1) For my class, we had the option of taking the math/stats/probability prep class. The prep course was amazing. It was taught by a professor who has PhD in applied math and has industry experience. I have seen other prep courses that are offered in other top quant programs. The UCLA prep course is one of the most comprehensive ones. It is priced cheaper than some of the other prep courses.

2) The curriculum is relativley inflexible because we have to cover so much ground and we only have one year.
Empirical Methods (time series analysis) and StochCalc classes are absolutely amazing. Our StochCalc prof. runs the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics at UCLA.
Our investment course is taught by Prof. Schwartz, who is ex-president of American Finance Association, which publishes Journal of Finance. Based on feedback from MFE board members and last year’s class, UCLA MFE is introducing a special topics/elective course in the last quarter of program.

3) Group assignments are not random. The MFE office spent considerable amount of time figuring out the assignments of the groups. Majority of the groups have one PhD and at least one Master.

After 8 weeks, the program has been amazing. My classmates are amazingly smart and have extensive background with hedge funds, ibanks, prop desks etc. Many turned down offers from other top quant programs to attend UCLA MFE. The finance faculty here is truly one of the best in the world. Anderson’s industry connection is extremely strong.

For those who are planning to attend this program next year, study stoch calc and financial time series now. Take the math prep course and C++ courses.

Live in Weyburn Grad Housing.

My name is Munish and I am a current Berkeley MFE student. I worked in the investment modeling group of D.E. Shaw before coming to Berkeley. I had a CFA background, but did not have quantitative exposure. The MFE program at Berkeley was then the best choice because it combined my finance skills with quant skills and allow me to prepare me for a more responsible front office role. My experience in this program has been great. I learnt a lot of things ranging from stochastic math to interest rate modeling to common trading strategies. I was able to successfully design a new currency strategy in my econometrics course, which combined with my good GPA and finance background gave me opportunities to interview with Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse, Sun Trading, Morgan Stanley, Moody’s KMV and PG&E for my internship.

I will say that it is only through Berkeley’s MFE reputation, outstanding high level contacts, constant availability and extreme hard work of our executive director that it made it possible for me to get exposure to high frequency trading strategies during my internship. Not only this, but for full time search I was interviewed by the best high frequency trading firms on wall street: GETCO LLC, Citadel Investments, Jump Trading, Citi’s automated trading desk, Goldman Sachs, Socgen. I had offers lined up but I have accepted a full time offer with Sun Trading as I worked with them for 3 months and the prospects to learn, grow and perform are unparalleled.

I will rate Berkeley MFE 10/10 in all the aspects. My many thanks to our executive director Linda, our MFE office, admission committee and MFE faculty for giving me this opportunity to add so much value in myself in just 1 year. In the end I will say that I salute the Berkeley MFE program.

Bottom line: don’t trust what is said on chat rooms, interview alumni and current students and you will realize the many strengths of this program.

I’ll be honest: the program is VERY intensive. Most of the great programs are. If you can’t hack it, don’t come! You will get out of this program what you put into it. If you’re expecting to only work 40 hrs/wk, you won’t learn much & you won’t have a job coming out. if you’re ready for the 80 hrs/wk commitment, you’ll learn a LOT & will have great likelihood of having a great job!

Biggest selling points of berk mfe: 1) berk has WORLDWIDE reputation as being a leader in scientific & engineering disciplines, 2) program is housed in a top 10 bus school so after you graduate you’re part of a worldwide network of Haas bus school alumni, 3) BEST career services on the planet! Linda doesn’t ever sleep. She’s working 24/7 to find students positions. Think I’m kidding? Enroll & find out. you get emails from her with job openings at 3 am on Sunday mornings. Everyone who’s been here knows it’s true!, 4) diversity of curriculum: exposure to almost every asset class, 5) AMAZING professors. Seriously, rubinstein, tavella, leland, cox, kahn, stanton, wallace, jaffee. These are the names you read about in OTHERS’ textbooks, & the names the govt comes calling to help them in the current crisis! (sorry, previous reviewer, if the fact that our profs are constantly flying all over the globe to help domestic & foreign govts with the subprime crisis; I suppose that does make them slightly inaccessible. You’d rather have a group of classroom-bound professors??)

And re: this reviewer’s comments about textbooks: perhaps if he/she had bothered to open any of them, they would see that the texts were often nice additions to the lecture notes, that provided more in-depth discussions of certain topics (and, yes, we did use a pre-print edition for 1 text, in order to stay on the cutting edge. Yes, there were some typos. Sorry, you’d rather be at a school where courses are taught from 5 yr old texts??)

1 final comment: something to beware of, in both the Berkeley mfe AND any OTHER mfe program: if you go to a quant program expecting to be guaranteed a trading position… that’s risky. Everyone graduating from the berk MFE can get a QUANT position. that’s not a problem. There are a finite # of trading positions, however. Most people are fine with that. but if it’s gonna make you jealous to see some of your classmates get trading positions while you’re “stuck” in a quant role for a couple yrs, then you probably shouldn’t attend ANY mfe program.

Comp_math: its not as bad, if you look at placements and compensation out of Berkeley MFE

Career service is definitely one of the best..i would say one of the top 5 ..definitely better than columbia, cornell and may be better than NYU

As for me, I am a current student at Berkeley MFE..

How nice