Columbia University - Masters in Financial Engineering

Overall a pretty decent program, has a very high placement rate within industry and a very great group of high-quality professors. One of the best financial engineering programs in the country. I will say that people should not use this as a sure-fire way to enter the financial services industry, and that they should not use it to make up for any deficits in skills like coding, excel, or economics. Applicants should also know that living in NYC is expensive and the program is not cheap. Overall though, a pretty decent program with high-quality teaching and robust curriculum.

Getting into Columbia, it really felt like a dream come true. Being in the financial hub of the USA at such a prestigious school felt like a no-brainer. It was definitely a mistake coming here though, it's far too much cost for little reward. They try to sell this "practitioners seminar" which is interesting, but students get nothing out of it besides an hour of their time spent. Don't expect any sort of actual opportunities to come out of it. Some are interesting but most are far too advanced and people don't pay attention. Dr. Ali Hirsa really cares about the students and is extremely smart, but there are too many students admitted for him to really help individuals with internships or really anything specialized.

Students: I met some very cool classmates and the student quality is not bad. However, there is extremely clear cheating in exams. Multiple classmates have been on their phones using AI during exams, and it has not been caught. There are some extremely smart people and overall I'd say classmates exceeded my expectations, but half the class uses ChatGPT to complete every assignment, which is part of todays world, but really invalidates students who work hard. The program is probably about 75% international students who already have multiple related internships or graduate degrees who will take nearly every opportunity offered.

Classes: I actually think the core curriculum is very good, but the teaching is very hit or miss. A class that I think was exceptional was Continuous Time Finance with Dr. Xunyu Zhou; you are getting top tier faculty when coming to this program. The professors are very bright, but a few do not care about the students. Also, the grading schemes are extremely inconsistent which can be quite frustrating. I'd say the quality of professors is good and you learn some really good and interesting stuff, but the cheating and inconsistency really brings this down.

Summer Opportunities: Horrible, really no other way to put it. In the fall, you either have to focus on school or focus on internships, there isn't a very good balance. I would say no more than 30-40% of the program have a legitimate internship, and many of the smartest students in the program got no more than 1 interview. In addition, there are "summer projects" that are just not really worthwhile. Plus, basically no professors do research with Masters students; I suppose this is to be expected but still frustrating. This is by far the most disappointing part of the program.

Career Services: Awful. I truly feel bad in saying this because the career service members are kind, but I felt they could care less about individual students. They post non-unique jobs on the job board, and they have people from industry come to present. If you want to wait for half an hour, if you are lucky and they don't leave, they may see your resume just to do nothing with it. These presentations are completely useless. The career services only sent 1 specialized job out to a handful of students (~15) who worked with them, and there were only 4 total positions with 1-2 Columbia MSFEs landing the jobs. Don't depend on career services at all, you will have to do everything yourself. I went to career services to ask what percentage of students get internship, and I got hit with a "I have no idea" which I feel is pretty representative of this department.

After Graduation: Most people end up taking a mediocre risk job or some job that they don't actually want/transition to another field. The numbers on the website for career placement and salary are nowhere near what I have observed.

Review: The program is very academically interesting, but the payoff is completely not worthwhile. Just a money funnel which will keep getting funding due to the name, but a complete disappointment that a school in NYC with the name of Columbia fails its students, especially in internships. These degrees are supposed to get you into industry, and at least interviews, but this program fails at it. I wish I had good things to say, but this program needs to have reforms.

Courses:
The program has put more emphasis on AI and ML related courses as of late; you'll get a plethora of robust electives touching on these topics. There are some project based AI courses worth noting, where throughout the semester you work on an industry submitted project. At the end of the semester you present your project to professionals from the company that submitted it, and I know of several students that received job opportunities from the collaborating employer.

On the other hand, the program lacks CS related courses for someone wanting to go more into a software developer, quantdev or HFT role, and very few CS courses have been approved for registration.

The courses themselves are highly demanding, not necessarily in terms of the difficulty or complexity of the topics, — you'll be able to follow the material with a strong undergraduate background in math — but in terms of the workload. So, this is a strong point if you are looking for an academically demanding program, but it can also be a weakness if your priority is landing an internship and you might need more time for applications and interview prep.

Career Services:
They have a personalized career advisor for MFE students. They do a great job in bringing companies to give talks on campus, and this opens opportunities to network with people in industry. Like many other schools, they have a portal exclusive for Columbia students with jobs being posted on a daily basis.
I know several MFE students that received emails from people working at top financial companies, with a message saying that a career service person from Columbia passed them your resume and they invite you to apply for their internship program.
Moreover, the program career team will send update emails throughout the first year, to know who has and hasn't obtained an internship yet. For those that haven't, they will send your resume to companies they have connections with to help you land an internship before the end of the spring.

