Too late for career change for a civil engineer?

[Harmonica]

Hi Guys,

I am a Geotechnical engineer (civil) and am very interested in going for an MFE. I have always been interested in Finance and working with numbers. My current job involves a lot of engineering judgment, problem solving and application of common sense, but not enough pay and very slow growth. My profile is:

Work experience: 6.5 years

Masters: Civil engineering from Virginia Tech

Bachelors: IIT Delhi (India) in Civil engineering

I have engineering design experience which involved working with softwares. In particular, I designed the database for a $ 2 billion construction project using a software. Was practically an expert for that software for the project and my company. It involved some coding as well.

I do not have experience in C++ , although I had taken up a basic and an intermediate level course as an undergraduate.

Just wanted an opinion on what my chances are in terms of getting admitted into good MFE courses in the US. I am particularly interested in Haas as it’s a one yr course. Thanks!

 

[Andy Nguyen]

You probably would need to address the finance component of your application. UCB will likely ask you to take CFA L1 so may keep that in mind.

 

[Harmonica]

Thanks for the reply. I do not have any experience in finance to show of. Would it help my application if I take the CFA L1 preemptively? Or would it be better to get financial experience professionally?