Introduction:
I write this review from the perspective of a student who has a balanced mathematics and statistics background whose goals were to get a practical education in quantitative finance to use towards a career in the industry.
1. Curriculum: The core curriculum of financial mathematics (4), probability (2), and statistics (2) may seem quite reasonable at first glance, but the material is presented in such a way that is often overly theoretical and more complicated than it needs to be. Additionally, the applicability of such knowledge to most graduates of this program in their future careers is suspect at best.
The courses of most interest personally were the statistics and probability courses. Overall, the quality of instruction there is somewhat decent and their application in general for students going into software development or data science may not be entirely nil. However, based on my collection of experiences, the quality of course depends greatly on the instructor and utilization of things such as office hours is 100% a must if you want to have a ghost of a chance at doing well in classes.
As for financial mathematics, the coursework is deeply theoretical and often presented in ways that are difficult to digest. The pacing of the coursework is also irregular and exponential in its difficulty. The impression I get in common with multiple cohorts of students from this program, both old and new, is that it is almost entirely impossible to succeed without a collaborative effort. Although it had been mentioned that the course material in these classes may be useful for a quant interview, I would say that point is moot, because studying directly for interviews using things such as ‘the green book’ and other similar study guides is almost surely more effective than trying to do so through studying the course material.
As a whole, the pacing of the coursework is grueling, leaving students little to no time to balance their studies with preparation to enter the industry (a goal to which probably over 95% of the student body aspires to).
Lastly, as a rebuttal to some previous reviews, I would like to say that the faculty teaching most of the classes are most certainly not uncaring about the students – they recognize the difficulty of the material for most and can be of great help if a student just asks for it.
Suggestions:
1. Reconsider the pacing of the coursework, both as a whole and how it is taught in class. The current pace often catches students off guard, sending the students into despair by mid-semester. I would suggest offering alternative settings of curriculum to students and presenting plans for graduation in 1.5 years, 2 years, 2.5 years and 3 years based on how they want to handle their course load.
2. Add flexibility to the graduation requirements for this program. For students who desire to go towards a PHD in financial mathematics, the current coursework may be appropriate, but for most who just want to get a job in the industry a more practical touch may be required. I would suggest allowing multiple similar courses to fulfil the same requirements for topics that may be pain-points for students. Additionally, there should be options to forego financial mathematics in detail, by instead taking courses related to programming, and software development as these appear to be in high demand in the current job marketplace (for quants and otherwise).
2a. Alternative (experimental) suggestion, divide some core courses into half-semester segments, with the first covering material at a high-level with a focus on conceptual understanding, and the second on details, with the second swappable with a finance/statistics/programming course with equal credit. This would allow students to ‘sample’ the ideas before fully committing to it. Then arrange the remainder of the curriculum around it, creating a unique customizable degree that covers some elements in depth, but the more extraneous ones in breadth.
2. Student Placement: Student placement is poor from this program, there is no other way to say it. To any potential candidates hoping to land a lofty job at a top-tier firm in the US after graduation from this program, I wouldn’t say it is impossible, but it would be a rare occurrence and based almost solely on your own skill and innate aptitude. The program will neither be a positive nor a negative influence on this. It is possibly equally or more likely to get into a good quant job from an undergrad degree than from this program.
Suggestions:
1. Realistically, there are not enough positions in high-tier quant firms for all students of all quant programs to go there. However, there are plenty positions in software development and data science that are looking for students with a good statistics background and problem-solving skills.
2. Due to the high-proportion (90%+) of Chinese international students in the program, it may be appropriate to offer more options to build communication and interview prep skills in the US market.
3. Building off of some suggestions about the curriculum, it may be time to rebrand this degree (again), so as to appeal to more diverse types of employers and to accommodate career decisions that students might make mid-program. Quantitative finance is a small subset of the financial industry as a whole, and the esoteric knowledge requisite for it absolutely useless to jobs outside of the space. I believe its better to give the students options (through course flexibility or otherwise), so that they may be both, 1. Satisfied with the applicability education they received from the program and 2. Land a job where they feel their education will serve them well in the future, because in the most realistic sense of things, 90+% of the graduates from this program will not be going to quant-finance.
3. Student Life: The campus of Ann Arbor is large, with a wide array of things to do in ready walking or biking distance. However, this potentially fun and exciting location may as well be seen through a glass window from a padded room for the students in the quant program. The demanding curriculum essentially keeps students chained to their desks, furiously studying for a vague hope of survival. I’ve known more than several who were stressed to the point of not eating for fear of not being able to keep up with the coursework. Even then, they were hardly able to break the median score when examinations came due. In short, to say the student life is anything less than excruciation would be an understatement. In the past, the kind student coordinator would have been able to alleviate some of this, helping students manage their stress or arranging various avenues for students to manage their course loads, but they have since departed from the program, so new students can expect no such reprieve.
Suggestions:
1. Student life will likely be improved by doing the aforementioned changes to curriculum and placement. Also, get a new coordinator – at least as good as the previous one who was excellent.
Conclusion/Impressions:
If you are a PHD hopeful, you may find this program useful and the right step towards your next adventure in academia. I was lucky enough to end up doing something unrelated to the degree that I love, but, if you just want to get an education that you feel will serve you well in your next job, look elsewhere, there are plenty of other places more deserving of your money.
