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Is MFE really a better choice than MSc Statistics ?(Math bachelor)

lots of mfe and stats masters r in back office. wat r u talking about?

in reality, its either front office or back office. middle office is coined by some back office guys who wana feel a little bit more important. but it doesnt matter, if u dont bring in revenue directly, ur in back office.

my group is doing capital market modeling research for traders. at the end of the day, we r just supports to the traders who dont give much credit to our hardcore models. by the year end, if they r happy, they might shed us couple % of their profits. am i in font office? hell no
 
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I am doing an internship at a small firm with a lot of MFE students. My impression is that the degree is valuable only if you're coming from the top 5-10 schools. Otherwise, it's a pretty useless degree because these programs graduate so many students and all of them are flooding the big banks and hedge funds with their resumes. The current company I intern at is tiny--just two partners in the firm and no salaried employees and the internship pays nothing. Honestly, it's a crappy company and they lost money last year but they're still drowning in applications from MFE students from top 15 schools. They can fire whoever they want because another student will just take their place. Thousands of these students applying to this tiny mediocre firm were rejected by the bulge brackets and other good companies (they're also rejected by my mediocre company). There are maybe tens of thousands of these tiny companies all around the U.S. or maybe just the east coast alone. Can you imagine how difficult it is for MFE students outside of the top 10 to get an internship at a top bank or fund? I've seen many of these interns give up a finance career and work at IT and other companies.

Reading what you wrote in your first post: "MFE is a very hot trend among Chinese students...." I think your answer is right there. The MFE is hot among Chinese students. It's also hot among Indian students as well. What this means is that when you go to interview with your MFE degree you will be competing with thousands of very smart international students for relatively fews spots available at good companies that are able to offer H-1B visas. How will you be better than all those other MFE students? How will you separate yourself from all the other students who academically and professionally come a similar background as yourself?

My guess is that companies like Goldman Sachs and Citadel look at the top 10 MFE/Financial Maths schools and pretty much ignore the rest.

The competition for quantitative jobs at good companies is crazy intense out there!
 
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