Hey everyone,
I am having a bit of a problem hope you guys can shed some light on my situation. So I’ve recently graduated from college (SUNY College at Old Westbury) with two degrees one in Accounting and the other in Finance. However, this college is not the greatest and not known. Almost no big companies recruit from here nor do they hire. With that being said, I obviously cannot go back and change anything only can look forward. I really do enjoy Finance a lot more than accounting and I would like to pursue a Masters. Can you guys give some insight on the “Best” colleges for a Masters in Finance? I’ve seen a lot of schools offer a Masters in Financial Mathematics. Any information or advise you can give me I would really appreciate!
Please use the graduate section of the forum.
You don’t have to get a master’s just because you went to a less well-known college, even if you want to work at a big company. Most companies don’t really care about where you graduated from college - they care about what you can do, and what degree you have. This is particularly true at the vast majority of places where you can work as an accountant. Lots of people from less well-known schools go onto bigger firms; they just have to do some legwork. You might start out working at a smaller company and move up later once you’ve gotten some good experience. And in a professional field like accounting or finance, it’s good to have experience before getting the master’s anyway.
There are many excellent finance programs out there - at MIT, Vanderbilt, Boston College, George Washington, Johns Hopkins, University of Rochester, Princeton, Washington University in St. Louis, UT-Austin, Arizona State, UW-Madison, Indiana, USC, for example. NYU Stern has an MS in global finance and a graduate certificate in finance. Columbia has an MS in financial economics.
You may want to explore the CFA option.
The CFA charter is considered a substantial qualification in the Finance industry. So it doesn’t matter which undergraduate institution you attended, just pass these tests and it should open doors for you in the field.