Johns Hopkins vs Northwestern vs Rice
I will be transferring to one of these schools as an engineering major in the fall(I plan on continuing my studies in computer science focused on Artificial Intelligence) and am interested in working in finance, specifically quantitative finance. I plan to stay for a fifth year to get my masters specializing in AI after my bachelors and was just wondering which one would be the best in terms of education, reputation, recruiting, networking etc. I would appreciate any advice as I am not sure where to go but am leaning towards NU.
NU has a lot of courses focused on ML/AI in the EECS department. Also, if you're looking to do a masters, you will get automatic admission into the CS masters program if you have a 3.5+ GPA. Since you're interested in quant finance, you would be better off as an applied math major in the engineering school and taking some of the financial engineering/mathematical finance courses. You can specialize in CS and take a bunch of AI within the applied math major (you would still be eligible for automatic admission into any engineering masters you finish the prereqs for).
In terms of recruiting however, NU does not get much attention from quant funds. Only AQR comes to do on-campus recruiting, and Citadel is nearby and some students will do summer or part-time off cycle internships there.
Rice on the other hand get a lot of attention from Two Sigma, and in general has better recruiting for software engineering roles. Rice also has a far shorter CS major than NU so you could add on the Financial Computing Modeling Minor if you're interested.
In the end, you can't go wrong with either school. If it's too difficult, just choose whether you prefer the blistering cold or the blazing heat.
Thanks for the advice. I can also go to JHU as well, how does that compare to Rice or NW?
I don't know much about JHU. I'm assuming that they're probably the best for FO quant roles--in which case you should do applied math or statistics instead of computer science anyways, but they probably have less of an AI/ML focus than Northwestern.
Best Quant Program: JHU Best AI/ML: Northwestern Best CS school: Rice
Going off what Deep Learning said, you'll get interviews from any of these schools if you're smart. The more important question is what kind of educational/social experience you want while pursuing your career goals.
the people i know from rice that went to work at two sigma are doing data analyst type roles, which isn't a "FO" type role from what I understand. that's just from what i've heard, quant finance is not something i pay much attention to.
They mostly do software engineering which also pays an insane amount at Two Sigma
On campus recruiting isn't that important for getting attention from quant funds. You'll get interviews.
Which of the schools would you say would give me a higher chance of landing a job in this field? Also do you have any advice on activities that would help me stand out when applying to these funds?
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