It has been a while since I hit the blog. Actually, the last entry was posted when I got accepted to the MFE program, oh, three semesters ago! Even though I still have one more semester to go, probably now it is a good time to make a wrap up and tell about my experience in the program.
Since 2008, I have learned much, which implies that I also had a chance to forget much. The knowledge got refined, some knowledge got shelved somewhere in my long-term memory, but experience have shown that all of it is accessible upon request.
The summer before the first academic year here started with a bundle of refresher courses, which were very useful later throughout the program, not to say they were crucial for academic survival on the program per se.
Firstly, my class of about forty students is worthy of note. It was a portfolio of forty diverse assets. Students with diverse backgrounds from finance, computer science, electrical and mechanical engineering, physics, statistics, pure math, law, liberal arts, and any combination of the above; each person is bright, sharp, “hand-picked” to succeed on the program and later on Street. Most of the students had graduate schools or vast experience behind them; five had doctorate degrees already.
The academic load was time-wise distributed with the main weight on the first semester, slowly decreasing towards the third, and had the spikes every week in the second halves of each semester (ah, those homeworks). I switched to part-time during my second semester, as it was really hard to keep concentration on both work and school. The second and third semesters were more practical, however all classes had some application to the industry. We had to code in almost every class (except for two pure math classes), with the emphasis on C++ (although for some projects we also used R, VBA, Python). Most of our homeworks had two practical parts: analytic and coding. Each homework project can be applicable in the industry, therefore organizing solutions and codes must be a habit from the first day of studying, starting with the refresher courses. Basically, one creates a library of solutions, applicable later at work. This way, when one gets to Street later, one not only knows how the things are done, but also has ready solutions, that could become ad-hoc with small modifications. Each homework is submitted by a team. We worked, collaborating in teams; I was in one of the strongest teams.
The concept of teams, by the way, is also worthy of note here. Each team is comprised of four to five students; the teams are fabricated with students with different backgrounds, so that the balance of financial practice, mathematics and programming is achieved. This way the work could be distributed appropriately among the members, and students could learn from one another. However, the relative work load in teams can be distributed unevenly, and that very much depends on one’s background and relative strength to other teammates. Being in a strong team is not necessarily the best choice, there are cons and pros. If the team is relatively weaker, you will be spending more time doing homeworks and learning more by yourself. If the team is stronger, you will be the follower, and learn more from your teammates. In the end, no one gets a free ride regardless. However being in a well-balanced team is very important.
The classes are mostly organized as lectures; the practical part is moved from in-class seminars to homeworks. This is different from the system I was used to back in Russia (we had a mixture of lectures and seminars), however is well familiar to the US students. The core instructors are professors from academia, but we also had classes (whole course or guest lectures) taught by practitioners from the industry. And, of course, at all times we had Dan, our vigilant Director, who was going through our experience with us. If we, students, were the assets in a portfolio – Dan was the Portfolio Manager.
This pretty much summarizes the studying experience. Of course, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with classmates for more than a year, we have made good friends among students and faculty. There were “Thursdays at the Globe” – the socializing/drinking tradition after Thursday’s classes; there were picnics; there were home parties and other events… but this is yet another story 
