Baruch MFE Quantlab

The program has the ability to change lives.
Submitted: 1/30/12
Score: 10/10

Unique about this program
The personal attention given by the program director is something I have not seen at any other school. In addition the commitment of the alumni to help grow the program is outstanding whether it is in monetary terms or in terms of employment opportunities. Not only do the alumni assist from the outside, they come out to the events that are organised by the program. A really good friend that I made after coming to this program was someone who graduated before me. There are MANY great qualities to this program but that is what I think might be a bit unique although many schools have great alumni who help out a lot. The usual.. great placements..great job opportunities are not unique because all the top 3-4 programs provide this.

The program not only prepares you for a wall street career by giving u education but also psychologically.

Worst things about the program
This question is a bit strange in my opinion. There was nothing that I would say I “hated” or would consider “worst” but there were some things that could be improved. The question before should have been what is “good” about this program. The two part stochastic calculus requirement can be a bit cumbersome on students who are not really interested in becoming heavy quants. It would be nice to have the first part as requirement and the second as optional. The course when I was taught was by a very mathematically oriented person leading to very minimal real world examples in my opinion. The course is taught in a three professor rotation so maybe the other professors are great.

From what I have heard this is something that is actually being looked at. Other than that I really have no complaints about this program. I was treated well, I was helped whenever possible with any queries and I made some great friends in the program.

Career services
This is probably the best thing about the program. I was someone who had no finance or business experience before I came here. I was an engineer and had mostly engineering experiences. The placement services in my mind are outstanding. I had several internship interviews and offers through the program although I chose to go with an offer that I attained myself. 
The way the career services primarily works at Baruch MFE is through Dan Stefanica. We get emails around recruiting season and a few during the off-season with jobs from alumni/contacts/recruiters/firm hr/etc. The email usually asks us to send our resumes to Dan and then he takes care of it. There were students in my year who got interviews to position they never even applied to. It is a true “placement” system. You send your resume to Dan and you show up prepared for the interviews. 
We now have companies who have made us a target program and the MD’s come and try to recruit us personally with talks and presentations. Dan also hand picks students who he knows will succeed so if you get the interview you most likely will get the job because the program prepares you well. 
When I was there, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan came onto campus and gave us a talk for their quant program. We went to UBS and got a presentation from them. 
I am told now that many other quant programs of different firms are coming on campus to recruit us and the procedure has got a bit more structured where we have to apply on their website and the resumes get sent through Dan and the university recruiting system. 
The best part is that, the jobs are not just entry level positions. Several jobs at senior level are sent out too since as an alumni you are put on the mailing list and anyone can apply even 5 years after graduation. Hedge funds, software and technology companies, investment banks and prop firms are all part of the firms that recruit with us now. There were a few students who got full-time positions through the career services within the 2nd semester in the program and switched to part time. There are people who are working in algo trading,research, risk management, software development, etc from my year.

I chose to go work for an investment bank for my internship out of several offers, where I was given a full-time offer for after graduation. I worked as a trading assistant at a hedge fund during the school year before I went over to the bank. There were two more in my year who got part-time jobs at financial firms in their first or 2nd semester.

The program has great career services and I can only see it getting better.

Students
I spoke about the student body above. I have been fortunate enough to make some good friends. The two friends that I hang out regularly since I graduated include one who was in my year and another who graduated before me from the same program. There was a lot of competition between students in my year but I am sure that is everywhere.

I am a recent graduate of the program and thought I would provide my perspective in the hopes of informing prospective students as well trying to improve the experience. The program’s strengths revolve around a very committed academic environment. Students work very closely with one another and have constant interaction with professors. Professors are always available and have a very good sense of how students are developing through the program. To me, this is what really separates Baruch’s program from its peers. There is a constant push from professors to improve, and I get the sense that professors take great pride in their students’ development. This is aided by a relatively small class size and stands in contrast to many other MFE programs where professors sometimes view teaching as a tertiary concern.

The course selection is well done. There is a basic pricing and programming class, and two semesters of numerical methods (monte carlo, trees, pde’s, every possible way to decompose a matrix…). The numerical methods courses are very C++ heavy, and I learned to love the cruel mistress of objected oriented programming. There are more topical courses, such as risk management, structured finance, and market microstructure. The largest departure from the standard MFE curriculum is the two semesters devoted to probability/stochastic calculus. This tends to be more than other programs do. While perhaps somewhat theory heavy, it does give students a very strong mathematical background, and with the addition of Gatheral to the faculty, allows students to fully appreciate stochastic volatility. The more topical courses tend to be taught by industry professionals, who then often recruit promising students for positions.

Placement is good. There are plenty of statistics on this, and I don’t think they need to be rehashed here. I will say that career services tends to be somewhat informal, with much of the actual placement coming from the program director, Dr. Stefanica. The advantage of such an arrangement is that he has a very good sense of a given student’s strengths and interests and is therefore able to place students in appropriate positions. I think as the program continuous to mature this process needs to be formalized and perhaps some of the work shifted to another professor or dedicated resource, as the current process seems hard to scale.

I have only one major complaint about the program, which is the lack of a formal statistics/econometrics class. This may be changing soon with a statistics class added as an option for Fall 2011. There was a three-day stats seminar that many students attended, but I don’t believe that one can really absorb such a topic in 10 hour marathon sessions. For prospective students, I would try to learn this outside the program.

Excellent students and faculty
Submitted: 5/11/11
Score: 8/10
Would you recommend this program to a friend: Yes

I believe the quality of the students and faculty represents the core strength of the program. From my experience, the students are intelligent and competitive but not to the point where it hinders collaboration. I truly felt that all the students from my cohort were willing to take the time to help one another. It’s easy to see that the faculty enjoys teaching and are there to ensure that students really learn and acquire skills needed for employment.

Reviewer’s background:
My educational background was originally in electrical engineering and materials science. I worked in the semiconductor industry for a few years before deciding to enroll in the Baruch MFE program in the hopes of switching my career to finance. I chose Baruch since I felt that it provided the best value, given its high job placement rate and low tuition. I was also very impressed by the fact that the program director was genuinely interested in the success of his students.

The following review was submitted on 1/14/2011 by a student who studied full-time in the program from 9/2009-12/2010
Can you tell us a bit about your background?
I entered the program straight out of undergrad in finance, with 2 years of part-time experience in consulting. My math and programming knowledge was coming mostly from high-school. GRE: V450, Q790

Why did you choose this program?
Strong syllabus, good location, low tuition.

Tell us about the application process at this program
Application process was smooth; everyone I had to contact was very nice. The online application tracking system is very helpful

Does this program offer refresher courses for incoming students? How useful was it?
Refresher courses are very useful. I kept referring to my notes from refreshers throughout whole program.

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
The course selection is very well structured, if not that flexible. Since I am coming from financial background, my favorite classes were those which concentrated in finance more that math or programming. Two very best classes were Pricing of Financial Instruments and Structured Finance.

Tell us about the quality of teaching
Teaching is done by both practitioners and academics. All professors were available to help students, regardless of whether they work in the industry or not. Mostly I was using Lecture Notes, taken or provided by professors. Lecture notes provided in Probability and Stochastic Calculus were very helpful

Programming component of the program
Mostly C++, some VBA. We had a separate class for OOP in C++. Also program offers many weekend workshops where students can pick up basics of other languages

Projects
Everyone in the program has to do a Capstone Project, which depending on the student’s preferences can involve more programming or research. Project can be done individually or in groups.

Career service
Career service is amazing. Professor Stefanica is doing great job of placing his students for both internships ans full time positions.

What do you like about the program?
There are many great things – curriculum, professors, students. The thing I like most is that MFE students have a separate library, which has all the necessary books and where we could all study together.

What DON’T you like about the program? What changes would you like made?
Some of the courses are taught by multiple professors, which makes material less structured. As I mentioned, there was little flexibility. If you were a FT student in my year you had no choice for first two semesters. I know it is changing now, and I think it’s great.

What are your current job status?
Research analyst

On a scale of 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest), how would you grade this program?
10

Click here to submit a review of your program

The following review was submitted on 1/13/2011 by a student who studied part-time in the program from 9/2007-12/2010

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
no extensive background in math, but met the application requirements.
degrees in finance and banking, international business.
4.0 GPA
worked as a strategy consultant

Why did you choose this program?
Very tough to get into, great reviews on the PT track. I didn’t apply to other programs

Tell us about the application process at this program
Pretty straightforward – make sure you have everything required for the application, attend the info session. then submit everything and hope you’re called in for an interview. do well on the interview and hope you get an offer. worked well in my case ;]
I used QuantNet, general reading, personal contacts to learn about the program

Does this program offer refresher courses for incoming students? How useful was it?
A must, at least for this program. Everyone who took it, regardless of their background, were happy to have taken it.

Tell us about the courses selection in this program.
I like the combination of courses covering the fundamental concepts, and the more practical classes. the former were rather tough at times, but surviving those made the practical courses much more enjoyable.

Tell us about the quality of teaching
Combination of academics and practitioners, with “more academic” professors mostly assigned to early classes in the program (e.g. probabilities, linear algebra, etc).
always ready to help, during and after the class.
TA are very helpful, partly because many had been in current students’ shoes themselves.
Teaching materials are a combination of traditional textbooks, additional reading and instructors’ own materials.

Programming component of the program
C++ is the king/queen in the program, with occasional use of xls/VBR. 2 classes dedicated to C++, plus numerous assignments that require C++ skills

Projects
Projects tended to be rather practical, not much pure academic research. At times involve coding, but coding did not serve as a goal in and of itself. Quite a few trading strategy projects, risk management, and related areas. Mostly group projects, but some professors insisted on individual assignments.

Career service
Extremely helpful, and that’s an understatement. The Director is personally involved in each student’s success with getting an internship and a job. Tons of helpful seminars, postings, and relevant information.

What do you like about the program?
Strong values
Student body that is helpful, respectful, not arrogant
Value

What DON’T you like about the program? What suggestions would you have?
With so many activities and projects, the staff looked a little overwhelmed/overworked at times. Work on improving the brand recognition, though that’s definitely a matter of time at this point.

What are your current job status?
Employed FT, Head of Financial Services Team at NYCEDC

On a scale of 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest), how would you grade this program?
9

Other comments?
Overall, it’s been a great experience, very happy to have chosen and gone through the program.

Click here to submit a review of your program

The following review was submitted on 1/11/2011 by a student who studied part-time in the program from 9/2006-12/2010

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
Worked in finance for 8 years. BBA from Baruch

Why did you choose this program?
Liked the program director, very impressive from first time meeting him. I didn’t apply to other programs

Tell us about the application process at this program
Liked the program director, very impressive from first time meeting him

Does this program offer refresher courses for incoming students? How useful was it?
Yes refreshers are offered for about $2000. They’re great but tough as heck

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
I was allowed to take some interesting classes in addition to the required ones which was great for someone like me. I like finance but I did not want to spend my entire program debugging C++ code or doing tough as nails Math if there was no finance that was shown by the instructors. Dan was really good about making sure that this was not forgotten in the classes he taught.

Tell us about the quality of teaching
Dan is great at teaching in general and specifically in the subjects he taught such in intro to pricing and numerical methods and PDE’s. I had the privilege of taking a class with the late Professor Neftci and it was unbelivable, he was really great at teaching.

Programming component of the program
C++, there is a dedicated class. I suck at programming so I spent quite a bit of time

Projects
Group work in class which helps students learn together, reall sense of togetherness here which is much better than the experiences I heard from other students.

Career service
Dan is always available(program is larger now so I get a response to my emails within the hour as opposed to 1 minute ). The placement is great, even during financial crisis most students were able to get internships and jobs. I did not need this service specifically though my resume getting tweaked led to more interviews when I needed them but the career service was definitely available.

What do you like about the program?
Very small group like atmosphere where everyone knows everyone (not a cog in a wheel). You can make lifelong friends (I have) and especially networking contacts. People have gotten jobs/interviews just by knowing each other because you work together and see each others strengths and weaknesses.

What DON’T you like about the program? What kind of changes would you make if you were in charge?
Some classes can be taught too theoretically without remembering finance. It might be beneficial to have the theoretical stochastic calculus taught by a professional from the industry rather than a “math” person

What are your current job status?
I work full-time for an investment bank in risk management

On a scale of 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest), how would you grade this program?
10

Other comments?
Great program, I always recommend to people looking to go into financial engineering

Click here to submit a review of your program

The following review was submitted on 8/21/2010 by a student who studied full-time in the program from 9/2008-12/2009

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
Education: BA Mathematics
Prior work Ex: approx 1.5 years

Did you get admitted to other programs?
NYU Math Finance

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
There were two deciding factors: close attention from the faculty (Dan comes on strong), and superior teaching. Other programs I observed had, what I considered to be a very poor learning environment.

