University of Minnesota Financial Mathematics program

The MFM Program at the U of M has a deep relationship with the Mathematics Department, Minnesota Center for Financial and Actuarial Mathematics (MCFAM), and the quant finance community especially in the twin cities area, which turns out to be the key advantage this program has in terms of education, research, and job placement. While most of the math courses are taught by professors from the top-ranked math department, the finance and practitioner courses are taught by industry professionals usually with 10+ years of experience, most of whom also graduated from this program. This combination, together with the structure of the courses (mostly taught in evenings, some with online options), provides students in the MFM program both breadth and depth of the math, finance, statistics and computer science knowledge highly sought after in today's quantitative job market as well as the opportunity to network and explore possible career paths.

I had only a Finance undergraduate degree with very limited knowledge in other areas coming into this program. However, through the first year, I was able to gain hands-on programming skills through projects in FM5091/2 and a solid math preparation in FM5001/2. I also benefited from the network and reputation established by the MFM program instructors/alumni in that I got my first quantitative internship at Allianz Life, regarding which I would be specially thankful to our career advisor, Laurie Derechin, without whose help this could never have happened. The second year tends to be a lot harder for me since I'm working part-time and taking 3 classes at the same time. But looking forward, I am more confident than ever that I will better achieve my career goals since I am building up my own networks in my career and the courses also become more rewarding than the first year as we have a 6-module sequence in FM5031/2 taught exclusively by practitioners from both the twin cities and Chicago, whose experience cover a huge spectrum of quantitative finance and often touch upon cutting edge ideas/theories in this field.

The MFM program is already one of the top quant finance programs in the US. But every year there have always been a lot of additions to this program, either professors, facilities, or something else. And as the development of the program as well as the expanding network/influence throughout the country, the MFM program is certainly going to be one of the 1st tier Quant Finance programs in the US, even globally.

I will be graduating this May and I really appreciate all the help I got through this program.

Academically, MFM has a well set system of courses, ranging from deep math to necessary coding and quant finance knowledge. In addition, you always have your choices to choose a minor or just register for some classes of your interest.

Aside from the coursework, we are a top program in Minnesota and we have an excellent alumni network nationwide and especially locally. Teachers and seniors are always willing to share their experience, which helped me a lot to decide where my interest lies in the quant field and also build my personality. My coffee meetings with alumni have taught me to always be grateful and contribute, which I believe will benefit my whole life.

I graduated last year in May and got an offer in US within 2 months after graduation. I know some of you might have heard people saying "if you want to find a job in US, then choose the schools located in NY or so", which is not so true from my stand of point, you still have many good chances here, and we have quite a lot successful examples as proof.
I have a bachelor degree of applied mathematics. even so, I have largely expanded my mathematical knowledge. Also, the programming class 5091/5092 as well as other practical coding trainings in 5031/5032, will give you a prepared programming skill of being a quant.

I graduated from the MFM program about tow and half years ago. Here is my unbiased testimony for the MFM program.

1. Academic
In my opinion this program has a very strong academic curriculum with a perfect balance between theory and practice. The program starts with solid math preparation on topics including stochastic calculus and extensive programming in C# in the first year. These classes will help you build a solid foundation on the math theories and programming skills which will benefit you in a variety of positions in the financial industry. I am still benefiting from a lot of the concepts I learned from the math and programming class today as a quant. In the second year of the program it will teach you how to apply the math theories into practice. You will be taught about almost all the financial derivatives you can name, bond, future, forward, swap, swaption, MBS, etc. And believe me you will be asked a lot of questions about these financial products depending on the role that you are interviewing. Most of the teachers (if not all, especially in the second year's class) are either from industry or have extensive experience working in the industry. Some of them are quant modeler, some of them are very experienced traders. By simply talking to them will get yourself a lot of market insights. Another good thing is that the program also have a winter workshop available during the winter break which I personally like it a lot. You will be able to have exposure to some very interesting practical projects like CCAR, hedging strategy, fixed-income modeling, even machine learning, with the guidance of an industry practitioner. This is a perfect time to strengthen your understanding about those theories and apply them to solve real-world problem. One thing I want to remind all the prospective students is that don't be afraid of talking to the teachers. All of them are super nice and helpful. What's more important is that they are all very experienced, often times you will find that most of your concerns about study/career development will be resolved by just talking to them.

