Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Master of Finance

I had my apprehensions going into this program due to its high tuition, but I believed that the school name was worth the premium.
This program has exceeded my expectations, and I'm glad I chose to be an MIT MFin.

I genuinely underestimated the flexibility of this program even after hearing tons about it. You can literally design this degree in a way that suits you.

Wanna learn financial mathematics? Wanna learn macroeconomics? Wanna learn M&A? You can take all of these courses at Sloan.

Wanna improve your CS or math skills? You can take courses in the CS or math department at MIT. And all of these would probably count towards your degree requirements, so you would not have to do 'unnecessary' courses that you find redundant for your career needs.

The courses are HARD, though. Whether you're doing a more quant-y course or a more corporate finance course, you should expect that it will be rigorous and challenging, but you'd have ample resources and support. The professors are top-notch, highly revered in their fields, but also extremely approachable.

I did not have a lot of expectations with the Career Development Office, but I can safely say that I've found it to be very useful. You do have to do your due diligence and work hard on applications (you're an adult and the job market is tough) but the CDO team will get you any resource they could possibly help you with. There will be so many networking events and opportunities to make use of (you'll literally be having lunch with MDs of a division), thanks to the CDO, provided you show up and market yourself to the company speakers.

Lastly, the Sloan network is priceless. You'll not only get to connect easily with Sloan alumni who are leading quant firms in the country, but also an amazing student group at the school, including MBAs and PhDs. Your classes will consist of people vying for various career paths, from quant to macroeconomic research to private equity. While it is great to have a good network of people in the quant industry, it's just as important to connect with people in other sectors of finance.

TL;DR: MIT MFin does a great job of letting you identify what career path you want to take and provides you with all the resources to excel in it, from academics to networks to career opportunities.

Just wanted to share some insights on the MIT Master of Finance program .

What really stands out about the program is its flexibility. The ability to tailor your coursework and explore a wide range of subjects is a significant plus, especially in such a dynamic field as finance. This flexibility extends to taking classes at Harvard, which is a unique opportunity in itself. The program is known for its strong quantitative focus, offering a deep dive into financial theory and practice.

Another major highlight is the quality of peers you'll be studying with. The student body is not only academically impressive but also diverse in experiences and backgrounds, offering a rich learning environment. There’s a lot to learn from classmates, and the networking opportunities are tremendous.

The career prospects post-graduation are another strong point. Many students have had great success during the summer recruiting season, landing roles in prestigious firms across various sectors of finance. The program’s reputation and MIT's strong industry connections play a crucial role here.

However, it’s not all smooth sailing. The program does have its challenges. One of the most frequently mentioned is the large class size, which could potentially impact the level of individual attention and support you might receive. The cost of the program is another significant consideration – it's quite steep, but that's expected from a program of this caliber.

The academic rigor is another factor to be prepared for. The coursework is demanding, and the program's pace can be intense, especially during the summer term. This intensity, while a challenge, is also part of what makes the program so robust and rewarding.

In conclusion, while the MIT MFin program comes with its set of challenges, such as the class size, cost, and intense workload, its strengths in providing a flexible, diverse, and rigorous educational experience, combined with excellent career opportunities, make it a compelling choice. If you're someone who thrives in a challenging and dynamic academic environment and are looking for a program that can provide a strong launchpad into the finance industry, this could be a great fit.

Pros:
1. Great flexibility in terms of course. You can take basically any courses you like from the entire MIT course catalog and also cross reg at Harvard. Many people from FE track took courses like PHD level Machine Learning, High-dim Stats, Times Series and Econometrics.
2. Classmates are solid for sure
3. Great track record for summer recruiting: Constant inflow into Citadel, Jump, BAM and most of the IB in Quant, IB and Trading divisions.

Cons:
1. Class Size was too large
2. Expensive Tuition Fees

Pros:

Reputation: It's MIT.
Customizable: You can tweak the program based on what you're into, which is super cool.
Job Opportunities: career fairs and good support from CDO
Real-World Learning: Fin-lab/proseminars and other hands-on projects

Cons:
Heavy Workload in the Summer
Tuition Costs, etc.

The Positives:
- The curriculum is extremely flexible, you can gear your academic experience as you see fit, much more than other programs out there. It gives you a space to take on risks academically.
- Access to MIT's engineering school, Harvard's Law and Business Schools, MIT PhD level electives, you will not run out of challenges.
- The faculty is superb. It feels like they're a little unavailable in the sense of being extremely busy with their PhD students, outside projects, etc. But if you show interest, go to their office hours and engage you'll tap into that amazing resource. You have to go for it though.
- Fellow classmates are beyond bright, oftentimes intimidating. From an academic standpoint there's a lot to be learned from sharing. Every TA, PhD student, Sloan Fellow or MBA you interact with is bathed in a culture of integrity and excellence that it just pours into everything. I think MIT benefits greatly from attracting exceptional people.
- The networking opportunities, companies visiting the campus, MIT connections & alumni network (which is extremely helpful), career events and resources are just vast and constantly available. There's something going on every day. Skipping class can be the best choice any given day with all that's goin on all of the time. You must prioritize and you must dedicate yourself to career activities as it is not going to be just handed out in a silver plate.