What alternative sources of info you used to learn more about the program?
Quantnet, information sessions, sitting in on classrooms, talking to students & alumni, talking to instructors

Tell us about the application process at this program
Application process was straightforward and responsive.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the accessibility of the faculty and staff?
8

Does this program offer refresher courses for incoming students? How useful was it?
Baruch has refresher courses, although “refresher” is a misnomer. They are stand-alone courses of their own, which cover material you are not really expected to have known previously, although they will probably be a real challenge if you haven’t learned those subjects before. When I took them, there was some push back from students who also had full-time jobs (even part time admits take four days a week of refresher courses!) and found it very difficult to keep up.

On a scale of 0-10, how would you grade the usefulness of these refresher courses?
8

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
When I attended there were roughly 14 courses of which you took 11 and a capstone (give or take one course). I felt at the time that the offerings were somewhat restricted and narrowly focused; if you had an interest in algo trading, there was nothing for you. However, if you had an interest in equity options, this program was perfect. Now, they have broadened the offerings somewhat, so you have more flexibility in this regard.

I felt that Sylvain’s courses on structured finance were very instructive, since they were project based. I also benefited greatly (at large personal cost, given how demanding it was) from the programming courses.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the flexibility of the curriculum?
4

Tell us about the quality of teaching
The quality of teaching was variable. Some instructors were very good, whereas some were too busy to prepare for class, or did not structure the curriculum well, or did not answer questions and were generally unavailable. As a result, more than one course in the program yielded little benefit to me or other students, who were quite vocal about this problem.

On the other hand, some courses were very demanding and I learned a great deal, which continues to be useful in my work. (For the doubters, that includes Stochastic Calculus.)

TAs were extremely helpful and responsive. The other students are also very collaborative and provide assistance on homeworks.

The support from TAs in each class is great and an invaluable help to comprehend better the class work.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the quality of teaching?
8

Materials used in the program
All the books are shown on quantnet (master reading list for MFE students)

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the practicality of the curriculum?
8

Programming component of the program
C++ primarily. VBA and R were also used at times

The programming component is very intense. However, pedantic programming instruction is minimal, and (in my opinion) not important. It seems to me that the biggest determinant in what you get out of the programming courses is what you came in with; I had a strong background in programming and learned a great deal, and it earned me a great deal of attention from employers. On the other hand, students who came in with weak programming skills struggled but did not receive adequate support to improve, in my opinion. Unfortunately, the only way to become a good programmer is to devote significant time to it, and this is not easily taught.

Projects
We did a number of individual and group projects. In our C++ course we did a PnL calculator for stocks and bonds, and a series of projects based on Mark Joshi’s options book (highly recommended). We also programmed a linear algebra library for the linear algebra course. For structured finance we programmed a deal using excel & VBA. For a handful of other courses, we used R (or our language of choice).

Career service
There is very good career service, with good placement and close attention. Placement is a very high priority.

Of course, this was a challenge when I was a student and few positions were open. Nonetheless, Dan devoted significant time and resources to opening new avenues of hiring.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the career service for internship and full-time job?
9

Can you comment on the social interaction between students of different ethnics, nationalities in the program?
Students did form ethnic groups, but also interacted a great deal with the larger student population. Since the program is so small, everyone fits in a room and works together, which breaks down those national barriers.

What do you like about the program?
The intensity of the program is crucial to its success. It strains personal relationships in particular in the first semester for full-time students. However, you move quickly up the curve and resources are there for those who want them. Given its small size and value placed on enterprise, a student who decides to take leadership and responsibility is rewarded with it, in the classroom and in the community. However, you will be allowed to languish if you choose not to participate.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the value of the program for the price tag?
10

What DON’T you like about the program?
The rest of my review has a number of criticisms; inconsistency of teaching and course material was my biggest objection.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
Since I have left, I think many of my peeves have been improved. Furthermore, there are many proposals and countervailing opinions floating around among the faculty of their vision for the program. These are suppressed now; it would be best to listen to them both to increase faculty satisfaction and to improve the coursework from seasoned practitioners and educators.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade your experience in the program?
9

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
Employed as quantitative analyst

On a scale of 1-10, would you recommend this program to others?
10

Other comments?
What you put into any masters program is what you get out. Baruch MFE gives you a path for success, but you must apply yourself, and selectively choose what is important to learn and what interests you. (Presumably much of it interests you as you chose to attend the MFE). It will always be a mistake to choose an “Easier” course at this level of education (solely for that reason); the goal should be to maximize exposure to topics and improve your skills; leverage other students, the school’s resources, faculty. Again, Baruch has those available, so use them.

Click here to submit a review of your program

The following review was submitted on 8/17/2010 by a student who studied full-time in the program from 9/2007-5/2009

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
French engineer, started my career as an Information System consultant at Altran. A couple of years ago, moved to NYC to start the MBA Honors program at Baruch College, worked for Citigroup, CSFB. Realized his interest for financial engineering so completed the MFE at Baruch and works as a structured finance quantitative analyst at Vero Capital since then.

Did you get admitted to other programs?
Did not apply to other programs.

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
Top program from a public university.

Tell us about the application process at this program
No issue, the application process was very smooth.

Besides the program’s websites, what alternative sources of info you used to learn more about the program?
While completing my MBA at Baruch, interacted on several occasions with the MFE body, attended lectures.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the accessibility of the faculty and staff?
10

Does this program offer refresher courses for incoming students? How useful was it?
Yes, extremely useful. Besides the obvious material value, those refresher courses are a great way to meet and get familiarized with the student body, the school system, professors within a relaxed and friendly set of interactions. Although the material cover in such a short time requires some non negligible work.

On a scale of 0-10, how would you grade the usefulness of these refresher courses?
10

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
The courses selection in this program are excellent and some classes are presented by practitioners which gives an invaluable insight on the job world outside the theoretical environment.

The excellent structured finance course work presented by Sylvain Raynes is unique among MFE programs.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the flexibility of the curriculum?
10

Tell us about the quality of teaching
Practitioners are dedicated and surprisingly accessible for the students given their professions.

The support from TAs in each class is great and an invaluable help to comprehend better the class work.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the quality of teaching?
10

Materials used in the program
Textbook used in the program are the usual top teaching material.
For some classes, the Professor being also a published practitioner, it made sense to use his book which is a great complement to notes.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the practicality of the curriculum?
10

Programming component of the program
The official language of the program is C++, all classes will have coding homework/projects in C++.

Excel/VBA will be the second language.

Projects
Both individual and group projects were assigned.

A “capstone” project to be completed during a semester is a more consistent and require a great amount of work and dedication, but very rewarding in terms of learning and experience.

Career service
The Baruch MFE provides a great internship and full time placement service through the great connection and reputation of it s alumnus and professor body.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the career service for internship and full-time job?
10

Can you comment on the social interaction between students of different ethnics, nationalities in the program?
The MFE program at Baruch is like an extended family. The class size is relatively small and we formed a great group inside the larger Baruch College cohort.

What do you like about the program?
I liked the challenging and great quality of the learning, the great interaction with professors, TA and students, facilitated by an online forum tool used for classes, but also other topics such as members helping others in their area of expertise.

The students have all great human qualities and the general atmosphere is not so much competitive but rather everybody helping out to get all learn the most and the fastest.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the value of the program for the price tag?
10

What DON’T you like about the program?
I have to admit that I did not enjoy too much the logistics for some classes.
Those non-core classes very popular were packed and it was sometimes bothering me to be squizzed in inappropriate size classrooms. I believe that this was quite a long time ago and with the rising popularity and success of the MFE program within Baruch, more and larger classrooms are available now.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
The Director is the greatest asset of this program, he is doing a remarkable work. I may try to talk to the Dean in order to better organize the logistics for those few very popular classes.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade your experience in the program?
10

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
Structured finance quantitative analyst

On a scale of 1-10, would you recommend this program to others?
10

Click here to submit a review of your program

The following review was submitted on 1/11/2010 at 12:39:15 by Roger Trimble who studied full-time in the program from 9/2008-12/2009

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
BS Mechanical Engineering, West Point, 2001. Five years active duty in the U.S. Army as a cavalry officer.

Did you get admitted to other programs?
I was also admitted to Columbia MSOR.

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
I basically had a choice between an MS in Operations Research at Columbia and an MFE at Baruch. After a challenging interview with Professor Stefanica, I realized his vested interest in maintaining a world-class program at Baruch. I was genuinely impressed with his level of involvement, and knew that was where I wanted to earn my master’s degree.

Tell us about the application process at this program
I followed the published directions and no administrative problems in the application process. I think I remember the process taking longer than other places, but learned that it is because Professor Stefanica personally reviews every application after it passes an initial filter through the admissions committee. He takes time to interview, in person if possible, each potential candidate. During the interview you get an honest appraisal of your chances as a candidate.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the accessibility of the faculty and staff?
10

Programs like Baruch MFE, UCB MFE have refresher courses for incoming students. Does this program offer such courses? How useful was it?
Yes, and they are essential. These rigorous courses enable an incoming student to achieve a base level to begin the fall semester. Even though the courses have general names, like calculus refresher and probability refresher, they introduce fundamental concepts in finance that are built upon during the program.

On a scale of 0-10, how would you grade the usefulness of these refresher courses?
10

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
For full-time students, the courses are front loaded with the basics one is expected to know coming out of an MFE program. In the second and third semesters there are electives that focus on optimization, market and credit risk, structured finance and statistics. The courses I valued the most were Numerical Linear Algebra, Stochastic Calculus and Statistics for Finance. Although the program offers an array of electives, students are free to take courses from the business school.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the flexibility of the curriculum?
8

Tell us about the quality of teaching
Most of the elective courses are taught by practitioners, which provide diverse exposure to how concepts are applied in industry. The only classes where an active TA was important was in Probability and Stochastic Calculus. Otherwise, close interaction with fellow students and professors was sufficient to learn the material.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the quality of teaching?
8

Materials used in the program
Shreve for Probability and Stoch. Calc. Otherwise, courses reference multiple texts and are mostly taught from lecture notes.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the practicality of the curriculum?
10

Programming component of the program
The official language of the program is C++. However, there is opportunity for one to learn many other languages like VBA, R, Python, Perl, .NET, Java, Matlab.

Projects
Most projects are group oriented and depend on the nature of the subject. Market Risk and Advanced Computational Methods involved trading simulations. However, most of the home work assignments are projects in nature.

Career service
Professor Stefanica is fully vested in this process. He is integral ( and tireless ) with regard to internships and full-time placement.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the career service for internship and full-time job?
10

Can you comment on the social interaction between students of different ethnics, nationalities in the program?
Due to the small class size, each year group develops cohesive bonds. Every one admitted into the program is qualified to be there, so there is a high level of respect between students from the beginning.

What do you like about the program?
Hard work is rewarded with career opportunities.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the value of the program for the price tag?
10

What DON’T you like about the program?
Some of the elective courses are taught by multiple practitioners, which in some cases dilutes the depth of instruction. But this is a case-by-case issue.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
Modularize the elective courses to give students more choices and give full ownership of the module to one instructor. The obvious constraint, though, is ensuring there are enough practitioners able to teach the modules, and enough students taking each one to make it worthwhile for the instructor.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade your experience in the program?
10

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
Graduated with multiple offers, and will start working at the beginning of February as a commodities trader for a hedge fund.

On a scale of 1-10, would you recommend this program to others?
10

Click here to submit a review of your program

This review was submitted on 1/4/2010 16:26:47 by a student who studied full-time in the program from Jan 2004- Dec 2005*

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
I had a Masters in Management Science with computing and had worked in India for 1 year. I had a certificate in portfolio management from NYU.

Did you get admitted to other programs?
Yes

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
This was the most competitive and cost effective program

Tell us about the application process at this program
No problems. The response time was great. Dan Stefanica is amazing.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the accessibility of the faculty and staff?
10

Programs like Baruch MFE, UCB MFE have refresher courses for incoming students. Does this program offer such courses? How useful was it?
Yes they do and the refresher courses were brilliant.

