I am currently a second-year student in the MSFE graduating May 2023. While the program is currently less known to the QuantNet community relative to the MAFN and MS Financial Engineering (MFE) programs at Columbia, this has more to do with the lack of marketing of the program historically than the success and quality of the program or our alumni and students. In my opinion, the MSFE is the preeminent quantitative finance masters degree program for students pursuing careers as quantitative researchers.
Application process: very standard, deadline typically in early January the year of planned matriculation. Had one interview with a then second-year student in the program, questions were markets oriented and asked me to explain my previous research at a high level. The then director of the program was extremely willing to talk with me throughout the process and was very welcoming.
Positives
- 10 out of the required 16 courses we take must be at the PhD level. Our curriculum in our first year is identical to that of finance PhDs, with the only difference being most of our students take a stochastic calculus & derivatives pricing course in place of the microecon sequence which PhDs take. I additionally took PhD courses from the Decision, Risk, and Operations (DRO) division of the business school and the EE department outside of the business school. Other students took PhD courses from the Statistics, Computer Science, and IEOR departments as well. While students in other quant finance masters programs ostensibly could elect to enroll in PhD coursework, we are unique in the sense that our program requires us to take PhD courses.
- Total freedom with coursework in the second year aside from the 10 PhD course requirement; ability to take masters level courses throughout the broader university, e.g. MAFN, MFE, MA Stats, etc. For many students with thorough training in mathematics (real analysis, optimization, probability, stochastic processes, etc.), the required 1st and 2nd semester curriculum in most financial engineering programs is largely review; hence, our program allows us access to these programs more advanced/niche electives while substituting their required coursework for finance PhD coursework. Additionally, we can also take MBA courses within the business school. While most MBA courses are not relevant for quant students, there are a handful which I think complement our coursework well and add an additional element which is not present in other programs.
Negatives
- Despite the small class size (the program typically enrolls 25-30 students a year), the cohort feels disjointed (students partition themselves by the region of the world where they are from). The program staff could do many things to prevent this such as having weekly interview prep sessions in the first semester broken into randomized small groups to foster interaction between all students in the program. The broader point here being there is a tangible lack of togetherness present in the program; this admittedly is an easy problem to fix in my opinion.
- Career service team (CMC) is largely completely unequipped to place students in quant finance positions and needs significant education in the field. Steve Haggerty is an advisor to the program and does an exceptional job (he leads the presentation here:
https://quantnet.com/threads/overview-of-career-landscape-for-msfe-financial-economics-students.53574/). Professors are extremely willing to help students with internship/job search which helps to make up for the lacking quality of the CMC. Nonetheless, with students critically busy with coursework, especially in the first semester, the program staff needs to organize more (ideally biweekly) quant finance-specific career services events.
Final Comments
I was admitted to CMU MSCF (distinguished merit scholarship), Columbia Financial Engineering, and Chicago Financial Mathematics (70% scholarship), and feel without doubt that I made the right choice over these programs.
The MSFE is meant for students with a well-defined interest in quantitative finance and who desire rigorous coursework and the flexibility to personally tailor that coursework to their specific interests in quantitative finance.
