DePaul Master of Science in Computational Finance

[scottb]

Hi Everyone,

I live in Chicago and am looking to find a good master's program. I already know of U. Chicago and IIT. Does anyone have any knowledge of or experience with the DePaul Kellstadt/CDM M.S. Computational Finance program? I can't seem to find much information either way. Are their graduates able to get jobs in Chicago in IB? Sorry if I already missed a thread on this, and thanks for your input!

 

[Joy Pathak]

There really aren't many investment bank jobs in Chicago. They are all in New York. UBS Asset management has a hub there and I think BMO Harris has its American HQ there and few other banks have small offices in the area, but the main IB jobs are all in the New York area. Chicago has tons of prop shops and hedge funds.

 

[bigbadwolf]

Looks like everyone is trying to milk the quant training cash cow these days -- regardless of whether they have the facilities and expertise or not. I took a quick glance at their site, and with the caveat that appearances can sometimes be deceptive, this seems to be another third-rate me-too program. Some generic comp sci and stats courses (scientific computing, numerical analysis, Monto Carlo algorithms, time series analysis, regression), offered by their College of Computing, have been slapped together with some generic finance courses (financial accounting, basic economics, portfolio analysis, investment analysis), offered by their business school, and voila! -- you've got a "quant program." There doesn't seem to be a single PDE course, not even as an elective. And I note that the numerical analysis course doesn't cover techniques for solving ODEs and PDEs, let alone the coding that goes into them. You can surely draw your own conclusions.