Masters degree in finance

mono627

Hi all,

I am currently a 3rd year engineering student and require a bit of advice re: masters in finance and future career progression.

I am currently doing a degree and I am not quite sure if it's really for me. I am contemplating doing a masters degree in finance (either MBS Finance in UCD or MSc Finance in TCD) and I have a few questions I hope someone can answer.

1) Would either degree look more favourably to future employers based on where the degree came from, if so which one is "better"? Because I have done a little research and have found that UCD graduate school is ranked higher than TCD in business school rankings, however TCD university is ranked higher in university rankings. Or does this matter at all?

2) I am currently studying engineering and am looking to broaden my education/possibly make a career change, I was wondering if I will be at much of a disadvantage to students who have studied finance at undergrad level? If so is there anything I can do to better my chances of getting future employment in the finance sector?

3) Would anyone recommend studying abroad? If so where and why?

Apologies if this thread is similar to existing threads, I was hoping to get some input from current students(especially from TCD as it is a new course)

Thanks in advance.

ixus

I was in the same position as yourself. I did computer Engineering, worked for a couple of years and went back last year to do an MSc in Financial Services in UL.

If you're good at maths and have a strong interest in the subject you will be at no disadvantage to others IMHO. I don't know much about the UCD course. As far as I'm concerned, DCU's MSc in Financial & Capital markets is top dog in Ireland at the moment, though the TCD course is new. I do like the spec of it.
UL has two quality courses as well, Financial Services and Computational Finance. Check them out.

As regards going abroad, it would be a great thing to do. The London School of Economics (LSE) is one of the top rated colleges. Expensive and hard to get into.


It would help if you could tell a bit more about what you want to get from a course. Any idea what kind of job or area of work? Where you'd like to live?

gerry87

I'm on the TCD course, I came from an economics undergrad, but you really wouldn't be at any dis-advantage from engineering. There's a very wide range of backgrounds in the class now, including engineering.

There's a wide range of courses so if you want to keep up the mathsy subject you can, or if you want to branch out into the more theoretical courses you can do that too. They're adding a lot of new courses for next year too, i'm not sure exactly what, it looks like there's almost twice the number of courses.

If you have any specific questions about it, fire away!

mono627

ixus wrote: »

I was in the same position as yourself. I did computer Engineering, worked for a couple of years and went back last year to do an MSc in Financial Services in UL.

If you're good at maths and have a strong interest in the subject you will be at no disadvantage to others IMHO. I don't know much about the UCD course. As far as I'm concerned, DCU's MSc in Financial & Capital markets is top dog in Ireland at the moment, though the TCD course is new. I do like the spec of it.
UL has two quality courses as well, Financial Services and Computational Finance. Check them out.

As regards going abroad, it would be a great thing to do. The London School of Economics (LSE) is one of the top rated colleges. Expensive and hard to get into.


It would help if you could tell a bit more about what you want to get from a course. Any idea what kind of job or area of work? Where you'd like to live?

Cheers for the reply ixus,

to be honest i'm still not 100% sure what kind of job/area of work I would like to get into, however the idea of investment banking/fund management does appeal to me. In saying that I still haven't completely written off the idea of pursuing a career in engineering, I feel a masters degree in finance would benefit me if I went for a senior management position at some point in my career and please correct me if I'm wrong in saying that.

Ideally I'd like to live in Dublin but I am open to the idea of going abroad to study for a year/two years.

I really want to broaden my education at this point and don't want to go out into the working world just yet, especially in such a depressing economic climate. I have heard plenty of stories about people who have studied engineering at undergrad and have applied their analytical skills in other areas of work and I hope to fo the same.

In regards to getting into a top school like LSE, would getting a first class honours be sufficient to get in or would extra curricular work be required, thats if you know anything about admissions processes?

Cheers again! :cool:

mono627

gerry87 wrote: »

I'm on the TCD course, I came from an economics undergrad, but you really wouldn't be at any dis-advantage from engineering. There's a very wide range of backgrounds in the class now, including engineering.

There's a wide range of courses so if you want to keep up the mathsy subject you can, or if you want to branch out into the more theoretical courses you can do that too. They're adding a lot of new courses for next year too, i'm not sure exactly what, it looks like there's almost twice the number of courses.

If you have any specific questions about it, fire away!

Thanks for the reply gerry87,

did your undergrad degree benefit you much going into the course? And if you don't mind me asking, what career do you hope to pursue when you finish the course?

I'd like to know a little about the work load of the course? Is it very maths intensive?

Cheers again!

gerry87

mono627 wrote: »

Thanks for the reply gerry87,

did your undergrad degree benefit you much going into the course? And if you don't mind me asking, what career do you hope to pursue when you finish the course?