On a scale of 0-10, how would you grade the usefulness of these refresher courses?
10

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
I loved the Advanced stochastic calculus, Princples in Fiancial Engineering and the risk management course.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the flexibility of the curriculum?
10

Tell us about the quality of teaching
The teachers are from the industry and give the student a good perspctive on the real world.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the quality of teaching?
10

Materials used in the program
Principles of Financial Engineering – Salih Neftci
The Analysis of Structured Securities – Sylvain Raynes and Ann Rutledge

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the practicality of the curriculum?
10

Programming component of the program
C++, Mathematica, Matlab. VB

Projects
Individual and group

Career service
Dan is great is finding opportunities and now with the help of alumni the program is becoming stronger in terms of finding opportunities.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the career service for internship and full-time job?
7

Can you comment on the social interaction between students of different ethnics, nationalities in the program?
Its great.

What do you like about the program?
The love and care is unique.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the value of the program for the price tag?
10

What DON’T you like about the program?
A little more practical training.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
I would not change anything except make it a little more practical so that the students are more marketable.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade your experience in the program?
10

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
Business Development Manager. I am looking to work in Risk.

On a scale of 1-10, would you recommend this program to others?
10

Other comments
I think I have covered everything.

Click here to submit a review of your program

The following review was submitted on 1/4/2010 at 17:24:31 by a student who studied full-time in the program from 9/2005-5/2007*
Can you tell us a bit about your background
MBA; 3 year working experience (2 non-us; 1 us)

Did you get admitted to other programs?
this is the only one i applied

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
1) faculties are easy to access
2) working knowledge oriented
3) cost and benifit consideration
4) location
5) director was pushing very hard so that graduates can get a job (even before graduation)

Tell us about the application process at this program
1) send in all materials
2) schedule a meeting with the director
Initially the situation was tense due to it’s competitive nature, but then it turns out to be a very pleasant experience

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the accessibility of the faculty and staff?
10

Programs like Baruch MFE, UCB MFE have refresher courses for incoming students. Does this program offer such courses? How useful was it?
I took only C++ in 2005 summer. (they offered probabilities and calculus as well).
I didn’t know how to write “hello world” before I went to the refresher course. After the refresher course, I can write basic application such as curve bootstrapping, matrix solver, etc.
No doubt that refresher course taught only entry level programming skills, but for people(like myslef) who didn’t aim at those hard-core programming type of jobs, the material is enough for someone who wants to descide their career path later (programming- or analytic-oriented type of work)

On a scale of 0-10, how would you grade the usefulness of these refresher courses?
10

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like
Calibration taught by Salih Neftci in 2006 fall.
Numerical linear algrbra I and II taught by Mayo in 2005 fall and 2006 spring.
Stochastic calculus.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the flexibility of the curriculum?
10

Tell us about the quality of teaching
Theoretical side is a bit weak. but the practical side (computing numbers) is strong
The instructors are always reachable for all kinds of matters. No need for looking for TA.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the quality of teaching?
10

Materials used in the program
Besides some must-buy “big name” text books in the field, papers and notes (published or un-published) from other practioners are used as well. I would say the techniques in the papers are much more helpful in terms of interviewing for a job (provided that you are already 80% comfortable with the material covered in the text books)

Programming component of the program
C/C++ required.
VBA/mathematica if you are interested.
Long in short, i suffered while i was in the program. But I am now happy that i was suffered.

Projects
Implementing/computing projects (option pricer, sensitivities, CDO, VaR, etc) done in C/C++/EXCEL/Mathematica

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the practicality of the curriculum?
10

Career service
The director basically asked (haunt) you about the status every time he saw you. He also hooks up a lot of opportunities for you.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the career service for internship and full-time job?
10

What do you like about the program?
I spent 20k on tuition (and roughly another 20k on living expense). I got a lot more than those back first year at work.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the value of the program for the price tag?
10

What DON’T you like about the program?
none

Suggestions for the program to make it better
I would have done nothing different.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade your experience in the program?
10

Can you comment on the social interaction between students of different ethnics, nationalities in the program?
Groups get assigned by director based on different background (good chance to practice on how to get along with others even if you dont like them in the real working environment).

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
Working in a major financial institution as a senior quantitative analyst. At current stage, i am happy about where i am.

On a scale of 1-10, would you recommend this program to others?
10

The following review was submitted on 1/8/2010 at 18:34:34 by a student who studied part-time in the program from 9/2002 – 12/2004*

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
Baruch College BBA in Computer Information Systems, and Minor in Mathematics

Did you get admitted to other programs?
No, I did not apply to any other MFE program

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
Same college as undergraduate studies, therefore convenient in many ways.

Tell us about the application process at this program
Easy to apply. Very friendly and helpful people taking care of application process.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the accessibility of the faculty and staff?
10

Programs like Baruch MFE, UCB MFE have refresher courses for incoming students. Does this program offer such courses? How useful was it?
This program offers these courses. They were quite useful to me.

On a scale of 0-10, how would you grade the usefulness of these refresher courses?
10

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
Numeric Linear Algebra was my favorite course. The selection of courses in the program was good.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the flexibility of the curriculum?
8

Tell us about the quality of teaching
The teachers are well prepared. TAs are quite helpful. The athmosphere is positive.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the quality of teaching?
10

Materials used in the program
All good textbooks.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the practicality of the curriculum?
8

Programming component of the program
C++. Enough programming is done to give a good amount of practice.

Projects
Depending on the course, either individual or group projects were assigned. When group projects were assigned, the class was divided in groups with similar overall strength.

Career service
The director of the program puts a lot of effort into helping with the placement of graduates and alumnis. A very good alumni network is available for this purpose as well.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the career service for internship and full-time job?
10

Can you comment on the social interaction between students of different ethnics, nationalities in the program?
I recall networking and socializing with students from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds.

What do you like about the program?
The people in the program (both students, teachers, the director, etc) made the program what it is. There was and still is a positive good feeling being part of it. We became a group of friends, not only colleages at school. Extracurricular activities helped us bond and relax even more.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the value of the program for the price tag?
10

What DON’T you like about the program?
A couple of courses were quite difficult for me, so I ended up needing extra help with them. Of course this was my shortcoming, not the program’s

Suggestions for the program to make it better
It couldn’t be better!

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade your experience in the program?
10

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
I am now a consultant for my previous employer on a part-time basis, as I am taking care of my child.

On a scale of 1-10, would you recommend this program to others?
10

Other comments
Quantnetwork is the icing on the cake!

Click here to submit a review of your program

The following review was submitted on 1/24/2010 at 23:16:25 by a student who studied part-time in the program from 8/2004-12/2006*

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
No previous experience in finance

Did you get admitted to other programs?
No. The only program I applied to, and was admitted to, was Baruch MFE (known as Applied Mathematics for Finance)

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
I audited a class and was immediately attracted by the way the instructor interacted with the students. Moreover financially it made the most sense for me at the time.

Tell us about the application process at this program
After submitting my application and being interviewed by Dr. Stefanica, I was informed of my admission to the program.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the accessibility of the faculty and staff?
10

Programs like Baruch MFE, UCB MFE have refresher courses for incoming students. Does this program offer such courses? How useful was it?
Yes, attended Baruch’s three refresher courses: linear algebrea, advanced calculus and probability. Absolutely a must as the MFE program builds on these courses.

On a scale of 0-10, how would you grade the usefulness of these refresher courses?
10

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
Elective courses that I particularly enjoyed:

Risk Management class taught by Dr. Lev Borodovsky (Guest lecturer and co-founder of GARP). Why? the course focuses on the PRACTICE of risk management taught by a leading practitioner.

Structured Finance by Dr. Sylvain Raynes. Why? taught by a practitioner who believes in making a science out of finance, particular structured finance.

Required courses that I particularly enjoyed:
Advanced Computational Methods in Finance by Dr. Salih Neftci. Why? Dr. Neftci made seemingly difficult suggest accessible. One of the best professors I ever had. Will be dearly missed.

Numerical Linear Algebra and Numerical Methods for PDEs in Finance by Dr. Stefanica. Why? The foundation of financial engineering numerical methods and computation.

Required courses that I particularly appreciated:
Probability and Stochastic Calculus by Dr. Elena Kosygina. Why? appreciated the rigorous teaching handed down by Dr. Kosygina.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the flexibility of the curriculum?
8

Tell us about the quality of teaching
Program had a nice blend of practitioners and academicians. TA’s for the most part were helpful.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the quality of teaching?
9

Materials used in the program
Standard textbooks in financial engineering were used.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the practicality of the curriculum?
8

Programming component of the program
C++ and VBA. Except the probabililty and stochastic calculus classes, almost all courses had a programming/computation element.

Projects
These were mostly group projects. The exception being the probability and stochastic calculus courses.

Career service
1. Program director and faculty referral (extremely helpful)
2. Alumni referral (extremely helpful)
3. The standard school career service (somewhat helpful)
4. Career fair (not so helpful)

Most of the students got placed via the first two routes. I have also heard of people getting internship via school career service.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the career service for internship and full-time job?
9

Can you comment on the social interaction between students of different ethnics, nationalities in the program?
People from different ethnicities got along extremely well. There were no divisions along nationality or ethnic lines.

What do you like about the program?
The high degree of interaction between the faculty (including the director of the program) and the students. Every student receives individual attention from the director.

Leading industry practitioners such as Peter Carr, Jim Gatheral, as guest lecturers in the program.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the value of the program for the price tag?
10

What DON’T you like about the program?
Hard to say since the program has improved significantly since I have graduated.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
Establish direct and formal recruiting relationships with more leading financial institutions (this has been the focus for a while and significant progress has been made through persistent efforts from the director and growing alumni base)

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade your experience in the program?
10

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
Working for the current employer since graduation.

On a scale of 1-10, would you recommend this program to others?
10

Other comments
Joining Baruch’s MFE program has been one of the best decisions in my life.

Click here to submit a review of your program

Job description:

Waterfront International is a Toronto-based financial consulting firm, specializing in developing computer based statistical trading strategies. Waterfront’s selective hiring process considers only highly talented individuals with a history of exceptional professional and academic achievement, and solid real-world experience.

Primary Responsibilities:
- Developing, testing and implementing quantitative trading models.
- Models will be based on quantitative data analysis rather than qualitative analysis.
- Research strategies in equities and other markets.
- Perform historical backtesting to determine optimal strategy parameters.
- Generate new indicator ideas.

Requirements of the Candidate include:
- PhD or Masters in physics, statistics, mathematics or operations research.
- Strong working knowledge of statistics.
- Must possess expert level C/C++ programming skills.
- Must be a strong self-starter and able to work well independently.

Compensation will include immigration and relocation assistance.

To apply: Please submit your resume to: recruiting@wil.com

Job description:
Ideal candidates will have strong analytic and technical skills, previous quantitative modeling work experience, and proven communication and mentoring skills. Undergraduate and graduate coursework in statistics, computer science, economics, mathematics and/or finance is important.
The role spans a broad spectrum of research, investment, and technical functions but focuses on developing creative investment models, helping to manage portfolios to implement those concepts, and mentoring and motivating other researchers on the team. Persons in this position typically work closely with the CIO and the Directors of Hedge Fund Strategies.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Research and development of financial models for investment in equities and other asset classes
• Creative application of a variety of techniques including, but not limited to, statistical inference, machine learning, game theory, and econometric testing
• Design and implementation of experiments to validate economic and statistical hypotheses
• Review and application of concepts from the latest academic journals and sell-side research
• Design of optimization capabilities, portfolio construction methods, and risk management
• Investigation of algorithmic trading strategies dealing with tick-level data, from data collection to trade execution

Desired Education / Skills

• Proven analytical and quantitative modeling skills
• High motivation and independent, creative thinking capabilities
• Proven ability to conceive of creative research concepts, and carry them through to fruition and implementation
• Knowledge of investing fundamentals, accounting, and micro and macro economics
• Knowledge of mathematical programming and optimization using SAS/OR and SAS/IML
• Hands on experience trading or managing portfolios in one or more asset classes is helpful
• Specialized knowledge of unique quantitative skills from other fields (astrophysics, oceanography, mathematics, biostatistics, computer science, operations research) is helpful
• Proven track record of successful work experience (within or outside finance) is helpful

To apply: Please submit inquiries to recruiting@numeric.com

About this employer:
Numeric Investors is a privately owned institutional investment manager based in Boston, Massachusetts. We manage assets for clients globally, including corporate and public pension plans, foundations, endowments, and sovereign funds. Since our founding in 1989, we have remained committed and focused on efforts to consistently outperform our benchmarks to deliver excess returns over the long term for our clients. Strategies range from long-only, 130/30 and market neutral equities across geographic regions, investment styles and capitalization strata. We are continually developing and enhancing innovative quantitative investment techniques based on fundamental investment principles. Our long-standing commitment to carefully managing capacity has enabled us to focus on delivering alpha to a select group of clients.