I personal criticism is the use of VMock for resume, cover letter and elevator pitch compulsory submissions. You'll end up making detrimental changes to your work to merely get the necessary points to satisfy the requirement.

Nonetheless, at the end of the day it will be up to each student to land a job or summer internship. So, don't expect to get one for merely being in the Columbia program.

Alumni:
Columbia MFE alumni currently work in many top financial firms. The program will organize a couple events throughout the year that will allow you to meet recent grads working in industry and be able to create the rapport that will enable you to ask them for a referral, but I feel it wasn't enough. Many were the times I would see MFE Columbia alumni on LinkedIn that I wish more networking events were organized to meet and speak to them properly — to know them enough so they would be comfortable in putting in a good word about you when applying for a job with their employer.

Current Campus Status:
I have to admit that when I was there, the current campus protests made campus life burdensome. What was previously an open campus integrated with the surrounding community, became an entire block guarded with barricades and city police, restricting campus access to students and faculty only. This is not the program's fault, but it is something worth considering since it can have a detrimental impact on the graduate school experience.

Academics:

Core topics include optimization, stochastic models, statistics/time series, monte carlo, financial engineering / options pricing. The program had real professors (research, tenure track) teaching most of the core classes which was good. From the core courses, I thought statistical analysis taught by Professor Agostino Capponi was well structured. It gave a good balance between rigor, for understanding the theory, and just knowing, for application purposes. Professor Capponi is a great teacher as well. Unfortunately there were some professors who didn't seem to care enough. A lot of courses were not well structured nor carefully treated, resulting in a poor learning experience and not a real understanding of the material. Perhaps due to the relatively diverse educational backgrounds of the students in the program, they cannot develop the subjects more rigorously. Some classes were just speeding through lecture notes to cover the topics. Because of this, don't expect to get an understanding of how to think about problems which you haven't already seen before. Many students have already learned the core subjects, so they have an advantage when it comes to the tests, as it should be since it's only fair. But the poor course structure and teaching only increases the disparity in exam grades, which I believe is a problem, particularly so with regards to difficult tests in topics like SDEs, stochastic calculus, stochastic integration.

You need 36 credits to graduate. The core is 18 credits. There is a list of pre-approved electives (not the one on the program website) and you can also apply to get a course not on list approved as an elective. They are relatively lenient with what gets approved, as long as it is somewhat relevant and quantitative / analytical. I'm not sure how unique this is to this program, but I was still really appreciative of the opportunity to have classes outside of the program or even from other departments.

Students:

Some students were caught cheating by having the solutions to a final exam beforehand. Not sure how that happened. There are a lot of smart students though, and I think most are pretty nice people.

Practitioner Seminar:

The talks based on industry research papers were too complicated and most people got nothing out of it. I didn't like the fact that there was a required 500 word reflection after every seminar, it doesn't create the right incentives.

Career Prospects:

A lot of students have struggled to get summer internships. Career services is generic and not specialized. They use AI to grade your resume. Basically don't expect them to place you into a job with connections, you need to do it yourself. You may see some decent placements come out from the program but it's not the program that elevated them to that position. They were already at that level and they came for the brand name / visa. MFE programs in general will not place you into HFT, prop trading, buy side quant research, etc. If that is your only goal, there are better ways to achieve it.

Program / Department:

One cannot ignore the fact that the IEOR department runs 5 MS programs in their department totaling ~800 people per graduating class. That's a lot of people with very similar degrees competing for jobs. That means each student and program loses its value and it would suggest that the department does not care about the MFE nor any of the other 4 programs.

If you are an international student who just needs a visa, this is probably a good pick for you. Otherwise, I would probably look at other programs, including those outside of MFE/FinMath programs .

A once highly regarded program that seems to now be skating by on brand name and proximity to the world's largest financial market.

The courses are taught my extremely bright and accomplished professors. However, the quality of instruction from those professors can be hit or miss. Additionally, the program focuses heavily on pricing -- a job niche that is dwindling in prospects.

It is a fair to say that there is only so much that career services can do, it is, ultimately, up to the candidate to be prepared and industrious. However, there were instances where I questioned why my tuition was being used to pay for the career services professionals at all. They were unresponsive, not even responding to my inquiries of whether or not I was in the resume book (a simple logistical request). One even told me to try to get my old job back, where I was in a completely different field prior to the FE program. Anecdotally, I had one quant tell me he chose the Berkeley FE program over Columbia's due to the reputation of career services.

