Columbia University - Masters in Financial Engineering

A once highly regarded program that seems to now be skating by on brand name and proximity to the world's largest financial market.

The courses are taught my extremely bright and accomplished professors. However, the quality of instruction from those professors can be hit or miss. Additionally, the program focuses heavily on pricing -- a job niche that is dwindling in prospects.

It is a fair to say that there is only so much that career services can do, it is, ultimately, up to the candidate to be prepared and industrious. However, there were instances where I questioned why my tuition was being used to pay for the career services professionals at all. They were unresponsive, not even responding to my inquiries of whether or not I was in the resume book (a simple logistical request). One even told me to try to get my old job back, where I was in a completely different field prior to the FE program. Anecdotally, I had one quant tell me he chose the Berkeley FE program over Columbia's due to the reputation of career services.