Imperial College London - MSc Mathematics and Finance

My initial impression of the course was that there would be a good balance between maths and finance, and I was particularly looking forward to meeting people in industry and getting a good placement. In fact, what I enjoyed most about the course was the strong link with industry.

The weekly presentations by banks, asset managers and fintechs, as well as the lectures by practitioners, were extremely useful. They were very practical and I learned a lot from speaking to the presenters, both about the nature of a job in quantitative finance as well as opportunities to apply to their internships and off-cycles.

But what struck me about the course material was the lack of focus on finance. Since I have more of a stats, financial maths and programming (actuarial) background from my undergrad, rather than pure maths, I was unable to apply what I already knew and didn't encounter a lot of what was assumed. This lead to me struggling with more rigorous and abstract topics, such as measure theory and stochastic calculus. Even seemingly practical topics like statistics and simulation methods were dealt with in an unusually theoretical way, though coding was still involved to a small extent.

As a result, I felt that what we were learning did not feel very compelling at times. In fact, there was not one module available which discussed any finance theory topic (e.g. economics, financial markets, accounting, financial management) in particular detail, which was a little disappointing. I understand that the course is taught by the Department of Mathematics, but to have not even an introductory all-in-one module is strange, especially given the course title.

Lastly, the course evidently has an excellent reputation among employers. We often received job descriptions from them by email, relating to either internships or their available projects for our MSc thesis. In fact, this was how I applied for and got my thesis internship, which I then converted into a full time role. Those who don't do their thesis with a company instead do it internally with an academic supervisor. But even so, you would still be well-positioned for applying to jobs after the master's.

On balance, I think the course has been very enjoyable. Being in London, Imperial is in a great city and I'd highly recommend making the most of it. For people who enjoy lots of pure maths, that's exactly the experience you'll get, with a little bit of finance and programming colour to it (Python and C++). But I believe the most important thing to get out of it is a foot in the door in a big bank, or the opportunity to find out if a smaller fintech might be better for you!

In summary, it's a highly rigorous mathematical finance course, with great prospects for a job in the industry.

The MSc is a good programme if you’re looking for a study to break into quant research. There are more than enough courses which give a good overview of the state of the art research currently being used in the industry. As with all programmes, in general teaching is of a good level, with some positive and negative outliers. However, overall, I would say the MSc is a good programme, especially if you are looking for a solid Mathematical foundation to break into the industry. With that, the good reputation of Imperial also helps, as in general, the programme is well-known to be of a good level by practitioners.

Advantages: Very good links with the financial industry that allows you to secure an internship.
Disadvantages: It is only a one year programme, so there are many deadlines and it becomes quite stressful. Also, the teaching quality of the lecturers could be improved considerably.