MBA for a quant career?

[Zeldino]

Is it possible to get a job and have a successful career in quantitative portfolio management with an MBA degree?

I'm from an engineering background and would therefore like to have an MBA degree since it will give a lot of business knowledge which I lack that could benefit me greatly in my career (probably immediately, but certainly in the long run). But what I really want to do is quantitative portfolio management, so I'm not going to do an MBA if there's no chance I'll get the job I want. Should I rather just go for a FE program and forget about the MBA?

The MBA I've applied to is Cornell's, and Cornell also has a MFE program from which I can take courses as electives in the MBA. I've also done a lot of preparation for such a career and will continue to do so, so I don't doubt whether I'll be able to perform, my question is will anyone hire me?

 

[Ken Abbott]

The value of an MBA has stood the test of time. Many senior people with real quant skills have MBAs and leverage their skills effectively.

The long-term value of an MFE (or MS in Finance) has yet to be determined. Right now, there's oversupply, some of it of questionable quality. There's no reason you couldn't interview for MFE-type jobs. The fact that you have an engineering background should put you in the running. Make sure you can talk about things like time series, pca, etc.