Georgia Tech QCF for international students

[ionix]

Hello,

I've recently been offered a place at Georgia, does anybody know how difficult is it for international students to secure a working visa after graduation?

Also, do you know of any scholarship still open for international students?

Many thanks

 

[victorsun]

I was in this program.
I don't know anyone in the program received any scholarship.
the opt(3 years) is guaranteed, however, after 3 years it depends on the H1b lottery. It's not uncommon for students to get H1b denied.
I know a lot of examples who failed H1B and move to Canada in recent years. Thus, some companies don't favor international students now.

In general, the placements for international students are pretty good(mostly landed risk management in Georgia) UNTIL this year due to uncertainty raised from COVID.

Let me know if you have further questions

 

[ionix]

Thank you very much for your input. Is the location such a great disadvantage on terms of networking opportunities compared to NY or Chicago? Also, do you know if there are financing options other than private student loans for international student still open?

Lastly, is the computational approach of Georgia very appealing to employers or they don't really care about that that much?

 

[victorsun]

I would say the connection of the program is limited in the West coast, the career service doesn't have much connection in NY, Boston, or Chicago.
Also if you are in NY, you have more chances to do networking on your own, however, in Gatech you pretty much can only rely on career service.
So if you aim to land a job in NY or Chicago, the Chance is very limited given the current competitive job market. Maybe only 5 of 50 students are able to, and most of them had some FT experience in states.

I don't know any other financing option, maybe you can check whether your home country provides any.

coding skill definitely is a plus, but for the most finance/quant job, the value is marginal(reputation and connection of program are more important, and companies are more willing to hire PhD for a real hardcore programming job). However, it does help if you consider switch careers to CS, and some of the students did, since CS of Gatech is more prestigious.
If you don't have much programming experience, those programming courses could be very time consuming(20+ hours per week for a single course) and hurts intern job searching(for me it hurts a lot).

To conclude, if you are happy with end with a RM job in the south area, gatech is the place to go. Otherwise, it's not an ideal choice.
Also consider COVID might impact the local market as well, I am not sure if past placement can sustain.

 

[ionix]

Thank you so much for your detailed response.

Just one thing, do you think is doable for someone with no programming experience and with a possible part-time job to complete the course in three semesters?

 

[victorsun]

Thank you so much for your detailed response.

Just one thing, do you think is doable for someone with no programming experience and with a possible part-time job to complete the course in three semesters?

Due to various reasons, I think legally you are not allowed to do a part-time job until the last semester(except teaching-assistant which you can start at second semester). Also I won't recommend you to do so until last semester, the job searching is pretty time consuming and far more important

 

[ionix]

I see thanks, very helpful!

 

[Sidr]

I was in this program.
I don't know anyone in the program received any scholarship.
the opt(3 years) is guaranteed, however, after 3 years it depends on the H1b lottery. It's not uncommon for students to get H1b denied.
I know a lot of examples who failed H1B and move to Canada in recent years. Thus, some companies don't favor international students now.

In general, the placements for international students are pretty good(mostly landed risk management in Georgia) UNTIL this year due to uncertainty raised from COVID.

Let me know if you have further questions

Sir are international students offerd trading jobs and quantities anlyst jobs in FI

 

[harsha varun]

I would say the connection of the program is limited in the West coast, the career service doesn't have much connection in NY, Boston, or Chicago.
Also if you are in NY, you have more chances to do networking on your own, however, in Gatech you pretty much can only rely on career service.
So if you aim to land a job in NY or Chicago, the Chance is very limited given the current competitive job market. Maybe only 5 of 50 students are able to, and most of them had some FT experience in states.

I don't know any other financing option, maybe you can check whether your home country provides any.

coding skill definitely is a plus, but for the most finance/quant job, the value is marginal(reputation and connection of program are more important, and companies are more willing to hire PhD for a real hardcore programming job). However, it does help if you consider switch careers to CS, and some of the students did, since CS of Gatech is more prestigious.
If you don't have much programming experience, those programming courses could be very time consuming(20+ hours per week for a single course) and hurts intern job searching(for me it hurts a lot).

To conclude, if you are happy with end with a RM job in the south area, gatech is the place to go. Otherwise, it's not an ideal choice.
Also consider COVID might impact the local market as well, I am not sure if past placement can sustain.

Many Thanks Victor for your valuable info.
I would just like to request to know one more thing:-How are teh chances of landing up a TA at Gatech for this course(QCF) ,I have heard that if you land as a TA,your tution will be nearly waived for that semester,,
How do you think are the chance of landing into a Data science roles atleast in a tier 2 companies (or) so with the course vigor,

Thanks in advance!!

 

[lolalin]

FYI:

We'd like to extend a huge congratulations to the Fall 2020 Graduating MS QCF Class! We are incredibly proud of your success and can't wait to see where your careers take you.

We are thrilled to announce our full-time placement for the Fall 2020 graduating class:

Average First Year Base Compensation: $100,961
Average First Year Total Compensation: $129,020
Average Sign-on & Relocation Bonus: $15,667
Highest First Year Base Compensation: $135,000
Highest First Year Total Compensation: $187,500
Average # of Offers per Student: 1.14
Placement at Graduation: 71%
Placement within 3 Months: 94%
Hiring Companies Include: Fidelity Investments, Barclays, BlackRock, JP Morgan, Chicago Trading Company, Bank of America, Dimensional Fund Advisors
Cities of Placement Include: Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; New York, NY; San Francisco, CA; Charlotte, NC; Atlanta, GA

Source: GA Tech MS QCF Linkedin