The Negatives:
- Career Office works extremely hard but has gone through many changes in the past few years and it feels like they're still finding their direction. Expect to put on a little extra work in preparing for finding a job.
- As a pre-work experience degree, there's diverse range of backgrounds but not a diverse range of profiles. Most students are 22 y/olds with little to contribute to a classroom experience.
- Students are (almost naturally) secluded into groups (mostly by geography) and you don't get to see much openness to mixing within. The class is also large and even with different cohorts the bonding experience is nowhere near like the MBAs
- The 12 month version is way too tight and packed to benefit from the flexibility of the curriculum and the opportunity to take electives. Requirements are the same between 12 and 18 month programs so you can enjoy all of this in the 18 month version.
- It is a pricey degree, specially for a pre-experience degree that aims to insert one to the highly competitive financial labor market. The cost is steep and from what I believe, not a lot of aid is handed out.

Overall the experience was amazing to me. I was able to enjoy all of the gifts and opportunities the program had to offer.

As one of the current MFin students at MIT Sloan, I've had a fantastic experience at the school so far. There are so many great things to say about the program and the school, and I've listed a few important reasons below regarding why I chose MIT Sloan:

• MFin verus MFE (or other pure-quant programs): The MFin degree at MIT Sloan offers a lot of flexibility in the curriculum and is designed to help you tailor an academic training that best fits your career passion. It is a graduate finance degree that offers a solid foundation in modern finance theory, and besides the initial mandatory courses over the Summer Semester and Analytics of Finance/Action-Learning requirements, one is free to take other elective courses as you wish and customize the curriculum to meet your own career/academic objective. For example, I realized that I'm more interested in the Capital Market/Investment Management side of finance, so I specifically took courses that are more public market oriented such as Fixed Income, Options/Derivations, Investment Management etc. as opposed to some of my other friends who are pursuing a career in quant finance/trading, and therefore are taking more quant-heavy courses such as Dynamtic Programming, Stochastic Calculus, and other PhD level courses at both Sloan and the Engineering Department at MIT. Compared with other MFE programs, which have a stricter set of curriculum requirement and are more engineering/quantitative by design, I felt that the MFin degree offered me a greater Option Value because I could tailor my curriculum to be super quantitative and engineering focused by taking a lot of PhD level/quant classes offered at Sloan and Engineering department, but at the same time if ones decided that they turned out to be more interested in corporate finance or the capital market like I did, they would have the option to take more finance courses. So in a way, the MFin degree can be seen as a graduate finance degree or an engineering degree depending on how you take your classes, which to me at the time was a big advantage because I liked the option value whereas it might be more diffcult to do so at a MFE program.

• Top Business School + Top Engineering School: The MFin program is housed out of MIT's Sloan School of Management, which itself is a world-class business school that has an outstanding track record in management training and modern finance theory. What this means is that you would have access to some of the best professors in finance/business here at Sloan and would be able to network with MBA students and other senior corporate executives around the globe during and after your time at Sloan.This is a very valuable thing as you start your career and to me, having the opportunity to take classes with star professors such as Robert Merton and Andrew Lo etc. and join a very accomplished alumni network of MIT Sloan afterwards are life-time opportunities. Moreover, one would also be able to take courses at the Engineering School at MIT as mentioned earlier and have access to some of the best engineering minds in the world. Afterall, your Graduate Student experience at MIT can be very comprehensive and diverse, and being able to make friends from all over the schools at MIT are a great life-learning opportunity itself.

• Boston/Cambridge Is Just Awesome: Location is also another important factor to me and the fact that MIT is located in a major city on the East Coast and Boston/Cambridge are home to a number of other great college/universities would allow me the opportunity to make new friends and expand my network. Its faily close proximity and easy commute to NYC also allows students fast access to the capital center of the world! Boston/Cambridge are simply amazing places with lots of good restaurants/bars/social actilities, and I would say besides the weather in the winter (sometimes but not always that bad), your time here will be very fun.

• Amazing Students: Lastly I just want to mention how smart and friendly students at MIT and Sloan are. The caliber of the students I've interacted with are incredible and it's just really fun to be around smart/fun people who you can share an interesting and intelligient conversations with. To me that's very important and was also another factor that attracted me to MIT.

I don’t usually write reviews, but I read a lot of them before coming to the MFin program, and I know how important these reviews were on my decision process.

