Hello everyone.I have a question which I have searched online but can’t find a comprehensive answer.
How does your career differ if you do a Master in Financial Engineering or a Master in Finance???
What i mean is what type of job do you do after getting either degree?After looking up curriculums I have noticed until now that the MFE is a lot more quantitative and includes programming like c++ whereas MSc in Finance doesn’t include these topics.
To rephrase it,I don’t understand how can someone succeed in the finance industry by getting a Master in Finance from e.g London Business School or a Master in FE from e.g Columbia when these programmes are so different.
The MFE is for structured products and programming jobs. Quant funds probably require PhDs, so MFE is a niche role mainly designed for structured products and some derivatives jobs.
Master’s in Finance is much broader and doesn’t have a clear place, in my view. It’s clearly worse than direct experience, and possibly precludes someone from getting an entry level job. It’s similar to the CFA curriculum except much more expensive and requires you to be a full-time student at most of the good programs. I would definitely skip this.
The best degree is an economics or finance undergrad degree from a good school and then direct into a good job, unless you go the quant route, in which case you need a PhD from a top school. Most successful fundamental investors only have a bachelor’s degree from what I have personally seen in the industry. Some have CFAs, some have MBAs, but both of those are minority positions from my own observations.
It also seems to me that the very best investors have that path somehow written for them and start being successful in their careers as soon as they possibly can, which is right after undergrad in most cases.
I have noticed from reading top investors’ bio that many of them seem to have been investing/trading since their teens, all throughout high school and college.
The story of the kid-who-was-buying-and-selling-XYZ-at-school-because-he-spotted-an-opportunity seems to be prevalent. Degrees and certifications are nothing more than noise or at best a necessity for these people, I guess ; they were just born to make profit by buying and selling stuff.
I, for one, was absolutely clueless about business (despite classes in business school) or investing until my mid 20’s.
Because the “finance industry” is a very very broad term and has many different career paths…so both a Master of Finance from LBS and MFE from Columbia can succeed in the finance industry…in different roles.