2. Career Development
I am sure a lot of prospective students may have concerns about the location of UMN. Sure this is not New York, but the flip side is that you won't be easily distracted by the "fancy" things going on out there. There are also quite a lot big companies headquartered in Minnesota as well - U.S. Bank, UnitedHealth Group, Cargill, Best Buy, Travelers etc. The executive director of the MFM program, Laurie Derechin, provides valuable career advice and works diligently to help student to find a job. She is super nice, always there to help. I constantly "bother" her for career concerns even after graduation. She will patiently communicate with you, help you to figure out your career path and connect you to the alumni from industry. She will hold seminars and mock interview practice sessions regularly to get students comfortable with real interviews. She will send out recruiting information regularly and push students to apply for the jobs. I can't say enough about how much she cares about the MFM students. Personally, I got an internship at a big bank through the recruiting information she sent out (every MFM students will receive the same recruiting information!). As far as I know, a lot of students find their jobs or get job offers through the internal recruiting information and the opportunity is not only limited to Minnesota area. I would suggest the prospective students to pay more attention to the internal job information and be more active because there is a much higher probability to get an offer from there than applying yourself because typically the recruiter has some connections to the MFM program or Laurie herself. I think the MFM program pays a lot of attentions to the placement of their students and as I said above, Laurie is a super helpful resource to talk to if you have any concerns regarding career development.

Last but not least, I want to say - don't limit yourself. There is a lot of things you can do. If you set up a clear goal, establish a step-by-step plan and stick to it, you will eventually get there. You can read market news every day, join a quant club and do some modeling projects every week, meet and talk with a industry practitioner every month, sign up the CFA and FRM program. The point is that the resources that the MFM program at UMN is more than enough to help you achieve your goal, but eventually it's yourself to define who you want to be.

I graduated from the MFM program back in 2015 and thought it was a great program to help launch my career in the financial industry.

Before joining the program, I didn't have any experience in finance, but had the technical skills necessary for modeling and programming.

The MFM program bridged that gap, and helped me learn about various financial concepts and subjects (option pricing, portfolio management, risk management, etc.. Also, the program provide a way to practice my programming and analytical skills in a controlled setting, but with real world examples and projects which I could use to impress interviewers.

I secured a job during my second year of the program at a large regional bank in a Capital Markets risk management team, and have since moved on to a Quant role in the credit risk department.

The programming skills honed during the program helped build a great foundation for the work I'm doing now.

I graduated from U of Minnesota's Master of Financial Mathematics (MFM) in class of 2018. I enjoyed every bit of it -taught by top-notch industry practitioners and faculty, I gained a lot of in-depth knowledge in areas such as: Derivative pricing , Quantitative risk management, Fixed income,MBS, Stochastic Calculus,Non-linear Optimization, Data Modelling, Markov Chains and programming (Python, MATLAB ,C#) etc.

The program also offers fantastic career development services through student workshops, 1-on-1 career advising and a vibrant alumni network.

MFM prepared me adequately to take on my first job as a front-end Quant pricing electricity derivatives. I get to build quantitative models in VBA and python. Knowledge about derivative pricing, counter-party credit risk and montecarlo simulation have also been pivotal in excelling in my job.

A good program offers you a lot of opportunities to learn from practitioners and participate in activities in the financial community in the twin cities. Good reputation among local firms.