Therefore and for all of you reading this, I gave the five stars because:
There is something unusual about this university. Once you come to MIT and you’re surrounded with extraordinary people and an extraordinary campus, something will happen to you. It will not be up to you anymore to decide whether you want to push yourself to become a better person, it will happen automatically.

To be more concrete, I will share some examples about my MFin experience at MIT Sloan.

1- Flexibility: As much as the coursework is rigorous, the program is designed in a way to give students flexibility. I was able to tailor my program effortlessly and according to my initial plan.

2- Clubs: I was enrolled in many clubs such as Finance, Investment Management, Management Consulting, Sales, Public Speaking, Entrepreneurship, African, European, Asian, Middle East, and more! Did I have time to attend all of these club meetings? Definitely not! However, I was very selective and attended every event that was appealing to me. It is important to note that I learned from the sales club and public speaking club as much as I learned from the finance club and investment management club.

3- Unlimited Network: There are numerous talks happening around the MIT Sloan and MIT community. Also, MIT and Harvard club members organize conferences together, so there is no limit to the network you can gain while you’re here. Personally, I was not 100% sure prior coming to MIT about what is it that I really wanted to do with my life, and I found the answer in one of these finance conferences.

Since other reviews have discussed in details about the finance courses and curriculum, I hope that I have left you today with a new viewpoint about this unique education.
Best of luck to all of you.

I had an amazing experience over the past 11 months at MFin program. Looking back, I have learned a lot academically, and solidified my finance foundation. Even though I had a finance related background prior to coming to MIT, MIT classes have given me a different (practical) perspective and an innovative view on finance. I have learned not only the theory, but more importantly how to apply the theories to the real world through classes (Finance Research Practicum and Proseminar) and projects. Analytics of Finance is a rather quantitative course, but it taught me more of how to learn things fast and under pressure than the stochastic calculus itself. I have also learned how to get out of my comfort zone, expand my comfort zone and push myself further. I developed close relationships with my classmates/faculty members and made life-long friends, who are more of family members than friends! Overall, I absolutely loved the master of finance experience at MIT Sloan and I would highly recommend this program to everyone!

I was frequently asked the following questions, and here is what I think:

Why did you choose to come to MIT Sloan?
I chose Sloan because of its international reputation, world-class professors (Andrew Lo, Bob Merton, Stewart Myers, Eric Rosenfeld, to name just a few), the action learning programs (Proseminar, Finance Research Practicum, and many practical class projects), and most importantly, the opportunity to learn from the best of the very best! I have thoroughly enjoyed my experience over the past year. Coming to Sloan is probably the best decision I have ever made and I am really glad that I am here.


How accessible are the professors here?
Extremely so. The hardest class I took was Analytics of Finance. Professor Kogan was really wonderful about rescheduling individual office hours for me when I couldn’t make it to the regular ones. And I heard that he tutored one of my classmates to bring him up-to-speed on the material.


What was your favorite class or professor?
Andrew Lo is the best. He told us that his goal is not to teach us finance but to change the way we think about finance and he really succeeds in this. He really builds a wide foundation (e.g. with the connection to neuroscience). Before I wasn’t interested in biology, but now I eagerly read papers on the subject. Professor Lo is so stimulating that the three-hour class goes by very quickly.

How would you sum up your experience in the MFin Program?
It was unforgettable and the people I met were just incredible. I was nervous before I arrived, but it’s actually a very happy, supportive, and honest environment. It broadened my horizons and I made lifelong friends.

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
BA in Finance in Germany and 1 year work experience in financial services in Hong Kong

Did you get admitted to other programs?
Didn’t apply to any other in the US.
LSE MSc Finance

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
Brand Name
Quality of Professors
Flexibility
Location

Tell us about the application process at this program
Essays, Recommendation, Interview – the usual

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
The MFin program is probably the most flexible finance program you’ll find. Depending on you preferences you can tailor the program to a quant finance program (include math and programming courses from main campus), general finance (sticking to MFin courses) ,or a business program (taking MBA classes at Sloan as well as HBS, HKS, Harvard Law, etc.)

My favorite course was probably ‘Valuation’ with Stewart Myers where we had to value all sorts of real project in a team (ex. an oil field in Siberia, wind turbines at Cape Cod, Liquid Gas in Alaska). After each project Prof. Myers met each team individually and talked through the valuation process.

Tell us about the quality of teaching:
Definitely the best quality of professors you’ll find in the area of finance. I took courses with Robert Merton, Stewart Myers, Andrew Lo and Stephen Ross. All of whom made significant contributions in the area of finance and who are great professors. Professors and TAs are approachable at all times.

Programming component of the program
I used Matlab and VBA
depending on your course selection you might use C++, Python, etc.

Career service
Students can use the career services of MIT as well as MIT Sloan, which gives us a really wide range (anything from prop shop to MBB) of access to career opportunities. MIT’s alumni network is huge – I contacted a bunch of alumni to get more information about specific companies and positions and almost everybody responded and was more than helpful.