I'd like to know a little about the work load of the course? Is it very maths intensive?

Cheers again!

Well, it probably would have been harder to get accepted without an undergrad degree but it's not so much the course you did but how you did in it, on the course at the moment there are commerce grads, economics, music, sports management, science, maths etc... That aside, finance and engineering seems to be a good mix.

I'm planning on looking towards portfolio management or research of some sort. But I wouldn't say no to the likes of trading. I don't see myself going for investment banking, other than that, other than that i'm not too picky at the moment.

Work load wise... you are going to be working! It varies throughout the year due to the structure of the course, classes are done in intensive blocks, so you do one subject for a week and that's that subject finished. Most courses have assignments as well. So the time of the courses you pick can somewhat determine the workload, some people did a chunk of courses together and had roughly 8 weeks free before exams. On the other hand, I did a subject last week and exams start next week.

It wasn't as maths intensive as i was expecting, but there are a number of maths orientated courses - data analysis, econometrics, econophysics. Most of the other courses had equations and formulas throughout them, but not what i would call especially mathsy. As I said tho, they're adding a lot of new courses so you can probably tailor it to yourself even more from next year.

graduate

I have heard plenty of stories about people who have studied engineering at undergrad and have applied their analytical skills in other areas of work and I hope to fo the same.

You should consider the MSc in Business Analytics in UCD, if you can hack a bit of programming, most people doing it are engineering grads.

damnyanks

MSc Quant finance at Smurfitt (UCD) is the best thing going in Ireland. The content appears to be decent and it already has a strong reputation amongst investment houses / banks.

blucey

None of the degrees mentioned, all of which are good to great, will actually "train" you for anything. All have different strengths and weaknesses. Some have more international recognition and links than others (eg the UCD MBS and the TCD MSc are CFA partners).
Best advice is to
a) contact the course directors of these courses
b) come to open evenings
c) contact students and staff and inquire.

Remember also that finance is not Quant Finance. IMHO you are better taking a broad degree, of some sort, then if you like finance and find a need for more specific quant/math skills, you have a great background to deepen. TBH prob the best qualification in quant finance is the CQF from Wilmott, not any university degree.

tuppence haporth given.

happy hunting

mono627

graduate wrote: »

You should consider the MSc in Business Analytics in UCD, if you can hack a bit of programming, most people doing it are engineering grads.

To be honest one of the main reasons for getting away from engineering is to get away from programming, i don't fancy coding for the rest of my life. What kind of level of programming is involved in the course?

mono627

blucey wrote: »

Best advice is to
a) contact the course directors of these courses
b) come to open evenings
c) contact students and staff and inquire.

Remember also that finance is not Quant Finance. IMHO you are better taking a broad degree, of some sort, then if you like finance and find a need for more specific quant/math skills, you have a great background to deepen. TBH prob the best qualification in quant finance is the CQF from Wilmott, not any university degree.

Thanks for the advice blucey,

I think I am going to take a broad degree first to leave my options open. If I find that I have a liking for quant finance while doing the masters in finance, would it still be possible to go on and do the CQF from Wilmott? Or would I be at much of a disadvantage to those who do a masters in specifically quant finance?

Cheers

mono627

damnyanks wrote: »

MSc Quant finance at Smurfitt (UCD) is the best thing going in Ireland. The content appears to be decent and it already has a strong reputation amongst investment houses / banks.

I'm presuming that since it is a quant finance degree that it has a very high level of maths? Have you done the course yourself damnyanks?

mono627

I would also like to know if any-one has any opinions on persuing a career in the finance sector in the current economic climate, or if any-one has any first-hand experience with job prospects in the sector?

Thanks.

cerebus

mono627 wrote:

I would also like to know if any-one has any opinions on persuing a career in the finance sector in the current economic climate, or if any-one has any first-hand experience with job prospects in the sector?

Thanks.

No denying it is a tough environment to try and change careers into finance. I'm in an academic program at the moment that traditionally feeds a lot of people into IB and finance in general, and can tell you that people found it very hard to get jobs in the field this year. There are jobs out there though - lots of people in my class are interning with the surviving Investment Banks for example, and although I'm a career changer myself (also an engineer originally), I managed to find a job in private equity (VC) this summer on an internship which is what I want to do afterwards so I'm happy.

Saying that, if you can get in you'll probably be just in time to ride the upturn - saw an article in the WSJ yesterday talking about how banking salaries were climbing again.

It will come down to your personal tolerance for risk, and how much you want to move into finance.

Good luck with your decision!