1. Admission Process:
Columbia's MSFE was one of a handful of programs I applied to. The application was fairly standard (grades, experience, scores, essays, etc.) and the decision came back around mid-February which was ahead of most of the other responses.

2. Courses/Instruction Quality:
I think instruction quality could be greatly improved. Some professors were amazing while others skimmed the material, seeming to assume that we knew everything already. One thing to note is that much of the material is extremely theoretical, and so independent study is necessary to see how a lot of it can actually be applied. The material is very difficult as well, and I will say that most classes are graded on a curve, so don't freak out if you "fail" a test. For example, my overall grade in one class was a 59% and that came out to a B+.

All that being said, I think the classes are a great way to tell if you want to be in the industry. I had a difficult time with the material, but knew I wanted to pursue this path when I realized that I loved doing it anyway. The professors are smart and able to answer any questions you have, and I really feel like a whole new world of information was opened up to me through this program. I also feel like it pushed me to learn "how to learn" and increased my curiosity.

3. Career Services:
In this section, I can't say much. When I visited career services I got some guidance about how to write better bullets on my resume, but I didn't get much beyond that. I went again to ask about how to be better when looking for a job or networking and was basically told to keep doing what I was doing. Friends in the program told me they got the same thing.

I would also mention that every other week there are speakers from the industry that come to talk about what they do at work. One speaker in particular inspired me and I tried multiple ways to get in contact to learn more, but got nothing back. This experience was eye-opening for me and I think it would be accurate to say that unless you're a top student or unique in some other way, you're pretty much on your own when it comes to career matters.

4. Overall:
Overall I loved the material of the program and realize I needed it to learn more about this sector of finance. However, as a middle-of-the-pack student, it felt like I was a bit worthless in the eyes of the professors and admin.

5. Misc:
If you join this program, make sure to start networking with anyone and everyone you can as soon as you get the decision. Also make sure to start studying things like the green book and applying to internships/jobs as soon as possible so you have the best chance of finding something.

1. Admission Process
Quickest decision I received. Nothing out of ordinary.

2. Course/Instruction Quality
I come from Math background and did not know much about quant finance industry before coming into the program, so keep that in mind.
Many of the courses did not meet my expectations. Some were unclear in their exposition, some did not provide much insight, and some were ridden with errors and typos. There are many courses where you're in pretty good hands and clearly what you'll get out of the courses will depend a lot on your experience and technical maturity, but overall, I feel several courses suffer from mediocre materials and nonchalant (busy? incompetent?) professors and TAs.

That said, this is Columbia after all and there are several excellent courses and professors if you look hard enough in IEOR/CS/MATH departments that will keep you busy through 3 semesters.

3. Career Service Support
I don't think I've used or benefited much from it. Did get some emails from great firms through the resume book. Many deplore the career service of this program, and sure, I would have benefited from some materials and guidelines to prepare for job hunting before the start of the program, (I had no idea BBs recruit so early and I started my application around October) but I'm not sure if it's fair to ask much more than that. I feel securing a job comes down to your preparedness, nothing more and nothing less. (Granted, I don't have enough info about how quant recruiting works other than regular application and about what other programs career support offers, so maybe it is as bad as others say it is.)

4. Overall
Luckily, I got what I wanted out of the program, and believe have developed a good foundation to build upon throughout my career. Do I think it's the best quant program out there? Probably not. Do I think other 'top' programs outside NYC are a much better option to break into the industry? I doubt it. The program will do its part of the job well enough if you do yours.

1. Career service with advanced AI techniques (tutors will use chatgpt to edit your resume)
2. Fast-selling career events, tickets are often sold out very quickly and no spot is reserved for FE (real target) students
3. Some professors' lectures (core module) are like bringing me back to my childhood. (Poor lectures, terrible recordings, poor notes, vague definitions and hard questions)
4. More opportunities to be with your family after graduation. Lower employment rate compared to other Top quant programs means you have to go back to your mother country.

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
Electrical Engineering from the best engineering institute in India. Two years of experience as a Quant in one of the big sell side firms.

Did you get admitted to other programs?
Yes. I applied to Columbia MFE & CMU MSCF programs. I got admitted to both of them.

Tell us about the application process at this program
Standard application form, followed by an informal interview with one of the professors in the department.

Does this program offer refresher courses for incoming students? How useful was it?
There was a 2 week refresher course to bring us up to speed with Statistics and basic Math. There was also a Professional Development course to cover resume writing and LinkedIn, which is useful for candidates who don't have a lot of experience with the US job hunting experience.