Numeric currently manages approximately $9 billion in assets for institutional clients globally, and employs 65 professionals.

Georgia Tech Tower

Master of Science Financial Engineering program with most focus on computational mathematics and options pricing.
Review 12/16/2011
Rating 9/10

What is unique about this program
It is very computationally intensive with niches in energy risk/quantitative analysis and machine learning applications. The coursework is very rigorous, and it focuses on more practical projects with an intense development of the foundations of underlying theory. Overall, the education is outstanding.

Worst things about the program
Career services for the students within the program. Although, the director helps out in this respect and does a good job with placements. They are just short staffed in this regard.

Career services
Career services is almost there for someone to recruit for the students. Students find internships and jobs either through the school’s career services or on their own. For domestic candidates, there is 100% full-time placement for the 2011 class. Overall, out of 60 students, there was about 80% placement, although that number will be larger in a few months in general.

Most students obtain jobs in their home country. For the few that receive offers in the US, they get jobs as traders at prop shops, Quants at trading firms, market risk analysts at trading firms, private equity analysts, investment banking analysts and associates, consultants, trade platform application engineers, trade clearing quants at exchanges, financial analysts at banks (25/60 get placed in the US). Overall, a successful 2011 year.

Student body
75% Asian
10% Indian
10% American
5% Other

Lacks diversity in some sense. This most likely will change soon.

This review was submitted on 7/28/2010 by a student who studied full-time in the program from 08/2008-12/2009

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
Bachelor in Construction Management and Economics from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
No prior work experience. Prior internship experience include securities company, real estate management company and oil company.

Did you get admitted to other programs?
Columbia University and Illinois Institute of Technology

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
The tuition and the time admit me.

What alternative sources of info you used to learn more about the program?
Online BBS in China

Tell us about the application process at this program
online submission of resume, cover letter, transcript and recommendation letters

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the accessibility of the faculty and staff?
9

Does this program offer refresher courses for incoming students? What do they offer and how much it costs?
Yes, I can’t rememeber the cost

On a scale of 0-10, how would you grade the usefulness of these refresher courses?
8

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
Derivative Securities, Stochastic Process, Practice of QCF

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the flexibility of the curriculum?
9

Tell us about the quality of teaching
Good.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the quality of teaching?
8

Materials used in the program
Teacher’s notes, most of time.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the practicality of the curriculum?
8

Programming component of the program
One course for programming, C and Java

Projects
Computational Finance and Mathematical Finance

Career service
Average

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the career service for internship and full-time job?
7

What do you like about the program?
Good

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the value of the program for the price tag?
8

What DON’T you like about the program?
The career service is not good enough. Atlanta is not an excellent location for finance students already, so they should strengthen their career service to improve the placement of students.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
Career service and connection should get better.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade your experience in the program?
8

What are your current job status? What are you looking for? What would you prefer to work in?
Prefer to work in statistical finance area.

On a scale of 1-10, would you recommend this program to others?
8

Click here to submit a review of your program

This review was submitted on 7/25/2010 at 12:20:25AM by a student who studied full-time in the program from 06/2006 – 12/2007

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
Bachelors in Electrical Engg from IIT Kanpur India. GRE 800 Q, 640 Verbal. Prior work experience as software engineer/consultant.

Did you get admitted to other programs?
MFE Michigan

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
Focus on Practical Learning and Concepts related to Financial Engineering and Low Cost of Tuition.

What alternative sources of info you used to learn more about the program?
Internet mainly.

Tell us about the application process at this program
The application was online and updated time-to-time. Dr Kertz (Program Director) was also very kind and helpful in answering questions related to admissions and course of study.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the accessibility of the faculty and staff?
9

Programs like Baruch MFE, UCB MFE have refresher courses for incoming students. Does this program offer such courses? How useful was it?
No

On a scale of 0-10, how would you grade the usefulness of these refresher courses?
1

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
Stochastic Processes in Finance I & II, Practice of QCF, Fixed Income, Numerical Methods.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the flexibility of the curriculum?
9

Tell us about the quality of teaching
Most Faculty members are established and high calibre academicians from Math, ISYE, MBA departments. In the final semester some courses are offered by industry practitioners and professionals from Investment Banking and Trading.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the quality of teaching?
9

Materials used in the program
Teacher’s Notes and Standard Texts. But Notes are more useful. Classroom discussions are also quite productive and useful for the student.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the practicality of the curriculum?
10

Programming component of the program
C++, SAS, Java, MATLAB, GAMS.

Projects
Mainly a mixture of Coding and Research projects are assigned at group and individual levels.

Career service
The Director submits the Resumes of the student batch to Industry connections.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the career service for internship and full-time job?
8

What do you like about the program?
Emphasis on practical methods of solving real world problems in finance and also helping the students to develop hands-on skills on programming and financial research projects. The professors of ISYE/Math in particular are gifted scholars and invest a lot of time and energy on teaching the practical concepts and their application to real-world financial engineering problems like derivatives pricing, portfolio management, Time series analysis of stock prices etc.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the value of the program for the price tag?
10

What DON’T you like about the program?
The MBA finance department is relatively weak. The department needs to boost its b-school rankings and should make efforts to add strength to the finance courses being offered to QCF students. The future looks promising because the gap is slowly narrowing down as the B-school is making good progress.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
The QCF program office should work on improving the finance curriculum.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade your experience in the program?
9

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
Financial Officer in Work Bank Group.

On a scale of 1-10, would you recommend this program to others?
9

Other comments
Focus, Dedication and a strong penchant for finance and programming.

Click here to submit a review of your program

This review was submitted on 2/20/2010 at 13:42:25 by Wanfeng Chen (contact him via gmail at wanfengc) who studied full-time in the program from 8/2008-12/2009*

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
B.E. Computer Science, Shanghai Jiao Tong University;
Internship: Machine Learning Group in Microsoft Research Aisa; Derivatives Dpt. in Haitong Securities; AXA HK.

Did you get admitted to other programs?
Minnesota MFE

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
GaTech QCF is strong in its computational skills training and engineering math, due to the support form ISyE school, ranking #1 worldwide. They have a bunch of “real world” projects provided during the 1.5 years. Almost anyone interested in are able to contribute, which is very useful in job hunting. Furthermore, QCF has a large funding, so 1/3 students can get full scholarship during the 3 semesters.

Tell us about the application process at this program
Every thing went well.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the accessibility of the faculty and staff?
7

Programs like Baruch MFE, UCB MFE have refresher courses for incoming students. Does this program offer such courses? How useful was it?
No

On a scale of 0-10, how would you grade the usefulness of these refresher courses?
0

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
1/3 courses are of selection from a pool

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the flexibility of the curriculum?
5

Tell us about the quality of teaching
Average

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the quality of teaching?
8

Materials used in the program
Generally texts are recommended reading. The professors prefer to use their own materials.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the practicality of the curriculum?
9

Programming component of the program
C++, Matlab, SAS, R. Half of the homework are using simple programming.

Projects
Both

Career service
The director will send the resume book to the industry connection.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the career service for internship and full-time job?
6

Can you comment on the social interaction between students of different ethnics, nationalities in the program?
N/A

What do you like about the program?
Real world projects

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the value of the program for the price tag?
8

What DON’T you like about the program?
Finance part is not strong

Suggestions for the program to make it better
N/A

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade your experience in the program?
8

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
Joined RiskMetrics.

On a scale of 1-10, would you recommend this program to others?
8

Click here to submit a review of your program

Employer: In Confidence
Job title: Senior Commodities Quant, Director
Location: Nationwide
Compensation: up to 200k + 100 bonus so potentially 400k a year
Experience Required :5+ years
Degree Required : PhD, physics, math, quantitative fiance or related quant field
Travel Required : travel regularly is also required

Job description:

Director level individual contributor in the Fixed Income Sales or trading, Equities Sales or trading or Investment Banking and Capital Markets Division. Responsibility for independently (or as part of a team) working with clients and/or handling complex transactions. individuals at this level have well developed knowledge of the firms products & services, marketplace and clients.

The candidate will be responsible for managing and growing the client firm quant team as the business grows. The candidate must be hands-on and used to dealing directly with traders.

The candidate will work with Commodities desk to produce analytics, including: researching, implementing and testing new models; producing documentation describing models and methods; educating the front office about new models and methods; assisting IT as they integrate models in systems; assisting Model Validation in validating models; and working with the desk to produce spreadsheet pricing tools.

The candidate will also manage and direct any other quants working on Commodities projects.

Basic Qualifications: 7+ years capital markets industry experience.

Minimum Qualifications: 5+ years of experience in computer-based mathematical problem solving, preferably using C++ AND 5+ years experience providing pricing and risk analytics to a Commodities trading desk. Ph.D. in physics, math, quantitative finance or related quantitative field. Deep knowledge of energy and power models.

Preferred Skills: Excellent communication skills. Excellent leadership skills. Management experience.

Relocation will be provided as needed.

To apply: Please send resume to molly@fremontconsulting.com

eszter/Flickr

Hammershlag Hall, Carnegie Mellon University

Great reputation among employers
Reviewed 12/13/11
Rating 9/10

What is unique about the program
The curriculum is well structured and there are plenty of employment opportunities.

Worst things about the program
The workload is a bit excessive especially while students are stressed out to find internship/full-time jobs.

Career services
Good career services. Both investment banks and top-tier prop firms come to campus for recruitment.

Student body
Half are Chinese and Indians. Have very diverse background. Some of them are really smart. Great networks to be built from this program as students are from all around the world.

This review was submitted on Sun 4/25/2010 at 1:29 AM by a student who studied full-time in the program from 8/2008-12/2009

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
Prior Academic work: Economics & Math
2+ years in Financial Services: Technical Programming & Data Analysis

Did you get admitted to other programs?
No

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
Reputation and Course Work Listed

Tell us about the application process at this program
2 Essays, GRE score report & transcripts w/ 1 Phone interview. I hear though they now do video chat.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the accessibility of the faculty and staff?
10

Does this program offer refresher courses for incoming students? What do they offer and how much it costs?
They offer a Math Prep Course that was about $250 for admitted students. It was mainly calculus-based probability, so not entirely useful given my background and it was eventually covered again in future coursework.

On a scale of 0-10, how would you grade the usefulness of these refresher courses?
4

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
Initial Coursework can be consider Foundation courses where they cover the math, stat, and Comp Sci theories over applications with emphasis to Finance.
Later coursework got into detail to specific use to finance. The later more specific coursework was more interesting and enjoyable

Foundation Courses: Stochastic Calculus I-II, Probability & Stat Inference, Regression Analysis & Time Series Analysis, Financial Computing I-III, Basic Finance (Corp Finance & Economics)

Applied Courses: Multi Period Asset Pricing,Financial Computing IV, Stat Arbitrage, Monte-Carlo Simulation, Quant Asset Mgmt, Studies in FE, Credit Derivatives.

Again the applied course where the more fun and built upon the knowledge gained from the foundation coursework.

Sadly there was little flexibility in the program. You had the option to opt out of foundation courses with the instructors permission. Otherwise, you do the listed course sequence. It wasn’t until the last session did they allow the students to choose 4 out 5 available classes.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the flexibility of the curriculum?
2

Tell us about the quality of teaching
Mostly the teachers came from Academic backgrounds. Though a few had industrial experience via directly working in the Investment Banking sector or indirectly by doing projects with Industry.

The program is supported mainly via each academic department, so TA are available to help from the Math, Stat, CS & Finance/Econ Departments. They held TA sessions & office hours and responded to e-mails.

Most professors have a few years experience teaching their specific courses, so are well versed on the subject matter.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the quality of teaching?
10

Materials used in the program
For the Math classes the main book was Stochastic Calculus I&II (Shreve). With the applied courses having their own course notes/internal textbooks.

