University of California, Berkeley - Master of Financial Engineering

I graduated from this program in 2024 and I have to say that I was very disappointed with the career services. The program director left the MFE program in the middle of placements (sometime in November iirc) and there was no replacement hired. Afaik there is no replacement yet. This was very unprofessional and made a tough job environment even tougher. Apart from 2-3 professors, others dont put effort in teaching. Subject matter taught in the courses is very superficial which is expected since each course is not even taught for 2 months

The MFE is one of the top financial engineering programs and has been since it was started by quant finance legend Mark Rubinstein. The program has maintained its pedigree by employing world class faculty and updating its curriculum to keep up with rapid innovation in the industry. In addition to its traditional quant classes, the MFE has expanded its course catalog to incorporate deep learning, AI, and even a crypto class that straddles the boundary between finance and tech. Due to its location and course catalog, the MFE is well equipped to provide various skill sets depending on each individuals career interests. Between the world class faculty and my diverse cohort of students attracted to the MFE, I had countless opportunities to learn from both my professors and my classmates. The program is incredibly well designed to encourage as much collaboration as possible to encourage you to get to know your classmates and to replicate the experience of working in a professional environment.

The only part of the program that I found less than ideal was that the timeline was a bit awkward. The program starts in March and ends in March with a winter internship period which is fairly atypical. I arrived the first week and found myself immediately applying for internships over the summer and during our winter internship period before I had covered any of the coursework. Despite this, the career advisers have managed to convince firms to create winter internships cycles specifically for this program. It’s not as robust as the traditional summer timeline but it does mitigate some of the opportunities missed from the misaligned timeline. That being said, this timeline isn’t without its perks; it’s only one year long and limits the opportunity cost of spending time in school in lieu of earning a salary and therefore makes it financially more reasonable in the long run than some of the alternatives.

All in all I was extremely thrilled with my experience (despite the whole COVID restrictions and limitations while I was in school) and would strongly recommend to any potential applicant.

Just graduated from UC Berkeley. Excellent professors, seamless exposure to industry gaints, abundant career resources make it one of the wisest decisions for me to choose Berkeley MFE program.

Joining and completing the MFE at UC Berkeley is a challenging and greatly rewarding experience. The program will give students all the tools they need in order to succeed in the quantitative/data industry in a short, intense time. Career services make themselves available at all times and provide valuable advice and great interview opportunities.

I have just graduated from Berkeley's MFE and I can honestly say it has been one of the best decisions of my life.
The teachers are great, the students are competitive and the MFE office is always there for you.
Jacob Gallice, who replaced Linda Kreitzman last year, is extremely efficient to help you find a job and makes every effort possible to find you a job that suits you.

I am the current student at the Berkeley MFE program (class of 2019). This program is great! Linda Kreitzman, the director of our program, is extremely helpful and dedicated, knowing everyone on the wall street. The program is intense, fast-paced, offering state of the art skillsets both in buy-side and sell-side.

I graduated from this program and found it to be outstanding. Linda Kreitzman, the director of the program, is extremely dedicated and her outstanding effort to place students is truly remarkable. The program provides a foundation for careers on the buy side and sell side and several students have gone on to work as data scientists at technology firms. The program is extremely intense and fast-paced, so be ready. The only weakness of the program is that it is relatively far from NYC, although places just as well as other programs there and is well recognized in international financial centers (London, HK, etc.).

I was graduated from this program in 2013. I think It is a great program offered me with systematical training in Quantitative methods, financial knowledge, analytical skills and market intuitions. The career service is helpful to ensure everyone's internship and full time placement.

I am a graduate of this program (class of 2015). This program is outstanding. The faculty are excellent, and the dedication of the program office to the students is inspiring. My background before the MFE was in analysis of PDE, and I came to the program to build that skill set into one that is applicable in a wide variety of settings in the financial services industry.

I am a current student at the Berkeley MFE program. Joining this program has been one of the best decisions in my life so far. This program brings excellent professors, courses, students under one roof in a intensely packed program. The three terms I have taken till now have brought out the best in me (and has made me so tired as well). I did not know I could do so much. I have learnt a lot and feel confident that with a brand like Berkeley Haas MFE, the amazing learning opportunities, the efforts that I have put in and with the career service that one gets here - I will get job offers that I would like to take up. Most people in my batch do feel this way. Having said that its important to stress that this is a very very intense program and apart from technical abilities and intelligence having the right attitude is also very important to do well in the program. Its very easy to get demotivated because you are tested day in and day out ( whether its assignments, exams or interviews) and its not possible for somebody to do well in everything at all point in time. Accepting the fact that its ok to do average or less than average in some or multiple facets is a fact that many students here feel difficult to deal with.The program is competitive but not as much as I thought before joining. Classmates are very helpful. Further though one competes with classmates for jobs one competes with only a subsection for a particular job because people bring different skills are of varied experience and age in here.

I attended the program in 2014. The curriculum structure is amazing. Great balance between academic vs profesional courses. You get chance to meet and taught be some of the reverred name from industry and academia.
Support from MFE office is very helpful. They keep in touch even after you graduate and make sure that you are happy with your current job. They provide us with feedback on our interview skills and resume even before we reach Berkeley. From day one we get seminars from different organizations telling us what they do.
Other than MFE life at Berkeley in general is awesome, and I am very happy that I decided to do MFE from Berkeley.

Excellent professors, career services and alumni network. First and foremost, the alumni network is incredible, and this leads to better collaboration and better job opportunities. I've had countless cases where alumni of the program from prior years (who I don't even know) have taken the time to discuss their positions with me and assist me with potential job opportunities. There is a dense group of alums at the highest tier IBs in NYC, which makes it far more likely that job applications will be well received. In general, career services are top notch, and Linda's team work late into the evenings and weekends to make things happen for you when it comes to internships as well as full time positions. Finally, the caliber of professors is very high, with many being influential practitioners in their fields or famous academics who basically invented whole areas of the quant discipline. You feel like you're in good hands, and you are.