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
The mandatory courses covered the basics - Machine Learning, Big Data, Stochastic Calculus, Data Analysis, Monte Carlo Simulation etc.,
The electives gave us the exposure to the industry - FX Markets, Algo Trading, Advanced Programming, Asset Allocation etc,

Tell us about the quality of teaching
Most of the professors here are some of the smartest you will come across.

Materials used in the program
A combination of presentations, recorded videos, class notes and reference books.

Programming component of the program
Matlab/Python/C++ - Mostly you can choose any programming language to do your assignments and projects. There were also a couple of courses where we could improve our programming skills

Projects
Some of the courses had some course projects associated with them, though all of them were pretty minor.

Career service
Got a few calls from the resume book, but this largely depends on your prior experience. There are networking events, some organised by the program. The career coaches are very busy and have very little time for one-on-one interactions and giving customised feedback. Much of the internship/full time job finding process would be applying for companies on your own and converting them in the interviews.

What do you like about the program?
Great professors and excellent and competitive peers. Location being in NYC is a huge plus and the brand value of the program definitely carries some weightage. Most of the courses are catered for us to be industry and interview ready. So, if a candidate is on top of his/her courses and resume, it would be a huge plus for the interviews.

What DON’T you like about the program?
Not enough help from the career placement team. There will be lots of competition across different programs and universities and I wish we were given some additional edge in the internship hunting process.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
More help from the career placement team.

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
I worked for 5 years as a quant at one of the big sell side banks. Currently working as a buy side quant for 2 years.

I'm finishing the program in December and it was not good at all, especially when looking for a job/internship. Overcrowded networking events, non-existent prep for interviews, wasted time on "practitionerseries" that add no value and waste time. Basically, if you come here, you will have to find a job on your own with no support from the school; hope you knew some people in the industry before you joined. Otherwise, your best bet is ending up at a bank in the back office on risk.

The actual education is also a pretty subpar product. I can read lecture notes for free online that are more clear concise than what is provided by professors. Almost every class, you spend your time listening to a professor reading off the notes themselves and running through the information as fast as they can in a classroom before having you teach yourself on the homework/recitations. Some professors (plural) actually left teaching to their TAs by the end of the semesters. Bad product all around.

I am writing this in Nov 2023.

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
Electronics engineer from a premier institute in India. Plenty of experience as a trader in financial markets.
Current student at Columbia MSFE program(03/13/2017)

Did you get admitted to other programs?
Yes. Columbia was the top on my list though. Had offers from GaTech and a few others.

Tell us about the application process at this program
Smooth interview process. Focuses more on the GRE Quant score compared to other programs.

Does this program offer refresher courses for incoming students? How useful was it?
There was a 15 day refresher course, but it was quite basic really. Not sure what would have helped though, because in my case I was coming back to academics after a large break. Professional Development course to cover basic resume writing/Linkedin profile etc. which every other program has as well.

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
ML, Optimization, Stochastic Calculus, Data Analysis - standard courses. There are a few good buy side courses as well, where you get a little hands on experience with some good projects - Asset Allocation and Algo Trading.

Tell us about the quality of teaching
Some professors here are quite brilliant I think. Some are alright when it comes to teaching. As said before - all do good work.

Materials used in the program
Presentations, recorded videos, class notes, some reference books.

Programming component of the program
Matlab/Python/C++ - Mostly you can choose any programming language to do your assignments and projects. Programming I thought was the easiest skill to pick up here.

Projects
I have taken some good projects in Asset Allocation and algorithmic trading classes so far. Plan to do a few more in machine learning.

Career service
Got a few calls from the resume book - even without applying for the positions, but I think it depends on the past experience you have as well. There are plenty of networking events, plus you will be in New York. You will definitely get interviews from top firms if you are here, but to convert them will be up to you.

Can you comment on the social interaction between students of different ethnics, nationalities in the program?
I think this could be better.

What do you like about the program?
Standard courses which cover all the basics needed in Quantitative finance. Enough flexibility to choose from whatever add on skill you want to acquire.

What DON’T you like about the program?
Not enough focus on the buy side. Also, I wish I knew how important statistics were before coming here. Some earlier interviews would have gone much more smoothly.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
Better refresher course. Add a few really good programming courses as well.

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
Will be doing my internship at a buy side firm in the summer. Looking for full time opportunities later on.

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
Finance background, no work experience before the program.

Did you get admitted to other programs?
Cornell MFE, Chicago MSFM.