All of the Stat Courses mainly used their own internal course notes/reading materials. Optional readings from Probability and Statistics(Degroot), Glasserman’s Monte Carlo Methods, Weisberg’s Applied Linear Regression, Intro to Time Series and Forecasting (Brockwell&Davis)

CS Classes mainly focused on course notes with a number of reference materials.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the practicality of the curriculum?
9

Programming component of the program
Financial Computing used C++, mainly to teach OOP. R/S+ was used in the stat/simulation courses, Matlab was also used in Simulation and applied course work. A small amount of VBA Excel & SQL was taught. Programing is over 25% of the program.

Projects
Group Projects were assigned in the applied coursework.
The Studies of FE course is case-study style project.
Other classes such as Stat Arb & Quant Asset Mgmt had group projects that applied the course content requiring technical programing and financial analysis.

Career service
Career services is helpful and its quite strong for a Quant Finance program. Each student has a dedicated member of the Career Services center help with their cover letters, resume & mock interviews for internships and Full-time offers.

The career services is part of the Tepper Business School, so they are working to place both MBA & MSCF, using network contacts to bring recruiters on-campus. However, the unique nature of the MSCF can be challenge to a few in the Career Service Center.

In conjunction, the MSCF program director works to place students by sending MSCF only resume books targeted at firms with quant hiring needs.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the career service for internship and full-time job?
8

What do you like about the program?
I liked the design of the program. First they set the table with the foundation coursework. Then, they give the students an understanding of the applications using the foundation knowledge.
The professors have vested a lot of time into the program and take pride in it. They are more than helpful to the students in terms of academic and professional advice.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the value of the program for the price tag?
8

What DON’T you like about the program?
I’d hope they could trim the amount of foundation coursework in favor of more applied coursework. This would be asking a lot since everyone’s background is different, and they do their best to get every on the same solid ground before doing applied work.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
Add more flexibility to the program. If you opt out of a course, then you just have free time. It might be interesting to allow students to do independent self-study or group study on the topic (depending on how many students opt out). This might allow stronger professor-student relationships. As well, get to applied coursework faster. Might also be a feather in the cap for students for their resumes.

Also, for the refresher courses. Maybe add classes on MatLab and R/S+.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade your experience in the program?
9

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
Took a job offer in Quant Asset Mgmt

On a scale of 1-10, would you recommend this program to others?
9

Click here to submit a review of your program

This review was submitted on 12/26/2009 at 15:39:43 by Feng Zou who studied full-time in the program from 8/2008-12/2009

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
I obtained dual degrees in Computer Science and Economics from my college in China. I did not have any full-time experience prior to coming to MSCF.

Did you get admitted to other programs?
I also got admissions to Cornell MFE, U Chicago MSFM, U Mich MFE, and WUSTL MSF.

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
First, from the information I collected at the time, MSCF has the best reputation, placement record, and career service among all the programs that I got admission to. Second, MSCF is an 1.5 year program, which allows the time for a summer internship that I think is important for a student as me that had no prior working experience. Third, MSCF has a very well organized curriculum and all courses are specially tailored for the program, contrasting to many other programs that are composed of a set of selective courses shared by students from other majors. Fourth, MSCF is known for programming intensive comparing to other programs, which I think better matches my Computer Science background.

Tell us about the application process at this program
The application process is easy and smooth. I just submitted my application online, and mailed out the recommendation letters and transcripts. I have applied to the first round, and the decision arrives at the end of January. One little difference to other program is that MSCF asks for 2 essays dedicated to career plan and background respectively.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the accessibility of the faculty and staff?
10

Programs like Baruch MFE, UCB MFE have refresher courses for incoming students. Does this program offer such courses? How useful was it?
MSCF offers a math preparatory course in summer before the fall semester starts. The prep course reviews mainly the calculus and probability theories that are relevant to later courses. I think it is useful especially for those who has been out of school for several years. Though I came directly from my undergraduate school to MSCF, I still find it helpful for me to remember what I have learned in my fresh year in college.

On a scale of 0-10, how would you grade the usefulness of these refresher courses?
8

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
There are mainly four modules of courses, namely Mathematics, Programming, Statistics, and Finance. Personally, there are a few courses that I like most:

Stochastic Calculus I, II & III, Monte-Carlo Simulation, Numerical Methods. I think these are the core courses for FE, and will be extremely useful in future works. They are also very interesting.

I also like the course Studies in FE, which asks students to team up and work on two case projects that are simplified real world structuring problems.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the flexibility of the curriculum?
3

Tell us about the quality of teaching
I would like to say almost all the professors are truly excellent. They are passionate, knowledgeable, and good at teaching. TA’s are also very helpful. There are TA session every week for most courses, during which TA’s explains some details that professors do not have time to cover in lectues, and are ready to answer your questions.

Each week, MSCF will invite some practitioners to the MSCF Speaker Series to give a speech on recent trends and real practices in the industry.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the quality of teaching?
10

Materials used in the program
Stochastic Calculus, Steven E. Shreve
Fixed Income Securities, Bruce Tuckman
Monte Carlo Methods in Financial Engineering, Paul Glasserman
Credit Risk: Pricing, Measurement and Management, D. Duffie and K. Singleton

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the practicality of the curriculum?
9

Programming component of the program
There are four courses namely Financial Computing I, II, III, IV for C++. VBA is also cover in Financial Computing III. Matlab is also used extensively in various course like Simulation, Credit Derivatives, Numerical Methods, etc. S-plus or R is used in statistics courses.

Projects
In the course Studies in FE, we have done two teamwork projects solving simplified real world structuring cases. For example, my team has done a structuring problem hedging a floating rate redeemable GNMA mortgage security with prepayment risk.

There are also more homework like projects in many courses like Monte Carlo Simulation, Statistical Arbitrage, Quantitative Asset Management, Stochastic Calculus III, Financial Computing IV, etc.

Career service
MSCF shares with MBA students the career service website for Tepper School of Business (And other CMU students do not have access to this website). MSCF students also have access to the career service website of CMU. Both websites are very helpful, and most students can get at least several on-campus interviews from these sources. Most major banks come to campus recruit through these websites.

MSCF also sends out resume books to a long list of firms, and these firm do give a lot of interviews in response to the resume book. These firms include many big names like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Nomura Securities, GETCO, etc.

The career service consultants are very helpful in providing advice on resume and cover letter writing, job hunting and interview preparation, mock interviews, etc. Many consultants are CMU alumni that has many years experience in the industry. e.g. Sondi has worked at Goldman for 12 years, and Jack at Barclays for 8 years.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the career service for internship and full-time job?
9

Can you comment on the social interaction between students of different ethnics, nationalities in the program?
It is true that to some extent, students tend to work more closely with those coming from the same country. This is more obvious for American, Chinese, Indian, and Korean students, because each of these forms a large portion of student population in class. For students coming from other countries like Columbia, Argentina, Japan, etc, they usually interact more with other students because there are only one or two from their own country.

Having said so, if you want, you still have plenty of opportunities to reach out to students from other ethnic groups. Personally, I am Chinese, and I have cooperated with Indian and American students in several course projects, and I believe we all have learned a lot from each other.

What do you like about the program?
There are several things I like a lot. First, the curriculum is very well organized and courses are specially designed for the MSCF program, which form the basis of an excellent learning experience. Second, we have many famous professors teaching in the program including Steven Shreve, John Lehoczky, Duann Seppi, etc, and most professors are excellent in teaching. Third, staff at career services work really hard, and MSCF students do have a lot of on-campus interview opportunities with those big name firms. Last but not the least, the group of students in the program are extremely smart and hard working, and it is a great experience to spend the one and half year time with them.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the value of the program for the price tag?
9

What DON’T you like about the program?
Basically, I love the program, and don’t have much to complain.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
I would provide some kind of flexibility to the program to fit the special needs for students coming from different backgrounds. For example, I would allow students with IT backgrounds to drop some of the basic programming courses, and insert more economic courses into their curriculum. On the other hand, students with business backgrounds should have more courses in basic programming to help them get through the remaining courses.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade your experience in the program?
9

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
I have got two offers from two major banks in NYC. One is an analyst position in the quantitative trading and analysis rotational program. The other is a second year analyst position in the IBD strategy group.

On a scale of 1-10, would you recommend this program to others?
9

Other comments
It requires hard work to survive the program, but you will get rewarded handsomely if you can survive.

Click here to submit a review of your program

Burkle building on CGU campus which houses the Drucker school.

Very weak. Number of students applying is on the decline.
Reviewed 12/16/2011
Rating 1/10

What is unique about this program?
There isn’t much to be said. It’s a weak program.

What are the worst things about the program?
So expensive for the quality eduction you get. Profsesors are leaving and going to other colleges.

Career services
None

Student body
Poor

What is unique about this program?
The MSFE program is a joint program of the School of Mathematical Sciences and the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management where students have a unique opportunity to take management courses, MBA courses, along with advanced mathematical courses where your seat buddy might be a PhD student in Financial Engineering or Economics.

What are the worst things about the program?
The main shortcoming of the MSFE program is computer program, especially in C++. There are some courses that require programming in VBA, R and Matlab and most years a group of students come together and form a C++ study group. Having said that, if a student does have a background in programming, then the CGU MSFE program is absolutely excellent.

Career services
The career services has gone through some transformation in the last year or year and a half to the better. I personally received my job offer from an opportunity through the career services. The career fairs have become more relevant to the MSFE students and it seems as if the service is constantly getting better.

Student body
The students are close knit and are very supportive of each other. They come from all over the world and some of them are incredibly smart. The student body creates a great sense of community, probably in part due to its small size.

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
PhD student in Economics, SUNY-Albany 09/2005-05/2007
M.A. in Economics, Wuhan University, China 09/2002-05/2005
Equity Analyst, CITICS in Wuhan, China 08/2001-08/2002

Did you get admitted to other programs?
No.

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
. It has a flexible course arrangement and a better balance between Mathematics and Management.
. A 40% tuition cut is affordable
. Southern Calif. is a better place to live.

Tell us about the application process at this program
1) Deadline is Feb 1.
2) Applied
3) Receive ad and fellowship 6 weeks later.
4) about 400 deposit.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the accessibility of the faculty and staff?
8

Programs like Baruch MFE, UCB MFE have refresher courses for incoming students. Does this program offer such courses? How useful was it?
Yes if the probability and statistics is. I think it’s useful for those person who stayed out of campus for several years.

On a scale of 0-10, how would you grade the usefulness of these refresher courses?
9

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
Management Part:
Financial Accounting
Corporate Finance
Asset Management Practium (An excellent project with a real money Fund)
Financial derivatives (a professor with experience in practical market)

Math Part:
Stochastic Process
Math Finance
Numerical Method for Finance
Credit risk
Financial Time Series
Asymptotic Method
Simulation
Math Clinic (A applied math project with industry)

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the flexibility of the curriculum?
9

Tell us about the quality of teaching
Several Lab classes were arranged in each course, including math course. And homework is plentiful but acceptable.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the quality of teaching?
8

Materials used in the program
. Hull
. Derivative Markets by Mcdonald
. Stochastic Calculus (I&II) by Steven E. Shreve
. Portfolio Construction, Management, &Protection by Strong
. An introduction to credit risk modeling by Christian Bluhm

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the practicality of the curriculum?
8

Programming component of the program
VBA/R/Matlab/C++

Projects
Group projects were there in every course. And there is a special project in Asset Management that a real &300,000 fund was conducted by the this course students. You can test your strategies in the real market. Awesome.

Career service
Career center really work hard to help you, but seems it doesn’t work well in the bad market. Before 2008, many students had chance to do Intern or full time job in TCW and Countrywide. But it was difficult now.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the career service for internship and full-time job?
3

Can you comment on the social interaction between students of different ethnics, nationalities in the program?
Most India students got their jobs with the help of their social network.

What do you like about the program?
flexible courses and high quality professors.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the value of the program for the price tag?
5

What DON’T you like about the program?
. no special course or seminar for programming. And there was just a discussion group by students.
. placement is not good.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
. more programming seminar because most students were not come from computer science major.
. construct a better alumni network.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade your experience in the program?
6

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
I graduated on Aug. 2009 and am looking for a job in New York City now.
I really hope that I can work in the quantitative field. Not easy. I am trying.

On a scale of 1-10, would you recommend this program to others?
8

Click here to submit a review of your program

This review was submitted on 1/22/2010 at 20:43:00 by a student who studied full-time in the program from 9/2008-5/2010*

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
BS Physics & Mathematics, Loyola University Chicago
BA Economics, Loyola University Chicago

Did you get admitted to other programs?
Yes

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
Flexibility. I am graduating in two years with both an MBA and MSFE because CGU has been very flexible in scheduling and allowed me to “overload” a couple semesters in addition to completing intensive courses.

