- Joined
- 1/28/12
- Messages
- 1
- Points
- 11
Hey guys, my case is maybe a bit unique so just hoping that I can get some useful advice here. I have been working for a large insurance company in NYC for a number of years now as an investment actuary (FSA). My main job function involves risk management, hedging, as well as some modeling--I'm making decent $$, not comparable to quant jobs but pretty good compare to many other finance jobs, so I'm not really willing to give that up and going to school full time. My interests, besides hedging and risk management, are now shifted more towards ALM, quantitative asset management, institutional portfolio management, liability driven investing, etc. I think my ultimate goal might be a quantitative PM, not 100% sure but at least that's what I am thinking right now.
Since I only have a bachelor's degree in Math, I thought it might be a good idea to accumulate some more education before seeking a move (internal/external) to the stuff that I mentioned above. I've got my CFA, but I feel I didn't learn too much from it. I'm pretty rusty in programming (only using a bit of VBA and Sql nowadays), so I definitely need that and I'm sure a bit more math wouldn't hurt. So naturally I started looking for some local PT MFE programs (CMU, NYU etc). However after looking/asking around it seems that if I don't really want to be a hard-core quant, then maybe I am overshooting it a bit by spending time/effort doing a MFE program. One thing for sure though, my company would love to have more MFEs, the probably think people with MFE degrees are super smart
On the other hand there's NYU PT-MBA that has this "quantitative finance" concentration, plus some people told me that buy-side firms like MBAs a lot, since they have good soft skills than many people with quant background. However after looking at the curriculum, I fear that I might be wasting time/money on those "core" courses which has little benefit to me. Another concern is that PT-MBA is a lot more steep in tuition than the MFE programs but firms might view PT-MBA as much inferior than FT-MBA.
The final option of getting a CQF certificate is the cheapest/fastest, but I am not sure if I'd be motivated to sit through a 6 month online course with little interaction with fellow students/professors, just to add 3 more letters after my name. This might be the way to go, but I guess I want to know a bit more in terms of what people think of the course before I shell out 20k for a certificate. If I am not going to learn much out of the program then I'd rather spend more $$ and get a real degree.
To conclude, I am all for learning useful things and get the value out of the education. But since I want to do something on a PT basis, just want to make sure whatever it is it's better be fairly efficient and I am not wasting too much time/effort on the things that have nothing to do with my career aspirations. I would appreciate any advice you might have.
Thanks everyone!
Since I only have a bachelor's degree in Math, I thought it might be a good idea to accumulate some more education before seeking a move (internal/external) to the stuff that I mentioned above. I've got my CFA, but I feel I didn't learn too much from it. I'm pretty rusty in programming (only using a bit of VBA and Sql nowadays), so I definitely need that and I'm sure a bit more math wouldn't hurt. So naturally I started looking for some local PT MFE programs (CMU, NYU etc). However after looking/asking around it seems that if I don't really want to be a hard-core quant, then maybe I am overshooting it a bit by spending time/effort doing a MFE program. One thing for sure though, my company would love to have more MFEs, the probably think people with MFE degrees are super smart
On the other hand there's NYU PT-MBA that has this "quantitative finance" concentration, plus some people told me that buy-side firms like MBAs a lot, since they have good soft skills than many people with quant background. However after looking at the curriculum, I fear that I might be wasting time/money on those "core" courses which has little benefit to me. Another concern is that PT-MBA is a lot more steep in tuition than the MFE programs but firms might view PT-MBA as much inferior than FT-MBA.
The final option of getting a CQF certificate is the cheapest/fastest, but I am not sure if I'd be motivated to sit through a 6 month online course with little interaction with fellow students/professors, just to add 3 more letters after my name. This might be the way to go, but I guess I want to know a bit more in terms of what people think of the course before I shell out 20k for a certificate. If I am not going to learn much out of the program then I'd rather spend more $$ and get a real degree.
To conclude, I am all for learning useful things and get the value out of the education. But since I want to do something on a PT basis, just want to make sure whatever it is it's better be fairly efficient and I am not wasting too much time/effort on the things that have nothing to do with my career aspirations. I would appreciate any advice you might have.
Thanks everyone!
