Financial Engineering at Columbia

<p>Hey just wondering. How is Financial Engineering at Columbia looked upon?</p>

<p>very prestigious.</p>

<p>Yup, looked upon very favorably. Excellent program with good location and recruitment.</p>

<p>look at quantnet.com if your interested in quantitative finance. </p>

<p>Columbia’s MSFE is ranked in the top 5, however, I’ve been told other programs have been looked at more favorably (CMU’s MSCF or Princeton’s MSFin for example) and that Columbia’s been falling behind in job/intern placement</p>

<p>Oh okay. Just one more question. What about a B.S. in Financial Engineering? And is it good for i-banking?</p>

<p>Wait… are you talking about Investment Banking or S&T… that makes a big difference…</p>

<p>Financial Engineering is a combo of Mathematics and Computer Science applied into Financial topics (thats the best I can explain it, look at requirements for a BSFE if you want more info). </p>

<p>If you go the quant/quant-developer route, you’ll most likely be setting yourself up as a back-office guy usually working in Operations (LOL) or developing algorithms/coding in S&T. Most serious gigs will require that you have at least a MS (or several) or PHD, so if you’re looking at going into finance as a quant, look forward to a higher level of education. </p>

<p>That being said though, you could also land a gig as an analyst and go through the M&A or S&T route, as engineers are also recruited.</p>