Additionally I liked CGU’s access to studying abroad. FE or MBA students can spend a semester in Switzerland. Additionally there are travel courses at Oxford and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. I attended the Hong Kong course and it was a blast.

Finally, CGU offered me a fellowship including 50% off of tuition for the first 16 units each semester.

Tell us about the application process at this program
Very timely. Pretty typical stuff, essay, recs, transcript, phone interview.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the accessibility of the faculty and staff?
9

Programs like Baruch MFE, UCB MFE have refresher courses for incoming students. Does this program offer such courses? How useful was it?
This course does not. The pre-reqs for CGU’s MSFE program are not as high as other programs. For example you need not have taken probability before. CGU starts with very basic courses so there is no need for an additional refresher.

On a scale of 0-10, how would you grade the usefulness of these refresher courses?
5

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
I will only discuss the FE courses, not the courses I took additionally for my MBA.

MATH CORE (16 units)
Probability (4)
Statistics (4)
Stochastics (4)
Math Finance (4)

FINANCE CORE (16 units)
Corporate Finance (4)
Financial Accounting (4)
Financial Derivatives (4)
Asset Management Practicum (4)

Additionally students take 16 units of electives
I took Credit Risk (2), Quantitative Risk Management (2), Doing Business in Asia (this is the Hong Kong course) (4), Real Options Analysis (4), Energy Derivatives (2), Business Law (2)

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the flexibility of the curriculum?
10

Tell us about the quality of teaching
A couple of the professors have a few years experience in the “real world,” but for the most part courses are not taught by practitioners. The exceptions to this are Real Options Analysis and the Asset Management Practicum which have practitioners as guest lecturers. Asset Management especially makes use of this as about 1/3 to 1/2 of the lectures are by practitioners. I saw professors and TAs multiple times for help with homework and studying. They are extremely accessible. I am now a TA myself and feel a great deal of responsibility to my fellow students. The comradery of the program is pretty strong.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the quality of teaching?
8

Materials used in the program
Obviously Hull and Shreve.

Lando’s Credit Risk Modeling
Mun’s Real Options Analysis
Copeland & Antikarov’s Real Options
McDonald’s Derivatives Markets

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the practicality of the curriculum?
8

Programming component of the program
There are quite a few options for programming courses but the core classes for the most part do not have any programming. Every year a student-led group does an into to C++. In the math courses there is generally one or two programming assignments in either VBA, R, or Matlab. This semester there is VBA lab to accompany the financial derivatives course. Aside from these courses, Harvey Mudd (a top math and science school) offers a number of programming/programming-based math courses that CGU students, as members of the Claremont Consortium, are more than welcome to take. I’ve had many friends take these courses and love them. The Mudd campus is next door to CGU so it’s rather easy.

Projects
The asset management practicum involves students running a portion of the university’s endowment. It requires everything from researching and backtesting strategies to a small group making a presentation to the board of trustees. Real Options required a small individual project applying real options analysis.

Career service
Very little currently. I would not go by past reviews for career services as this is a big priority among the current administration and should be changing. Call the program and ask them. They’re very honest about current offerings.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the career service for internship and full-time job?
4

Can you comment on the social interaction between students of different ethnics, nationalities in the program?
To some degree student’s self-segregate, but when Thursday and Friday come around it doesn’t matter what your background is, everyone’s drinking and having fun together.

What do you like about the program?
The flexibility. If you don’t want to be a standard cookie cutter quant then come to CGU.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the value of the program for the price tag?
9

What DON’T you like about the program?
The other side of the flexibility is that you are really responsible for your own future at this program. You can’t sit back and do interviews on campus. You have to hustle and get things working.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
More programing in the courses and more career resources.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade your experience in the program?
10

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
I have a job offer for structuring and analytics in electricity markets with a large investment bank.

On a scale of 1-10, would you recommend this program to others?
5

Other comments
I put a five on the recommendation because it is difficult to say without knowing someone. If you are a real “mover” and get things done, then I really suggest CGU. You’ll have a lot of personal opportunities. But if you don’t feel like being creative and hustling the I don’t recommend this program for you.

Click here to submit a review of your program

This review was submitted on 1/24/2010 at 18:02:31 by a student who studied full-time in the program from 9/2009-5/2010*

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
I graduated in Physics from Harvey Mudd College and went to work for a year in a small business software company as a consultant.

Did you get admitted to other programs?
No

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
N/A

Tell us about the application process at this program
I secured admission before leaving my undergraduate program. It was very easy to apply because Harvey Mudd and Claremont Graduate University are just across the street from each other. Thus, most of the admission process was carried out in person. During the rest of the admission process e-mail and phone communication was prompt and helpful. There were no problems with the admission process as the online application was straightforward and well thought out. I did enroll as part of a 4+1 year masters program available to undergraduates of the Claremont Colleges.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the accessibility of the faculty and staff?
6

Programs like Baruch MFE, UCB MFE have refresher courses for incoming students. Does this program offer such courses? How useful was it?
While the program itself does not have refresher courses, taking courses at the undergraduate institutions of the Claremont Colleges is both possible and encouraged.

On a scale of 0-10, how would you grade the usefulness of these refresher courses?
0

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
There is a set curriculum of core courses taught in a specific order. Of the 12 required courses, 8 are mandated parts of the curriculum and 4 of the courses are electives. Selection of elective courses is highly teacher specific. If a good teacher is teaching a class it will be gold. The courses I especially like were Financial Accounting (a required part of the curriculum) and Fixed Income (an elective) and I liked those courses because the teachers in the courses were excellent.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the flexibility of the curriculum?
9

Tell us about the quality of teaching
The teaching quality is quite variable. One of my favorite teachers has won 14 teaching awards during his time at several of the Claremont Colleges. The other favorite teacher is a retired accountant and has put in the effort to write his own book that we use in the classroom. Due to both natural ability and conscious effort, he is an excellent teacher. Other teachers I have encountered have been ‘good,’ although one teacher was terrible. These solidly good teachers give instructive classes but would could to put more effort into coordinating their classes, better tailoring their homework problems, and sharing more ‘pearls of wisdom’ from outside the textbook.

My teacher rating of 8 indicates that there are at least two excellent teachers, and the majority are good teachers.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the quality of teaching?
8

Materials used in the program
Shreve: Stochastic Calculus for Finance I and II
Hull: Options, Futures and Other Derivatives
Ferris and Wallace: Financial Accounting for Executives
Ross, Westerfield and Jordan: Fundamentals of Corporate Finance
McDonald: Derivative Markets

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the practicality of the curriculum?
3

Programming component of the program
This is the biggest weakness of the CGU MFE program. Little to no programming is done in the core curriculum and the possible programming electives are not well taught nor tailored to finance. The good news is that this weakness has been recognized and is starting to change this year. An independent weekly workshop in C++ is being tested this semester and the Financial Derivatives class from this semester onwards will include a weekly VBA lab.

Languages: C++, VBA, MATLAB

Projects
Two projects are offered. In the asset management class, the endowment for the Peter Drucker School and Masatoshi Ito school is partially managed by teams of MFE’s mixed with MBA’s. There is also a research project in Financial Derivatives.

Career service
The career services coordinator is incredible. He and his staff work very hard and he has significant connections with companies ranging from Disney and Barclays. The Claremont Colleges all share the same career services jobs and internships network, thus graduate students can also pursue opportunities from Claremont McKenna College and Pomona.

There is a small but growing web of alumni contacts, and Professors do pass along job prospects from time to time.

It is easy to find an internship or full-time position if you take charge. There is not as much active assistance as in other programs I have heard about but the resources are here if you put in the effort to make use of them.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the career service for internship and full-time job?
6

Can you comment on the social interaction between students of different ethnics, nationalities in the program?
The CGU MFE program is predominantly foreign of which the majority are Chinese. The program itself is nearly majority Chinese. There are several MFE program-wide events during which interaction occurs between all groups. On a day-to-day basis none of the groups all sit together in cliques.

What do you like about the program?
CGU’s best attribute: There are at least two excellent teachers, the majority are solidly good, and a terrible teacher can be easily avoided because they are only teaching elective classes. The teachers are accessible.

Second best: The high proportion of Chinese students allows for an intimate exposure to China. I sure will use my contacts in China in the future and I have been able to ask colleagues for their opinions on all news I get from China.

Others: The integration of the CGU job posting network with those of the excellent undergraduate universities nearby allow for a much broader range of opportunities. There is a lot of freedom to take advantage of the resources offered by the school, but the onus is on you.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the value of the program for the price tag?
5

What DON’T you like about the program?
The fact that programming is not well integrated into the courses and homework is a severe shortcoming. Also, the program is quite theoretical and should be more applied. It many respects the program is a series of classes connected only if the courses are taught by the same teacher. Better integration of the classes into a coherent program would be desirable. There was an attempt to have the Mathematical Finance class integrate with the Numerical Methods for Finance class, but due to a lack of communication between the different professors the classes complemented each other very little.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
The suggestion that more programming be introduced into the curriculum has already been somewhat addressed with an independent C++ workshop and weekly VBA lab period. The integration of classes into a coherent program with a single well designed syllabus is a must.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade your experience in the program?
7

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
The connections the CGU MFE program has in East Asia have been invaluable. I have an internship lined up in Tokyo with Barclays Capital for the Summer of ’10. The internship is in Fixed Income IT support.

Since I trained as a physicist and worked in business software for a year, I am not sure where I want to head. I will be better informed after my internship.

On a scale of 1-10, would you recommend this program to others?
9

Other comments
This program is very close to making it big. The alumni network is growing under the expert management of the current career services office, and programming classes are being incorporated into the curriculum. I expect my degree to be worth much more than I paid for it in 3 to 4 years as those graduates in my class and the year before begin reaching high-level positions. I plan to be actively involved with the school in the years ahead and am working to improve the program myself.

Click here to submit a review of your program.

1. A Primer for the Mathematics of Financial Engineering, 2nd Ed – Dan Stefanica
2. Fifty Challenging Problems in Probability with Solutions – Frederick Mosteller
3. Solutions, Primer For The Mathematics Of Financial Engineering, 2nd Ed – Dan Stefanica
4. Quant Job Interview Questions And Answers– Mark Joshi
5. My Life as a Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance – Emanuel Derman
6. The Complete Guide to Capital Markets for Quantitative Professionals
7. A Practical Guide To Quantitative Finance Interviews – Xinfeng Zhou
8. Liar’s Poker – Michael Lewis
9. Quantitative Trading: How to Build Your Own Algorithmic Trading Business – Ernie Chan
10. Frequently Asked Questions in Quantitative Finance – Paul Wilmott
11. How I Became a Quant: Insights from 25 of Wall Street’s Elite – Richard R. Lindsey
12. Problem Solving with C++, 8th Edition – Walter Savitch
13. Options, Futures and Other Derivatives (8th Edition) – John Hull
14. Stochastic Calculus for Finance II: Continuous-Time Models - Steve Shreve
15. Heard on The Street: Quantitative Questions from Wall Street Job Interviews - Timothy Crack
16. Principles of Financial Engineering, 2nd Edition - Salih Neftci
17. C++ Design Patterns and Derivatives Pricing - Mark Joshi
18. The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine – Michael Lewis
19. Red-Blooded Risk: The Secret History of Wall Street – Aaron Brown
20. Reminiscences of a Stock Operator – Edwin Lefevre
21. The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It – Scott Patterson
22. Understanding Wall Street, Fifth Edition - Jeffrey Little
23. Working the Street: What You Need to Know About Life on Wall Street- Erik Banks
24. Paul Wilmott on Quantitative Finance 3 Volume Set (2nd Edition) - Paul Wilmott
25. Starting Your Career as a Wall Street Quant - Brett Jiu

The following list is compiled from aggregate, anonymously collected data and provided by Amazon with our referrer data.

Introduction

Let’s face it guys, bank regulation in the US is a total mess. Mind you, this is not really surprising, for any system left to its own devices and desires will eventually fly off the handles into the proverbial décor. Like the rest of Wall Street, and mostly unbeknownst to themselves, regulators large and small have wandered into enemy territory without proper ammo and are now operating purely on gut instinct. Ask any hedge fund manager when he’s a little tipsy, and he’ll be glad to tell you how much money he’s already lost with his “gut”. Unfortunately, there is nothing more dangerous than high-level functionaries out of their comfort zone. When they have time to breathe at all, these bold defenders of the realm must be wondering how things could get so out of control, so fast. Like the Eagles in their hit-song “Lying Eyes”, we too wonder how it ever got this crazy. Did we get tired, or did we just get lazy?

