Worthwhile to have part-time MFE degree?

[sdeorquant]

Hi all, nice to have such an amazing forum!
I'm currently financial software engineer at Bloomberg, and I've already have computer science master degree. And before that I have a couple years of research experiences (not math/CS/stat/finance field, though).
Thus in addition to coding skills, I also have research/analytics mindset and huge passion for math/stat. Also given my experiences at Bloomberg where I could access lots of financial resources, naturally I'm considering to take part-time MFE degree. (Also the company will pay a good amount of tuition for me as employee benefit)

However, right now I may not have a very clear career goal as most other MFE students (say, mostly want to be quant, but quant is also one of my top options), my whole purpose now is still to "dive deep" into financial industry because domain knowledge is super important if I choose to continue to develop at fintech.

So given my situation, a couple of questions:
1. If I only wanna "dive deep" into finance, or invest/prepare for my future career in financial industry, but without a crystal clear goal, would "part-time MFE" be a little bit "over"? I need to invest a huge amount of time.

2. I heard top financial institutions (funds like Citadel) would only hire math/physics PhD as their quant, is that true?

3. If I'd only like to be "quantitative developer" at top funds (like Citadel), but not actual "quant", would MFE be necessary?

4. In addition to financial software engineer, or quant, other career options in financial industry in a long-run?

5. Given my situation, what's my chance to get enrolled into Columbia MAFN or NYU mathematics in finance? (The only two that I found have part-time master degree)

Many thanks!

 

[MRoss]

Baruch MFE has part-time - that's what I did. I actually really enjoyed it. I got to meet 3 full cohorts that I call classmates and I found full time employment at MS in the last year so had very low job-search pressure.

 

[AppliedMath]

Hi all, nice to have such an amazing forum!
I'm currently financial software engineer at Bloomberg, and I've already have computer science master degree. And before that I have a couple years of research experiences (not math/CS/stat/finance field, though). (y)
Thus in addition to coding skills, I also have research/analytics mindset and huge passion for math/stat. Also given my experiences at Bloomberg where I could access lots of financial resources, naturally I'm considering to take part-time MFE degree. (Also the company will pay a good amount of tuition for me as employee benefit)

However, right now I may not have a very clear career goal as most other MFE students (say, mostly want to be quant, but quant is also one of my top options), my whole purpose now is still to "dive deep" into financial industry because domain knowledge is super important if I choose to continue to develop at fintech.

So given my situation, a couple of questions:
1. If I only wanna "dive deep" into finance, or invest/prepare for my future career in financial industry, but without a crystal clear goal, would "part-time MFE" be a little bit "over"? I need to invest a huge amount of time.

2. I heard top financial institutions (funds like Citadel) would only hire math/physics PhD as their quant, is that true?

3. If I'd only like to be "quantitative developer" at top funds (like Citadel), but not actual "quant", would MFE be necessary?

4. In addition to financial software engineer, or quant, other career options in financial industry in a long-run?

5. Given my situation, what's my chance to get enrolled into Columbia MAFN or NYU mathematics in finance? (The only two that I found have part-time master degree)

Many thanks!

[o] Access to data in context is huge. You'd benefit a lot from your idea of doing things part-time. As you learned you things academically, you've have the professional arena to try them in, or see how they are done in practice.

[o] The part-time program could help with this, but not necessarily. You may just need to learn how to network,and start talking to people at other companies about what they do, and how they do it.

1. Could be overkill. Depends on time commitment, and if other things could better help you explore.
2. Yeah. Pretty much. There are things beyond the tip of the iceberg though.
3. No. If you want to be a Quant Dev, then you need to be way better at CS, and maybe Math/Physics. MFE is a poor path there, since it's quite interdisciplinary
4. The less software/math technical it is, the closer you are to the sales-y side of things.
5. I think you need a part-time MS for CompSci, or something that build you to be a better software developer. Check the responsibilities and requirements on some bottom, middle and top Quant Dev jobs. Then backward-design a path.

 

[BlindJak - CQF]

Hi Sdeorquant,

If you are looking for a part-time course have you considered the Certificate in Quantitative Finance. (www.cwf.com)? It only takes six months and can be scheduled around your career and is on Bloomberg’s approved course list (i.e. they will help with tuition).

The CQF is much more focused on quant finance and machine learning rather than an MFE which is somewhat general. It also develops practical skills rather than just academic theory and is delivered by a faculty of world-renowned market practitioners.

There is also a life long learning alumni portal that keeps you up to date with the latest quant finance developments and hot topics. Whereas, with an academic degree such as the MFE, your development and learning ends as soon as you gain your qualification.

Just a thought.