The Master of Financial Mathematics Program at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities is one of the top programs in financial mathematics/financial engineering. The courses offered in the program are comprehensive, covering a wide range of topics from mathematical background in finance (probability and measure theory, stochastic calculus, statistics, time series, optimization) to practical applications (options, futures and other derivatives, risk and asset allocation, fixed income markets, copula models and MCMC, volatility models, mortgage backed securities) to computer programming (MATLAB, C#, Excel VBA) in financial engineering. The rigorous coursework and challenging projects are beneficial to all who are interested in pursuing a career in quantitative finance. The faculty members (both professors from the University and practitioners from the industry) are nice and knowledgeable. The fellow students are smart and hard-working. The executive director of the program is very supportive of the students with respect to their job search, placement and career development. Graduates from the program land very decent jobs in the finance industry. In addition, the tuition of the program is relative low compared to similar programs in the US, and the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities has one of the most beautiful campuses I have ever seen. Overall, the Master of Financial Mathematics program at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities has a lot to offer, and I highly recommend those of you who are interested in financial mathematics/financial engineering to apply and come to the program!

Good program and we can learn a lot in the modeling workshop and projects from the course work. The advisor is very helpful in job hunting and can always give a lot of good suggestion.

MFM program in UMN provides the opportunity to learn quantitative finance skills directly from industry professors around Minnesota and Chicago area. It holds weekly seminar on Friday evening which invites distinguished academic professor such as Steve Shreve and quant finance professional such as Peter Carr. Its student club Financial Mathematics Association (FMA) invites alumni and practitioners to come to communicate and network with current students. FMA also holds quant finance career fair and networking event each year. MFM program provides a lot of opportunities for students to participate in projects with professors or industry. There are few I must mention here. The winter modeling workshop holding each year is a 10-day workshop on Financial Mathematics Modeling every winter between Fall and Spring Semesters.Students will work in teams of up to 6 students under the guidance of a mentor from the financial modeling/trading sector. The mentor will help guide the students in the modeling process, analysis and computational work associated with a real-world financial modeling/trading problem. A progress report from each team will be scheduled during the period. In addition, each team will be expected to make an oral final presentation and submit a written report at the end of the 10-day period. The others are like several nationwide/university/CME group trading competitions, IAFE academic case competition and so on. The directors make lots of efforts in career placement. The program is improving day by day.

Minnesota Center for Financial and Actuarial Mathematics (MCFAM) where MFM program is landed in held a successful summer symposium Modeling Risk in Banking and Insurance: Catching the Next Crisis at July, 2013 which was also endorsed by IAFE (http://iafe.org/html/MCFAMJuly2013.htm). Students and practitioners came together for an intensive three day symposium which looked at the broad overview of risk taxonomy and regulation and then delved deeper into specific risk modeling areas for both banking and insurance. In addition to the detailed sessions on risk modeling, risk leaders from Securian Financial Group, US Bank, Wells Fargo, The Travelers Companies and Allianz Life participated in a panel discussion to pinpoint the impact of new regulation on their businesses, including the challenges and open issues.

The courses in MFM program include FM5091, FM5092 which are Computation, Algorithms and Coding in Finance; FM5001, FM5002 which are Preparation for Financial Mathematics; FM 5011, FM5012 which are Mathematical Background for Finance; FM5021, FM5022 which are Mathematical Theory Applied in Finance; FM5031, FM5032 which are Practitioners Course. Most of students will complete all the coursework in two years. Besides all the financial mathematics courses, students have access to almost any course in department of mathematics, finance, economics, statistics, computer sciences and so on.

For application, the deadline is Feb 1. And first round offer will be sent out on Mar 15 and second round at May 1.

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
Bachelor Degree on Telecommunications Engineering from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China.
Working Experience: No working experience.
GPA:87/100
Revised GRE: 314
IELTS:7.0
Enrolled:2012

Did you get admitted to other programs?
Yes

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
Reputation of the university and the reasonable tuition rates.

What alternative sources of info you used to learn more about the program?
Quantnet, Friends.