Turf wars and power grabs are just the last refuge of the damned. Likewise, concentration of regulatory authority is not the remedy, but merely the symptom of a fundamental sickness gnawing away at the banking system. In the end, Murphy’s Law is the only credible maxim in this topsy turvy bunker.

Is there a sane way out of this dreck? For starters, this is not America’s first crisis. Neither is it its last. Based on statistics alone, it would thus appear that the answer to our rhetorical question should be a resounding ‘yes’. Yes, but how? Pretty much everything else has been tried and failed, from battleship QE2 to European threats and intimidation of rating agencies. Y’a les cons, y’a les super-cons, et puis après, y’a les agences de notation! By the way, the next time you speak to a rating agency analyst of the old school, just remember that the man or woman trying to tell you about your own future doesn’t have one.

Is it really better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all? When you don’t understand finance no, it’s not better. Perhaps Janis Joplin was right after all when she said freedom is just another word for nothing left to rate, so to speak. At this point, we are happily and busily fooling ourselves to the Doors’ refrain of “this is the end” of the recession, while Angst and primal fear remain thinly disguised as “enforcement” actions. As Pyrrhus said long ago, one more such victory over the Romans and we are through.

Over the past 30 years of regulatory experimentation, we have scarcely moved beyond the momentous Basel 1 Accord. Regrettably, we crashed and burned on our way to Basel 2. At this very moment, as Nietzsche would no doubt diagnose, we are living dangerously between Basel 2 and some mythical, yet TBD Basel 3, and calling that Basel 2.5. The substance of the current proposals seems to be 7% capital everywhere, and either 1% or 3% more for “systemically important banks”, whatever that may eventually signify.

This silly fight about 3% reminds one of the old Soviet-era joke in which Tsar Nicholas II and Vladimir I. Lenin meet in Hell after the latter’s untimely demise. This is a rough translation of the ensuing conversation:

Tsar Nicholas: Vlady baby, why don’t you tell me about Mother Russia!

Lenin:              It would be a great honour, your erstwhile Majesty. What may I tell your Lordship?

Tsar Nicholas: Well, do we still have censorship of the press?

Lenin:              Censorship! We’ve got censorship coming out the wazoo!

Tsar Nicholas: OK fine, but what about bread lines and food shortages?

Lenin:              Majesty, you will be pleased to know that people are starving in greater numbers than ever before. Don’t sweat it; we’ve got that one covered too.

Tsar Nicholas: Great, and is our vodka still 95% proof?

Lenin:              I’m afraid not Majesty. It is now 98% proof.

Tsar Nicholas: Vlady, was another 3% really worth a Revolution?

One can easily foretell that soon, every money center bank will be forced to engage in a childish form of self-deprecation and debasement, claiming to be “systemically unimportant” or some similar hogwash, just to make sure they end up at 7%. Most likely, lobbyists will prevail and 7% will be the “right” number on Wall Street for the foreseeable future. Since Basel 1 was 8% flat, we have gone basically nowhere, save for the 1% of course, over the past 30 years, and this after mountains of literature and dozens of incomprehensible formulas apparently necessary to come to grips with the product of three real numbers [EAD, EDF and LGD.]  At this juncture, capital rules are by far the most complicated no-brainers in the world. Yet, they have failed across the board, and definitely across the Street, to keep us “safe and sound.”

Fundamentally, 8% was designed to address two operational modes and, to our utter amazement, it did so brilliantly. In most cases, it was way too much, except in the rare instances when it was way not enough. In other words, 8% was wrong all the time. This will not change because we use 7% or 10%. Finding the right number is a false, Wittgenstein problem, a red herring, for there ain’t no such thing. This is like a man looking for the right woman. Rather, the crux of the issue is how capital ought to adjust dynamically to keep up in lock-step with an objectively measured risk conjecture in the field, not what the static value should be. Besides, this elusive static level could be determined easily by reference to rating agency corporate-bond default studies, which address the residual risk inherent in corporate and other exposures given their industrial affiliation.

For example, the label “AAA” is not intended to refer to a company in trouble among its peers, but to a relatively well-functioning organization in a given context, which context then defines its average, not its current risk profile. Static capital allocations under enlightened regulation need to be pegged to this a priori construct since banks presumably make loans with this situation in mind. Should the target’s risk conjecture change meaningfully however, allocated capital ought to adjust automatically and objectively to reflect such changes. This is what safety and soundness truly means, i.e. the government should not punish banks for making risky loans, for we should all be happy that they can do so profitably, but only when they are unable to collect them.

In this context, 1% could be more than enough a priori when a bank makes short-term loans to investment grade obligors, while 5% could be less than appropriate for one with a large portfolio of long-term, sub-investment grade exposures on steroids. Once the reward side of the coin is included in addition to that of risk, everyone ends up on a level playing field seemingly by magic. The way things now stand perverse and powerful incentives are created daily whose objective is simply to arbitrage irrational capital rules using various Viagra-laden contraptions masquerading as “transactions”, for instance unsupervised synthetic CDO’s. These so-called “deals” were fatally flawed simply because the problem they addressed was fatally posed.

Speaking of Lenin, we are also tempted to ask: Что делать?

The following paragraphs are a fledgling attempt by a humble servant of the people to answer this difficult question. We propose a rational and workable regulatory schema aimed at restoring the public’s confidence in the fundamental safety and soundness of the financial system, one where even Devils now fear to tread.

Despite its simplicity, in truth because of it, we believe the following proposals go a long way towards resolving inter-agency turf battles and provide well-defined and transparent areas of responsibilities with no direct jurisdictional overlap. Were they one day to be implemented, granted this is a scenario with vanishingly small probability, we would venture that a crisis of magnitude 8.0 on the Richter scale like the current one would soon acquire the same probability. This is because there are three kinds of people in finance: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder what happened. We are merely suggesting that regulation ought to be able to let regulators move temporarily to the first in order both to be able to soon return to the second, but mostly to avoid having to live through yet another close encounter of the third kind.

The New Federal Reserve: the Unknown Ideal

The basic model for bank regulation was created in December 1913, i.e. the Federal Reserve. The latter came into being to address one issue only: liquidity in the banking system. The Fed was supposed to operate on auto-pilot, at least according to its creator, the suave, worldly and debonair Paul Moritz Warburg. Warburg had immigrated to America from Germany by accident, some mauvaises langues would even say by mistake, as a result of his marriage to Nina Loeb, the last remaining single daughter of Solomon Loeb, a former managing partner at Kuhn, Loeb and more famously John Pierpont Morgan’s archrival on Wall Street. Trained as an aerospace engineer, Warburg was intimately familiar with non-linear feedback systems and their criticality in control theory. By contrast, today’s Fed Governors are not exactly transcendental engineers like Warburg. By and large, they are garden-variety economists unable to grasp that pumping cash into the system is not a “solution” to a credit crisis, but strictly to a liquidity crisis. If the first core dump fails to do the trick, who knows, maybe the second one will. Yeah, right!

The original intent behind the Fed was to allow the market to regulate itself except in rare instances during which a temporary imbalance had disrupted the equilibrium, i.e. whereby liquidity was lacking and banks needed to scramble to borrow from each other without the proper means to do so. By formally pooling liquid resources, a conduit could be established that would allow them to borrow from Daddy Warbucks, albeit at a rate higher than the market’s equilibrium rate, the so-called discount rate. Otherwise, banks would be tempted to borrow from the Fed constantly, thus defeating the purpose of the entire enterprise. In passing, this system (the Real Bills Doctrine) was already in use at Germany’s central bank with which the Warburg family had long been associated. Therefore, the Fed was never intended as a government take-over of the banking system, but merely as a liquidity-pressure release valve. In most cases, the open markets were to be left undisturbed, and the money supply was not to be manipulated for political purposes. Needless to say, later, Warburg-less Feds quickly moved as far away from this attainable dream as they possibly could, as Warburg himself eventually discovered when he tried to cancel the Minnesota Fed shortly after becoming chairman. However, the fact that the Fed has wandered away from its true mission is by no means an indictment of its essentially righteous intent and purpose, for the measure of a man lies not in what he achieves, but in what he longs to achieve.

Our first conclusion is that the Fed is a wonderful institution as long as it sticks to its originally appointed sphere of excellence: managing liquidity on behalf of US commercial banks. It should not be involved in either regulating credit risk or in examining banks that assume credit risk, which means anybody and everybody. Frankly, wouldn’t you also like to be examined by someone who fundamentally believes that everything you own is a Treasury bond? Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight.

Despite its notable failings and missteps, the Federal Reserve has shed more blessings on the American people than anyone could reasonably expect. What is truly wondrous, rather, is not so much that the Fed stumbles on its way up the Golgotha, but that it keeps walking at all, bearing as it is the collective weight of our financial sins on its noble shoulders.

Therefore, our second conclusion is that one cannot do much better than the Fed’s apparatus, at least in this insane world of ours, to address the main risk inherent in the banking system: credit risk. In other words, credit risk needs its own “Fed” if it is to perform as well as the first one in fulfilling its appointed duties. To this, our chief proposal, we now turn.

The New FDIC: the Fed for Credit Risk

Our proposal is exceedingly simple in concept: to transform the FDIC into the Fed for credit risk. The FDIC now acts as the mortician to the banking system, presumably enjoying funerals more than weddings. We note that the structure of the FDIC is ideally suited to credit risk management simply because it is already an insurance company, i.e. the type of entity sorely needed in times of crisis. Although we do not have the space herein to go into details, the concepts are clear enough and the resolution exceedingly simple to execute, perhaps too simple.

Basically, it would work as follows. Banks would be forced to partition their allocated risk capital into its long-term and short-term components, something they already do anyway. Short-term capital would be both more expensive and more deeply subordinated than long-term capital. Under normal, equilibrium conditions commercial insurance companies would be called upon to provide this portion of any bank’s capital needs, most likely in the form of SLOC instruments, and at a price freely negotiated between the respective parties. The FDIC’s price for the same instrument, i.e. the discount rate for credit risk, would normally settle at a level higher than the free market’s equivalent rate for the same bank. Of course, a bank could easily self-insure, thus obviating the need to procure an external SLOC with its attendant standby fee in addition to the standard draw fee. However, doing so would quickly turn out to be more expensive than using external sources. After all, does anybody you know self-insure her house against fire? On a normal basis, a bank’s capital charge would be linked to its current balance sheet, and additional capital would be required only if it became aggressive in its lending practices, with feedback for such behaviour provided daily via automatic random sampling of its loan or exposure book by the very same, IT-savvy FDIC.

Under this system, a well-functioning bank would be slightly over capitalized since it would usually prefer to procure excess long-term capital rather than rely on instantaneous draws on expensive short-term lines, unless of course by conscious action. Thus, the optimal capital mix would tend to favour tiny excesses of aggregate current risk capital allocation. In the final analysis though, this situation would not be as traumatic as it sounds since banks would quickly figure out how they could alleviate their excess capital burden while increasing earnings by lending it to other banks rather than having it lay idle on their books. This would be the credit-risk equivalent of the Federal Funds market.

Some readers will have already recognized that, in essence, the foregoing amounts to a rebirth of the CDS market in a more organized and stable form. Obviously, the instrument we are describing is none other than a uniformly-structured CDS contract issued by banks and freely traded among them. Ladies and gentlemen, commoditization is a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of liquidity.

This is all well and good you might say, but what about the FDIC’s role in all this?

In the rare cases where some random bank would be playing fast and loose with credit risk, in no time at all free market players would set their credit discount-rate significantly above the equilibrium level where it previously hovered quietly. This would happen because such bank would now suddenly have to draw on its hitherto dormant SLOC in order to satisfy its mandatory capital allocation. This would force it to have recourse to the suddenly cheaper FDIC-issued and standardized CDS contract instead of accessing the open market. Any bank making sudden and ample use of such instruments would show up on the FDIC’s radar immediately, since it would be unusual for any institution to raise risk capital at such a high cost. The FDIC would then be put on notice that the target institution may be entering a danger zone, and this would happen long before it is, in fact, in trouble. This signal would not arise via examination or meddling into its affairs, but strictly from the free interplay of market forces. Since the FDIC would end up with the tab in the event the bank failed, it would quickly engage in a dialogue with it. Maybe there is a good explanation to all this, but then again, maybe there’s only a bad one. Either way this proactive action would be initiated with a lead time sufficient to ensure that no real crisis had a chance to develop. Even better, this would take place one bank at a time, not system-wide.