Can you comment on the social interaction between students of different ethnics, nationalities in the program?
The program is very diversified from students all over the world - anything from Iceland to China.

What do you like about the program?
Flexibility, Professors, MIT Culture

What DON’T you like about the program?
Program hasn't been around for a long time and sometimes doesn't get the attention it deserves.

Suggestions for the program to make it better:
Raise awareness of the program externally (rankings, etc) and internally (more MIT undergrads).

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
Accepted offer with a leading consulting company in New York

Besides the program's websites, what alternative sources of info you used to learn more about the program?
Quantnet
WSO

The main reason I chose this program is the action learning that is available to students. MIT Sloan provides unparalleled opportunities to work on real world problems. This affords the student a chance to collaborate and innovate while working with faculty, sponsors, and companies. Action learning opportunities include but are not limited to a Finance Research Practicum, Proseminar in Financial Engineering & Investment Management, or Proseminar in Corporate Finance/Investment Banking. These opportunities allow students to work with prominent leaders and companies in Finance, while solving complex financial problems.

This program also allows freedom to choose your curriculum. The Program Office supports you but really trusts the students. I was in command of where I wanted to go with my education. For me this meant completing a concentration in investment management. The program faculty and academic advisors provid the road-maps for a concentration in a certain area, but you don’t have to follow every detail of it -- this allows room to explore your interests within Sloan and the greater MIT community.

Frequent Questions:

How would you characterize the Sloan culture?

Collaborative. Strong sense of community. Humble students. B-schools have a reputation for competition but at MIT Sloan I’ve found that everyone is willing to help and support you by recommending job opportunities and by looking out for one another. This goes beyond the MFin cohort. I know I’ll keep in touch with MBAs I’ve met. We’re all family here.

What advice to you have to new students?

My advice for new students would be to take the time to learn what opportunities there are (e.g. conferences) and go to as many of them as you can. Keep a balanced work-life. Reflect on what interests you personally. Ask questions. Sloanies are good at all of this and you will quickly feel a part of this community..

Use the summer as a safe space to find out what your interests are and what you don’t know but need to develop. The faculty are there to guide you but not to hold your hand. They are always dedicated to your success.

Closing Comments:

I wish I had more time! One year goes by very quickly. It’s a unique opportunity and I am very happy that I chose to attend MIT Sloan.

I highly recommend the MFin program. Our class had 58 students with extremely diverse background from country of origin, undergraduate studies, and work experience. The program is divided into three semesters (summer, fall, and spring). The summer session begins in early July and last till late August, and it can be quite extensive without a financial background. The course curriculum is very flexible depending on your career and academic interests. Required classes include corporate financial accounting, financial theory, analytics of finance, and a proseminar. Courses at Sloan stress team work and most of the assignments are case studies with a group of students. Classes are also a good mix of lecture based and case study based.

The students in the program pursue a wide range of different career paths from traditional investment banking, sales and trading, prop trading, asset management, consulting, and alternative investments. Students can also cross register and take Harvard Business School courses and MIT graduate courses in different departments.

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
undergrad education in computer engineering
work experience in software

Did you get admitted to other programs?
Columbia FE, LSE FinEconomics, etc
I studied full-time in the program from 6/2009-6/2010

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
perfect balance between MBA and Financial Engineering
(narrower than MBA but broader than master of financial engineering)

Tell us about the application process at this program
straight forward. Mandatory interview from 2010

Does this program offer refresher courses? How useful was it?
Yes. Referesher courses in the summer. Especially very useful for non-business/finance/economics majors

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
Very flexible.
Analytics of Finance
Advanced corporate risk management
Investments
Options & Futures
Also, you can take any MIT/MIT MBA course as elective.
e.g. parallel computing, stochastic calculus, statistical inference and data mining. Also, you can take any Harvard/HBS course as elective (cross-registration)

Tell us about the quality of teaching
MIT's unique lecture + recitation system
excellent professors

Materials used in the program
a lot

Programming component of the program
no particular programming experience is required
MATLAB is used in many of the quantitative courses

Projects
many quantitative finance projects
many investment projects
many valuation projects
and many many more.....
too many projects.......

Career service
Full support of MIT Sloan career services office plus dedicated career adviser for MFin students

Can you comment on the social interaction between students of different ethnics, nationalities in the program?
Very tight group; we hang out together and have a lot of fun

What do you like about the program?
The best thing must be the extremely flexible curriculum and elective choices. Also, MIT's reputation for innovation and quantitative powerhouse helps in the job market.

What DON’T you like about the program?
Too short. I wish i could spend more time at MIT.
Suggestions for the program to make it better
Perhaps an option to stay longer, for thesis

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
Got an offer for a position in quantitative financial modeling; new york.

This review was submitted anonymously