MFE vs MSc (Finance or Economics)

[clatty cake]

Hi all, was surprised to find that this thread had not been created!

I live in the UK and am interested in furthering my education in the next 3 years or so. I did an undergraduate degree in Mathematics with Financial Mathematics, and so am familiar with quant-based stuff such as stochastic modelling and time series. I would like to know what the main differences are between MFE and an MSc in Finance or Economics, and the career opportunities available? I am interested in the mathematics of financial markets and such, however I don't currently work in investment banking/management (though I have had experience in the past) and was wondering how viable it would be for me to start as a quant around the age of 25-26. I was contemplating the CQF, however a 6 month part-time course costing about £14,000 sounds really dear!

I await the sage advice of the forum

 

[Jose T]

I don't know how the designations work in Europe. If it helps, from a US perspective, here is the Course Description from MIT MFin:

http://mitsloan.mit.edu/mfin/program-components/personalized-curriculum/core-requirements/

The two things they note as 'Fundamental Subjects', Finance Theory and Corporate Financial Accounting will often not be covered at all in an MFE or very minimally through some electives.

The thing they note as 'Required Advanced Subject', Analytics of Finance which they take to mean 'financial econometrics, dynamic optimization and derivative pricing using stochastic calculus' plus the numerical / statistical methods and computer applications used in implementing models is the entire subject matter of an MFE.

I don't know anything else about the MFin to say what the career opportunities are. For MFE, a lot of opportunities are in risk currently and software skills are currently more sought after.

I am starting in Quant at the age of 30. So far, I have not faced any unusual difficulties because of this. Also having non-related work experience is not all bad if you are competing with people who have little to no working experience.