University of Waterloo Master of Quantitative Finance program

University of Waterloo Master of Quantitative Finance program

I don't know MQF before. But right now Master of Quantitative program is the most terrible master program "in the world". The course design is not change for almost 20 years, yes, you can learn something if you work hard. But then what? you can not find a good job after you graduate. Because staffs in this program are not responsible for students and their connection to financial industry is really terrible. Connection is one of the most important for a graduate to find a good job. when you want to get help from staffs in this program, you will hope helpless, because they don't care about your study and problems you meet in this program. I heard from my friend that one previous director ask my friend to leave his office when my friend wanted some help from this director. He felt so disappointed for both this program and staffs in this program. Please remember: their ranking just represent for their previous reputation not now. Because all staffs changed, founder of this program even left university of Waterloo and coordinator has retired 1 year ago.

A director in MQF said: "I don't care about closing this program".
What more can I say. Lowest tuition, hard mathematics, 100% placement rate, excellent reputation in Toronto/Canada. Best program in Canada. If you just need a graduate degree and be familiar with some financial topics, go to UT MMF, if you want to learn quant skills and build a solid mathematical background, go to UW MQF.
I think it is true that if your goal is to work and live in Canada, this is the right school. Otherwise, I suggest go to US grad school directly. As a grad from mqf, I agreed the above opions and I think it is fairly objective. I asked the director last year, their roughly statistics on grads last year entry salary is 80k.

Pros: low tuition (12K cad for all); nearly perfect intern/fulltime placement rate; small class size, good reputation and network in Bay street
Cons: less likely to find a job in US when grad; entry salary is good but has small potential to increase usually no bonus.
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