Ivy MHA Student, looking for finance advice - WHERE to look, WHAT to search for?

Graduate School Business School - MBA
1

I’m looking (mostly) for advice and don’t really know where to put it, so I figured here worked well!

Background: I’m currently a masters student in health admin (similar to an MBA but focused just on the healthcare spectrum) at an ivy league entering into my second year (of 2). What I’ve learned is that I’m very, very interested in the analytics and finance, more so than I am about the general healthcare. I’ve always known I loved finance but taking the advanced courses in it helped solidify that.

I’ve been tossing around the idea of doing a one year program after my masters that is just finance - as I really, really want to build those skills, in case I don’t end up in the healthcare field. I really would like to go into impact investing, or IB within a healthcare department (I know the larger banks, such as JPM and TD have healthcare banking).

School background:
Graduate - 3.75 GPA w/ 31 credits @ ivy (MHA)
Undergraduate - 3.4 GPA @ T-50 private uni (Public Health/Psych with business minor)
GRE Scores: 157 V, 165 M

Other:

  • Female, Hispanic, Single Parent (though income > $180,000 so that’s a moot point)

Work Background:

  • Every summer/winter break throughout undergrad I spent as the assistant to the CFO for a government contracting company. Forensic Accounting, analyzing profitability of ventures, working with AR/AP, etc…
  • After undergrad, took gap year and worked full-time abroad
  • summer placement (for grad school) - working as a budget analyst for government agency [working with internal finance system, creating and implementing a charge back model, analysis and management of presidential budget]

I’m unsure of where I should be looking - I’ve added a few UK schools to my list that offer one year programs in finance or financial analysis (dual citizen) as I’m not 100% where I’d like to live afterwards (I’m open to any large city really).

Does anyone have advice, or programs that I should definitely check out? I’d love to know more insight about US or UK schools that offer either a one year MFin, something specific in finance

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(also, I’ll be applying for Fall 2017 entry, and I’m also applying for jobs just in case)

3

Instead of another master’s, why not look for a certificate in finance? A whole master’s in finance may repeat a lot of the business coursework you’ve already taken, and it sounds like your interests still intersect pretty heavily with healthcare. Not only can you probably do a certificate (online or in person) while you work full time, it’ll cheaper and take less time, and you might even get your employer to pay for it.

UC Berkeley has an online certificate in finance (http://extension.berkeley.edu/cert/finance.html) as does Harvard’s Extension school (https://www.extension.harvard.edu/academics/professional-graduate-certificates/corporate-finance-certificate), UW Seattle (https://www.pce.uw.edu/certificates/computational-finance), Cornell (http://www.ecornell.com/certificates/financial-management/financial-management/), UCLA (http://business.uclaextension.edu/finance/finance-certficate/), and Boston University (http://www.bu.edu/met/programs/graduate/financial-markets-institutions-certificate/).

There are also U.S. schools that have one-year MSFs, like UT-Austin, Notre Dame, MIT, Vanderbilt, Princeton, George Washington, Wash U in St. Louis, Indiana.