Tell us about the application process at this program
Application is straight forward. No paper documents are needed until you are admitted. Waiting list is applicable in this program.

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
Course structure in this program is kind of rigid. No elective courses are available. But students can minor in other majors, like Management , Statistics, Computer Science etc.

Tell us about the quality of teaching
Good. The instructors are experienced practitioners from the realm quantitative finance. And some of them may only focus on a specific field of the industry instead of having round knowledge of quant finance like full time professors.

Materials used in the program
John.C Hull - Options, Futures, Derivs Stochastic Processes - Lawler

Projects
The modelling workshop here is of great value, in addition to other course related projects.

Career service
Our executive director has great connection with the industry and she is always very happy to help us in finding an intern and full time job. Every week, we have some training on improving interviewing skills.

What do you like about the program?
Good overall. The faculty is working hard on this program. Classmates around you are excellent, many of our who are already have jobs and you could learn a lot from them. The finance industry in Minneapolis is quite competitive.

What DON’T you like about the program?
Course structure could be improved. No electives, not enough diversification. And now students only need to take 8 courses to graduate while 10 to 12 is the normal number for a graduate program.

C# instead of C++ is taught in the program. Almost all the core courses rely solely on Matlab, instead of object-oriented programming languages. C# is taught in the first year and then is kind of abandoned in the second year.

The program is new relative to others and more connections with the industry could be built in the future. But the program is making its effort towards that goal.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
Improve course structure. Strike a balance of the numbers of practitioner and that of full time professor in the instructors team. More connections with the industry.

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
Intern at a software development company now. Seeking a full time job in the coming year.

This review was submitted anonymously

Nice program mainly because the people and stuff are excellent.
if you are eager to learn something, you can have quite a lot of options of minor in statistics, economics and computer science which are also quite helpful when you are searching jobs in US.
This is one of the high valuable programs across the country and I believe with Laurie's efforts, we are building the reputation in different areas now.

Did you get admitted to other programs?
Yes

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
Reputation of the university and the math dept, and comparative lower tuition rates.

What alternative sources of info you used to learn more about the program?
Quantnet, forums and alumni.

Tell us about the application process at this program
Application is quite simple and twp essays are needed. No paper documents are needed until you are admitted.

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
All courses required are set and no elective. However, students can choose an emphasis, includes Economics, Statistics, Computer Science, etc. Normally, three additional courses in specific area can even qualify you to gain a minor several course requirements are satisfied.

Tell us about the quality of teaching
Good. Most instructors are experienced practitioners from the industry and very nice to answer questions and to share those hands-on experience. Besides knowledge of quantitative finance from the book, those industry professors can bring more practical perspectives and tell you more about how those theories are implemented in real practice. Some of them are particularly focus on a specific field and bring their expertise which inspires and benefits students a lot.

Materials used in the program
John.C Hull - Options, Futures, Derivs Stochastic Processes - Lawler

Projects
Many course projects, traditional in the quant finance field, are required and they are all arranged in a very practical sense. In addition, the winter modelling workshop brings in some currently popular projects for students to investigate and is indeed valuable.

Career service
Great career service with one-by-one mentoring and the directors are always there and very helpful in providing valuable advice. Regulary weekly career workshops are held to prepare students to be more competitive in job hunting. They are trying to connect with industry practitioners and start arranging important networking event in the field of both actuary and quant finance. Regular yearly netwroking event, winter modeling workshop are good examples. And the recently help risk management symposium is quite successful, with involvement of many successful practitioners as speakers and very well-designed speech contents covering most popular risk mgmt topics in both the actuary and bank sides. We can witness that the placement quality is improving.

What do you like about the program?
Overall, it is a good program especially when comparing the quality/price ratio. Directors and faculty are passionate, with their continuing effort to improve the program. We can see the great improvement and the growing reputation of the program, so great potential is one of the biggest merits that worths our particular attention to the program. Many intelligent classmates including those part-time students, some of who are already in the industry, and it has quite a good reputation in the finance area of Minneapolis.