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
Not a difficult choice.

Tell us about the application process at this program
There was no problem, a timely process.

Programs like Baruch MFE, UCB MFE have refresher courses for incoming students. Does this program offer such courses? How useful was it?
They used to have pre term. But it was cancelled.

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
Python/SQL. Data Analysis, Optimization for FE, Continuous-time Models, Quantitative Risk Management.

Tell us about the quality of teaching
The quality of teaching was very good. Teaching assistants were very responsible. They were changing to teach more practical stuff on statistics and programming rather than just pricing.

Materials used in the program
Primarily professor lecture notes.

Programming component of the program
Python, C++, R, Matlab. They were shifting to practical programming tools like Python/R, which was pretty helpful for job interview.

Projects
In the Fall Semester mostly individual homework. Group and individual projects on various topics are done in the Spring esp on selective courses. Those courses are not as difficult as core courses.

Career service
Mainly the Center for Career Education at Columbia, also MSFE Resume Book, some positions through the department.

Can you comment on the social interaction between students of different ethnics, nationalities in the program?
Good social interaction between different ethnical groups and nationalities. Of course, people having the same mother language would prefer communicating more in it to people from their countries rather than in English.

What do you like about the program?
Good brand, very good faculty, courses are practical.

What DON’T you like about the program?
Career service is not that strong compared to CMU/Baruch etc.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
Establish better relationships with the financial industry in order to improve career placement.

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
Entry level at Morgan Stanley.

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
Mathematics and Economics background with no work experience prior to the program - only 1 internship.
I studied full-time in the program from 7/2009-5/2010

Did you get admitted to other programs?
Cornell MFE, CMU MSCF, LSE Applicable Math.

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
Best brand name among offers.

Tell us about the application process at this program
There was no problem, a timely email response.

Programs like Baruch MFE, UCB MFE have refresher courses for incoming students. Does this program offer such courses? How useful was it?
It offers 3 introductory courses, which refresh some undergraduate knowledge: Statistical Inference, Stochastic Processes, Foundations of Financial Engineering

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
Security Pricing, Data Analysis, Continuous-time Models, Quantitative Risk Management.

Tell us about the quality of teaching
The quality of teaching was good, as professors have practical experience in finance. Teaching assistants are helpful for homework assignments.

Materials used in the program
Primarily professor lecture notes. Textbooks used mainly as reference, or recommended reading, rarely required.

Programming component of the program
Matlab, Excel VBA, C++, S-Plus, Java. A good amount of programming is done- about 1/2 of assigned problems.

Projects
In the Fall Semester only individual homeworks. Group and individual projects on various topics are done in the Spring.

Career service
Mainly the Center for Career Education at Columbia, also MSFE Resume Book, some positions through the department.

Can you comment on the social interaction between students of different ethnics, nationalities in the program?
Good social interaction between different ethnical groups and nationalities. Of course, people having the same mother language would prefer communicating more in it to people from their countries rather than in English.

What do you like about the program?
Prestigious academic institution, very good faculty.

What DON’T you like about the program?
Not stellar career service.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
Establish better relationships with the financial industry in order to improve career placement. Even more core courses.

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
Still looking for a position in Structuring/Risk management and others.

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
Majored in Applied Math in Columbia and had two summer internships at Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs.
I studied full-time in the program from 07/2009-05/2010

Did you get admitted to other programs?
Yes, NYU Math Finance and NYU-Poly MFE.

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
Its reputation and my love for the Columbia community that I developed as an undergrad.
Tell us about the application process at this program
Very timely process

Does this program offer refresher courses for incoming students? How useful was it?
They had a stat course, a stochastic processes course, and an intro to financial engineering course, all of which were very useful.

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
Optimization, monte carlo, data analysis, continuous time models... all very useful.

Tell us about the quality of teaching
Some were great and some were not so great. All were brilliant though.

Materials used in the program
Mainly class notes. Few textbooks were used.

Programming component of the program
Matlab, vba, c++, sql. There was a decent amount.

Projects
There weren't many projects in the courses I took. There were many hw assignments.

Career service
They had a resume book, and a career website. There were also many networking events. Columbia is relatively good at placing people, but does not do so well in a bad economy.

Can you comment on the social interaction between students of different ethnics, nationalities in the program?
There were some language barriers, but everyone seemed to get along just fine.

What do you like about the program?
Smart teachers who have worked in the industry.

What DON’T you like about the program?
Some of the teachers could be better at teaching.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
Perhaps have online notes for each class to allow students the opportunity to teach themselves.

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
I will be working at Morgan Stanley in July 2010