This is a great program. The program director is awesome; she puts in 200% for the students. The placement record is great. The class is great mix of fresh graduates, PhDs and experienced professionals. There is huge learning from great professors and fellow classmates.

Joining this program was honestly the best decision I've ever made. People ask me all the time what sets it apart. First and foremost, the job placement is unmatched thanks to the program director who apparently never sleeps. She's the kind of person who knows your strengths better than you do, and knows how to sell you to your employer while pushing you in the exact direction you need to be truly prepared. And obviously, it never hurts to also have the extensive alumni network that the Berkeley MFE has built over years and years being one of the first programs.

Beyond that, the program really crams your brain with experience, and not just via the internship (which boasted 100% placement when I was there). Most of the curriculum is group work, and you really learn how to work with people, and more specifically, with the types of people you'll be working with in quant finance or data science.

It's not an easy program. It's really geared for those that are thirsting for the challenge of their lives, but it's a challenge that will transform you. Any Berkeley student will tell you a different way their life was changed. For me, beyond all the skills, it was really understanding my strengths-- how I stood out in the context of all these brilliant minds, both in the program and during the internship.

Overall, it's the program that will test your limits, raise them, and set the course for rest of your life.

Amazing program that will change your life. You might not get much sleep during the quick one year duration of the program but the benefits are worth it. Subjects are taught by great, world class pioneers in the field. Everything is taught from a very practical perspective.
Last but definitely not least, my hat's off to Linda for being the best at what she does. Because of her my class has reached 100% placement before our internship period started.

Great program with a great team at the helm. Linda had managed to put together a perfectly balanced program with great professors, theoretical and applied classes and an amazing careers department. From day 1, you're in an environment that pushes you beyond your limits and prepares you for a career in the best institutions. The careers department understood right away what my goals were and worked hard to get me in front of the right people as the right companies to get my dream job. I couldn't have asked for more. My fellow students were also amazingly smart and I learnt as much from them as I did from the classes. The Berkeley MFE put together a group of students and an environment that fosters collaboration and you can see it with all the competitions that Berkeley teams win every year. The program is extremely intense since it's condensed in 1 year so you have to be ready to work really hard, but it's really worth it.

GREAT program with GREAT job placement! It is definitely the BEST. The one-year program is highly efficient in terms of course work and job searching. Everyone is expected to spend two months on 3 courses each quarter, and the contents are compact and useful for real finance industry. The curriculum covers nearly every important topic in finance, from fundamental mathematical theory to practical industrial techniques, taught by well-known professors and industry managers. Although the schedule is intense, every student of UCB MFE is able to do a 3-month internship at the most prestigious financial companies such as Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Blackrock, Barclays, etc. Also, the most important thing is that the EVERY student can be place if you check the placement history, and most of them ended up with great full-time offers afterwards. The strong connection between UCB MFE and industry is out of your imagination, and their top career service has already made its name all over the world.

I sought out an MFE program to switch out of the insurance industry -- and I firmly believe U.C. Berkeley's MFE program has not only helped me achieve that goal, but also went above and beyond in guiding me in the right path.

The program's one-year curriculum makes it particularly intense, and with quarterly schedule, the pace can be mind-bobbling sometimes. Having that said, that type of intensity certainly helped me prepare in going into investment banking!

The faculty is world-class, with some from U.C. Berkeley but others invited from renowned universities in the U.S. and around the world. Although some courses can seem not too useful, there are a number of elective choices you can make to better fit your needs/goals.

Perhaps the highlight of the program is the 3-month fall/winter internship that is truly unique among all MFE programs. Potential employers -- well-renowned investment banks, hedge funds, asset management firms, etc. -- recruit directly from the program, and because of the fall/winter schedule as opposed to the summer, your competition is basically limited to your own classmates instead of with other schools. That type of setup doesn't mean you don't need to work hard, but rather the transparency in the internship search process makes it an openly collaborative one instead of that shrouded in secrecy and opaqueness.

No mention of financial engineering programs would be complete without speaking of U.C. Berkeley MFE's program, and in fact, it is undoubtedly one of the best -- if not the best -- program out there!

Berkeley's MFE is one of the best Master in Finance in the US.

The asset of this program are its excellent academic level and its top placement statistics.
Students learn there the all they need to be successful as a quantitative analyst: the program explains the nuts and bolts of complex financial products as well as how to use programming languages to price them efficiently.

I graduated from this program in March of 2009.
I had an undergraduate and Master's in Computer Engineering prior to joining this program. While I discovered this program accidentally, I was thoroughly impressed by how thorough the admission process was. The admission committee actually guides you through the process and suggests remedial measures to improve upon the experience.

Every one of the reviews here mentions how intense the program is. They are all correct. However, nothing prepares you for this. In addition to the academic component, you also get a lot of detailed career guidance starting from your resume all the way to the firms to target based on your interests/experience etc.

The learning is constant and it is in the form of challenging projects, great teaching, and tough assignments. When you finally reach the end of the program, you will be surprised by how much you have learned.

The focus of learning is in truly understanding the subject matter and not just giving you the ability to prove mathematical proofs.

Owing the fact that the program is part of UCB and Haas and the admission process is challenging, the very best in the world end up in this program. This makes learning from your peers a big part of the learning experience.

As I mentioned above I graduate in March of 2009, perhaps, the toughest job market on record and was easily able to find a position before graduation.

There are many more reasons to join this program, but those ought to cover the most common ones.