If the bank decided to pay for the risk it is taking anyway, then it might find itself worse off than before and would quickly and voluntarily recoil from the abyss. Conversely, if it could no longer pay the resulting CDS premium, it would stop doing whatever it is doing without coercion or regulatory fiat. As we all know, the best regulation is self-regulation. Effectively, such bank would be brought face to face with its own Kantian categorical imperative, and would soon be contemplating its own death. Either way, the equilibrium would be re-established quickly and the system would remain unscathed.

Clearly, our approach would require some major rethinking on the part of the FDIC’s senior managers, not to mention a face-lift and most likely, a name change. However, by the same token its area of expertise would be squarely delineated as credit risk and nothing else. It would not have to “examine” banks, but simply enforce uniform rules in credit-risk capital allocation. Although this may seem overly complicated, a country as diverse as Brazil largely succeeded with the promulgation of Regulation 2682 by the Brazilian central bank [BACEN]. Given the current soul-searching environment in Washington, this type of forward-looking rule-making ought to become a model to be emulated by the rest of the worldwide banking community. In fact, through direct experience we can tell you that Brazilians could teach us a trick or two about money, and then some. One can say many things about Brazil, but one cannot claim they have no experience with credit risk.

The New OCC: Examinations and Operational Risk

The last pillar of our proposal is the OCC, the institution that now examines Federally-chartered banks. In doing so, it has been relatively successful, although the complexities of transactions undertaken by its client-banks immediately prior to the crisis did tax its ability to keep up in real time with purported risk-transfer mechanisms. This is something the OCC brass would freely admit, at least in private.

Under our framework, the OCC would take over all banking examination nationwide and would focus primarily on operational risk, i.e. things like Herstatt risk, clearing and settlement of CDS contracts, the integrity and reliability of IT systems, “model” risk, conflicts of interest, etc., and in general, on the “policies and procedures” inside its supervisees. Unlike credit risk, presumably now under the exclusive purview of the born-again FDIC, operational risk is an area much more amenable to meaningful analysis within an examination context. This is in sharp contrast to the bottomless pit of credit risk when looked at without a comprehensive view. Given the average complexity of even a small bank’s balance sheet, credit risk analysis is well beyond the synthetic capacity of most human beings, and should not even be attempted outside a fully empirical and statistical framework.

The authority of the OCC would be enhanced in that it would become the sole direct point of contact with bank personnel, as is the case now with respect to the largest US financial institutions it regulates. In addition, thanks to its newly circumscribed set of roles and responsibilities, it would be able to cast its regulatory shadow in a much more pervasive and long-lasting manner vis-à-vis the safety and soundness of the system via its influence on the various checks and balances based on which a bank’s well-being may be conditioned and from which its relative health-indicators can be measured.

The OCC’s apparent reduction in credit-risk related supervisory influence would be more than compensated by its newfound ability to make meaningful and lasting contributions to areas of financial activity that have hitherto been sadly neglected. Its relationship to its supervisees would clearly change and become much more consultative and collegiate. Because the OCC would no longer be in a position to pass judgment on the perennial and always thorny issues of credit and liquidity management, it would be regarded by the banking community as an enabler of enhanced access to credit and liquidity, something all banks seek to preserve at all costs.

The Supervisory Trinity and its Übermensch

Thus far, we have outlined conceptually, albeit superficially, how the US regulatory apparatus for banks ought to be reorganized both for the sake of capital efficiency, and in order to restore financial markets to their original function and purpose. We used existing institutions that are now operating more or less successfully and attempted to give them back their true self while adhering to the ubiquitous political realities under which we all live.

As stated, the proposed framework establishes the following supervisory Trinity:

The three members of the Trinity are to be regarded as forming a whole. None of them is more “important” than the others in properly regulating the banking system. But acting as a whole is not something that would come naturally. On the contrary, we can expect that such essentially self-contained and insular centers of regulatory power would normally operate independently and rarely, if ever, coordinate their actions. Coordination requires external reinforcement in the form of a supervisory committee, some sort of institutional Übermensch sitting atop these institutions to ensure that no regulatory “black hole” exists in which a client-bank could eventually and comfortably fit.

It would be pointless to belabour this issue at this juncture, but one can easily imagine a 5-member board consisting of one member with demonstrable expertise in each of the three newly-minted regulatory functions, but without explicitly belonging to the associated institution, plus two outside appointees. Most of the time, the committee would be idle but would spring into decisive action in times of trouble. One of its first tasks would be the diagnosis of the current problem. As any doctor knows, a misdiagnosis is usually worse than the disease itself.

In a nutshell, we are proposing to do for bank regulation what was done at the dawn of the 20^th Century in the area of corporate governance. The framework proposed hereunder originated in the military with the notion of the “General Staff”’. Some readers may not recall that, prior to the origin of inherently neutral “boards of directors” as we have come to know and love them, all major US corporations were managed based on a different organizational principle, one that might be called the “departmental” principle.

Under this now obsolete framework, each corporation was led by a committee on which sat one member of each functional unit or department. These are things like purchasing, manufacturing, marketing, sales, et cetera. Although this made perfect sense to an outsider unaware of political behaviour, the upshot could easily have been predicted. As soon as a significant problem arose in any area, it became basically impossible for the chair to do anything about it. For instance, if something was amiss in marketing, either in truth or perception, other committee members were forced to stand by and smile, just as they do now in DC, while the head of marketing explained in excruciating detail to a crowd necessarily mesmerized by his marketing talent that, in point of fact, there was “nothing wrong” with marketing at all and that in any event, what could anyone else present at the meeting contribute to the discussion since “you know squat about marketing” was the usual pushback. Yet, each department had to be allowed to operate monolithically and relatively unfettered if it was ever going to achieve the level of functional cohesion and unity required for the proper operation of any reasonably large enterprise.

What was needed, it was felt, was a body no longer subservient to defensive departmental attitudes but, rather, motivated by the welfare of the corporation as a whole. Prior to that time it had been thought, wrongly as it turned out, that if each department head cared deeply about his own area, somehow the corporation would be just fine. The epiphany was the realization that the sum of the parts and the whole are not the same, i.e. that linearity and non-linearity are fundamentally alien. Of course, the average CEO had no clue what to do about this, but the Dupont Corporation was not run by the average CEO. He had a military background he was able to bring to bear on the situation.

The problem back then had been the same, i.e. the Navy would favour the Navy, even at the expense of either victory or an increase in expected casualties. No doubt, the same was true of both the Army and the Air Force. This was a much more serious problem than marketing widgets, so the resolution came quickly with the creation of the General Staff (labeled the JCS in the USA), a body supposedly motivated primarily by the wellbeing of the country and its armed forces without regard for potential glory. At least, that was the military’s best shot within a human, all too human world.

The application of JCS-type thinking to corporate life gave rise to the reorganization of senior management into a body similar in its intent, one that we have come to know as the “board of directors”, i.e. a purportedly independent set of individuals solely concerned with maximizing “shareholder value”, a term taken to mean general corporate health in some global, timeless and non-local sense.

As stated above, each of the three regulatory silos outlined above would soon become exceedingly protective of its own turf and area of expertise, as it should be, and would not be willing to entertain easily the notion that it might be deficient in discharging its functions properly. At that moment, it would be incumbent upon the supervisory committee to arbitrage the differences, real or imaginary, in the perception of the origin of the problem. It is quite acceptable and understandable for people responsible for credit or liquidity risk management across a country like ours to develop a certain degree of pride and arrogance vis-à-vis those challenging its premises. We should all encourage public officials to build esprit de corps and cohesion within their ranks and to think of their particular department as an elite body responsible to no one but itself. Rather than destroy such unity of purpose, our aim is to harness it appropriately.

For some time now, the world of modern finance has been too interconnected and too fluid to allow risk to escape notice through some inadvertent faux pas, which is exactly what happens all too often under the current system, if we may even label such a disparate collection of sundry objectives and worldviews a “system.” We live in a community in which one pseudo-savvy banker can play one regulator against another with impunity within some sordid game of credit risk hide-and-seek. The global village no longer tolerates partition into fiefdoms where Renaissance men and women apparently ply their trade in splendid isolation. What the US banking system needs badly, now more than ever, is a unified view vis-à-vis each of its three main functional areas, one that enables a comprehensive approach to the regulatory dilemma free from dilettantism. What is amazing is not the plain fact that capital rules are now a ship without a rudder, wandering aimlessly from failure to failure, but that the system “performed well” apparently until recently, since its false premises and preconceptions have remained unaltered for over a century. In reality, it was nothing but the historical disconnectedness of the world’s financial centers that was chiefly responsible for the fantasy that global stability was a natural outgrowth of the existing paradigm, instead of what it truly was, i.e. an sheer miracle predicated on the Balkanization of the financial landscape, and slowly simmering in the cauldron of cultural reluctance cum bureaucratic inertia. Our goose started cooking the moment “globalization” became a worldwide leitmotiv. By the way, as far as we can tell globalization is usually a meaningless term based on the notion that a Châteaubriand à la Hollandaise and a Big Mac are both “food”. In case of disagreement, anyone with too delicate a palate can be handled via judicious use of surgical marketing.

Although it is true that the existing regulatory bodies already coordinate their functions and actions to some extent, this is not done with a view to delineating responsibility by functional area the way we have outlined hereunder. Instead, it is simply an attempt to partition the workload by size, scope and political sensitivity. Everyone is still responsible for everything, and this is why things fall between the proverbial cracks. The current system is squarely departmental and therefore, the US needs to move to the “board of directors” concept that seems to work more or less efficiently in the corporate context. In fact, the type of institution we are proposing already exists in the United Kingdom [Board of Banking Supervision] and has performed fairly well throughout the recent turmoil.

Parting Words

If you are still reading, thank you. Admittedly, the foregoing was a bird’s eye view of what we are proposing. If you were looking for meat on the bone, you are no doubt disappointed, but rest assured that technical implementation is the least of our problems compared to the political heavy-lifting needed to convince Congress to re-organize the three august agencies at issue. Believe it or not, the proposed framework is much less onerous in terms of actual and political costs than the existing one. Most of the action happens behind the scenes and, as a result, bankers have a lot more time to do deals than they do now, assuming there are deals to be done at all. As JR Ewing was fond of saying “I reckon I’ll go to my office, while I still got an office!”

Most of the structural elements of our plan are already in place and apart from a change in thinking, something always difficult to achieve inside any institution, only a few administrative and cosmetic changes would be required. Although we have little hope that our framework could ever come to pass, by no means would such failure imply that our spirit was somehow misguided. In fact, if the truth be told, it would mean exactly the opposite.

In the meantime, the American jobs-clock will keep on ticking.

Job description:
MDT Advisers is seeking a few very talented individuals to join its core investment management team. This team is responsible for managing a unique family of quantitative equity strategies with a long history of success.

Qualifications:

• A bachelor’s or advanced degree from a top school with an outstanding record of academic achievement.
• Solid background in one or more quantitative disciplines such as finance, economics, mathematics, statistics, computer science, and operations research.
• Some programming experience. Familiarity with C/C++ or Java a plus.
• Exceptional self-motivation, creativity, and attention to detail.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.

Successful candidates will have the opportunity to contribute to all aspects of the process including investment research, software development, and portfolio management. Analysts’ responsibilities can include analyzing financial data sets, designing and running sophisticated simulations to evaluate potential investment strategies, and developing innovative software tools that help drive our investment process. The precise mix and nature of an individual’s assignments will vary over time and will depend on his or her skills and interests, as well as team goals.

With the relatively flat structure of the Investment Management Team, analysts can gain a high level of responsibility in a short amount of time. In our meritocratic culture, individuals have significant opportunities to contribute and advance.

We offer a very competitive compensation package and an intellectually stimulating work environment. This is an excellent opportunity for individuals with a willingness to work hard and a genuine desire to excel in the investment management business.

Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States.

To apply: Kelly Patel

kpatel@mdtdvisers.com

About employer:
MDT Advisers is a leading quantitative investment management firm. We adhere to a relentlessly disciplined investment philosophy that has produced a long history of success. All of our products are based off of the same fundamentally based, quantitatively driven Optimum Q process introduced in 1991. We now manage over $2 billion across nine different long-only and long-short U.S. equity strategies.