot get CFA in a preset period
Why don't you study for a CFA while on your current job? It would make sense to do that rather than drop the full-time job and pursue an MS. It might be different if you work in the Netherlands and will be able to return back to your job after the degree.
I am going to assume you are in Europe (if not, please let me know). In the US, the MSF is more often used as a bridge degree to a different job when someone is early in their career. In Europe, the degree is more in line with what the MBA is here. So if you are looking for career advancement (in the general term) than the degree will benefit you. Now the degree of benefit will depend on the reputation the program has, if you want to stay in this field of work, etc.
As for the CFA, why not do both. The CFA is the industry standard certification. It will both augment and reinforce what you learn in your masters, as well as open up an additional network for you. I the US, most PM's I've come across have the CFA charter so I think it is worthwhile working towards. CAIA is also popular for anyone working with alternative investments, although I do not know how well it has penetrated the European market.
Hope this helps. Best of luck!
It also depends where in Europe he is positioned. In the Nordics, the CFA holds little value as I have heard. Instead, CEFA is more common, but not as common as CFA in the US. My classmate has finished his level 2 CFA exam, has consulting and financial services (financial analyst), and he got rejected by multiple employers for a part time jobs. They said that they do not care about the CFA. I find this very strange, as CFA is very valuable abroad, especially in many other European countries, and especially in the US.
Nice color, thanks. I suppose the CFA needs to spend some money and launch a PR campaign in those countries. Never heard of the CEFA, I will check it out.
'most PM's' have the CFA. Ok, that is useful and annoying to know.
What about at the associate level, in the relevant areas, i.e. NOT IB.
Emigrating to the USA to work on Wall Street, CFA or MSc? (Originally Posted: 04/27/2014)
Hi All,
As this is my first post, allow me to first introduce myself. I currently hold an honours degree in Computer Science from a top South African university. I majored in Computational Intelligence and my research was in applied Computational Finance. I have a ~3.7 GPA when converted.
At the end of 2012, while I was still studying, I joined on of the Big-4 professional services firms as a Management Consultant. After consulting for a year in the banking industry, I accepted a promotion into our Financial Risk Management practice as a Quantitative Analyst.
Since then I have been working on the Calypso trading platform in a back and middle office capacity. I have also developed some proprietary models for some of our market risk clients. I'm really enjoying the job because I have been learning a lot about financial products and risk management.
In the next two years I would like to emigrate to the USA (preferably to NYC but I'm not limiting my options). I have the opportunity to pursue an MSc in computer science, where I would like to develop techniques for extracting 'human readable' strategies from black box trading systems.
Alternatively I could dedicate the next two years towards the PRM or the CFA certifications (while continuing to work as a Quant). I don't want to be quant forever, I have had my sights set on either getting an equity analyst or portfolio management job in the USA for a while now.
With that having all been said, here are the questions which I would appreciate getting some opinions on whether it make sense to either,
A) Pursue my MSc and try land a job developing new quantitative trading strategies for portfolio / hedge fund managers and then, if they are successful, try moving into a portfolio management role or ...
B) Get my CFA level 1, 2, and (hopefully) 3, try land a job in equity or fixed-income analysis and then, try move into a portfolio management role. I understand that this is the more 'traditional' route.
Lastly, for the past year I have been writing a reasonably popular blog about algorithmic trading using AI, and computational finance. The majority of my readers are from the USA, will this or a track record be more impressive? I am also doing courses on Coursera to learn more and more about finance.
Thanks in advance for the responses. I've given this quite a lot of thought, however, as an 'outsider' looking in, it is hard to gauge the demand for certain skills and make an informed, rational decision. As great as it would be to "do both", I am being realistic about my constraints :)
Kind regards, CompSciQuant
Any chance you can get transferred to the US in your current position/company? My guess is that would be the easiest way to move over (or secondly, going to school there for a Masters) if you don't have US residency, as Visa issues will be the largest obstacle for you to overcome and an internal company transfer would be the easiest way to overcome that. Could always get there and then start networking and looking for a job with an employer that will sponsor you.
Have you looked in to getting a Masters in Financial Engineering? Could be helpful in your situation as it seems you have the requirements from a CS point of view but is looking for a more finance related background. They should also have better placement in to finance related role, whereas the OCR for finance roles at a MSc in CS could be limited (I'm just guessing here though, so don't take my word at face value).
@"notthehospitalER", yes, there is a strong likelihood that through my current employer I could emigrate to the USA (or a number of other places as well). I am definitely considering this as a potential means of entry because, as you said, it is easier. I'm just not very cognisant of which skills, once I have emigrated, would be most desirable. Thank you for your comments, I see that you are in Investment Banking. If I were interested in Investment Banking, what would you have suggested? I realise that portfolio management and investment banking are very different.
@"TheSanchize", there is a fantastic programme Masters of Philosophy in Mathematical Finance offered by the University of Cape Town which is ranked in the top 50 globally and is at an affordable price. However, I would need to brush up on certain maths which is not covered in Computer Science (such as Multivariate Calculus and Real Analysis). In Computer Science we mostly deal with discrete mathematics and statistics (especially in AI). Thank you for your comment, I would agree that a MSc in CS would probably be more limiting than an MFE ...
@CompSciQuant - I'm not a quant and I play on the corp finance side of IB, but I do have nerd tendencies and have been looking at Columbia university's M.Sci in Operations Research (Methods in Finance).
See http://www.cvn.columbia.edu/mfin_MS.php
You can do this by distance education.
To fill in gaps in your maths knowledge, you can use MIT's free courses: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/
I'm currently working through the core undergrad maths subjects now.
I haven't looked into the relatively ranking of Columbia's degree as I'm not looking to score a job out of the M.Sci. I chose Columbia as it's near where I live (even though I'll be doing distance education) and had a decent distance education offering.
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