What DON’T you like about the program?
Course structure is not flexible and the location may be a disadvantage for the program. So more efforts to expand its reputation in a brader area are needed. In addition, more oop language based practices are needed for students to implement the quant finance knowledge.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
Provide more course selections in order to let the students design a more flexible course structure. Also the names of courses should be modified to specify content of the course.

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
Summer intern in a small company participating in derivatives valuation. Start seeking full-time position in the coming year.

A nice program with instructors who are experienced practitioners from the industry. And during the study period, the program will offers you a lot of opportunities to learn from reality and participate in activities

It is hard to find so delicate a program which strikes a wonderful balance between theory and practice. Backed up by the strong faculty of mathematical department, this umn program is destined to gain a lot more success in the near future. No reason to miss it!

It is part of one of the most important department of mathematics in the world that is way it combine a strong preparation of math skills and theory with the regular seminar with real practioners of the quantitative finance sector.
Students obtein the advises of people working in the field and work to solve real problems getting experience an knowledge of the labor market.
The Director is really working on having a great labor placement, so there is a big percentage of students who finish the program having a job.
It is a great program to enroll, and is getting more and more important.

This MFM program fosters both mathematical skills and business astuteness. As a quant analyst, I have to be a bridge between highly technical researchers and business people. Because many of our MFM instructors were from different areas within the quant finance industry, they not only taught us advanced mathematical theories but also how to fully leverage our unique quant skills in a business setting. Also I really liked the program's career development support. It opened my mind and got me focused on building my career rather than just looking for a job. I was able to talk with my MFM career coach often. She helped me network and take advantage of MCFAM’s broad practitioner network. From talking to many successful people already in the industry, I gradually got a clear picture of what kind of financial field I wanted to be in.

One of the main reasons I chose the MFM program at the University of Minnesota was that many of the MFM faculty are not only Math PhDs, they are also practicing quants, risk managers and traders. The curriculum gave me a strong foundation in the theoretical math required to get a deep understanding in the math finance applications taught later on in the program. The practitioners’ course with multiple modules taught by industry practitioners and the intensive year-long programming course using problems from finance greatly enhanced the skills I use in my quantitative risk analyst job today.

Did you get admitted to other programs?
Yes

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
Good reputation of the university and math department, low tuition rates.
What alternative sources of info you used to learn more about the program?
Quantnet, US News.

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
No elective courses. The courses during the first year is probability and programming. They are useful enough. I can select courses from other department to enhance quant background.

Materials used in the program
John.C Hull - Options, Futures,
Derivs Stochastic Processes - Lawler
Implementing Derivative Models-Les Clewlow and Chris Strickland


What do you like about the program?
I leaned a lot of useful theories and practical skills from this program. There are plenty of projects to improve our skills and we can easily find instruction when we participate IAFE competition can other events. The weekly seminar is definitely a wonderful event that professors and practitioners will bring us the cut-edge topics.

What DON’T you like about the program?
The first year course is not tense enough.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
Provide some data source and a financial engineering lab for students to get closer to the market in order to understand it would be better.

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
Summer intern in a trading company in Chicago Board of Trade.
Looking for a full time job next year.

The MFM is a great opportunity for students looking to gain a well rounded education in the Mathematical Finance space. The Twin Cities has a well diversified economy which includes a strong financial industry which supports the University of Minnesota and in particular this program.

The course work and faculty have really expanded and matured my talents. I was originally geared towards the actuarial side of things and have now all but abandoned it due to the program enlightening me to other career paths.

I particularly enjoyed the software development skills I have gained as well as the industry perspectives the majority working finance professionals faculty bring.

As a local student it gave me the opportunity to work and learn as the classes are in the evenings, for me this has been great as I have had the chance to see the class room side as well as the office side of things.

All in all it has been a positive experience for my peers (local and international) and I and it is has always been improving and growing during my time in the program.

-John Drinane