After graduating in July I started work and since then life has been very busy. I don’t think I will be posting anything on this blog now. I will leave the earlier posts/comments as they are. Please bear in mind that the changing face of Wall Street amidst the present crisis might make some views expressed obsolete and irrelevant.
Good Luck !
There are some videos introducing the Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Department at Columbia University.
You can view them here
It has been a while since I put some thing down on the page. My flatmates say that I have turned into a nerd but I guess it’s the interesting courses this semester which are keeping me busy. I was supposed to take 4 courses this semester but have ended up taking 5 of them. I wanted to write a little bit about the elective courses in the spring semester and my take on them.
Introduction to Implied Volatility Smile : – Prof. Emanuel Derman
Coming to Columbia and not doing this course would be a grave mistake. The man behind the Volatility Smile is right here teaching the theory he developed. Very interesting and the right mix of math and finance.
Structured Products: – Dr. Iraj Kani
Another well known name in the Industry who have had numerous papers with Dr. Derman. This course is purely assignment based with us pricing and analyzing different financial products.
Security Pricing: – Prof. Mark Broadie
This is a course offered in the Business school and our department has bought a special section for FE students. Prof. Broadie is excellent in giving you an intuitive feel of the subject and I am finally getting good with Excel and VBA.
Important Papers in FE – Prof. Emanuel Derman
This is a very different course which consists of seminars on varied quant finance topics. The entire class is divided into groups and each group picks up 2-3 papers and explains it to the class. The best part about this course is that it acts as a cushion when you are swamped with a lot of work. You can choose to just read one paper and go to class or read as much as you can depending on your interest and enthusiasm. Prof. Derman does an excellent job of moderating the seminars and pitching in from time to time to explain some complex concepts. By the way I have never seen a person more humble than Prof. Derman.
Congratulations to all who have received an admit. I have been getting e-mails with almost the same questions, I thought of posting the answers here.
To be frank, I really don’t have the exact number. The market is bad and yes the placements are not as good as the previous years. Usually the schools release their placements data after the course gets over or maybe even three months after graduation. For us, we still have 4 months to finish school.
I think it makes more sense for the new applicants to think about the market in 2009. That will be the time when all of you would be looking for jobs. I believe that the market follows a cycle and hopefully markets would have recovered by then.
Do go through your probability course. Other than that just get in the habit of reading the Wall Street Journal.
This requires some work to be done on your part. First of all go through the course curriculum of the program and see what are they covering. Does it involve a lot of math/programming ? How much of math/programming/finance do you want in your courses ? Does it allow you to take more electives ? Can you fit in an internship ? Do you want an internship? Do you want to be on the west coast or east coast ? Can you extend the program if you want ? How good is the brand name ? These and lot of other questions need to be answered to get to a conclusion. Put in some effort to get the answers. In my opinion there is a very little difference in going to any of the top 4-5 schools but a lot depends on what is your background and plans after the degree. On a personal note I would like to add that being close to New York City really helps.
I don’t know about this. Please mail the department to find out and let me know as well
As far as I know the chances are close to zero. But give it a try.
Visit this site
Some people are managing it but it gets very hectic. The classes are scheduled in a way that you get close to 2 business days to work on an internship. It is however not a part of the curriculum.
My flatmate recently visited a forum and read about new applicants judging FE programs and advising other new applicants. Please be careful and use your own discretion to filter out the content from these discussion boards.
This will be interesting
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=afTypoeszx30&refer=home
There are a number of prospective FE students without any relevant work experience. Some of them have not even had any exposure to finance. My suggestion for all of you is to target schools which have formal internship programs. It becomes very difficult to get interview calls if you don’t have relevant under-graduate degree/work experience. Most of the FE batch comprises people from the Engineering background. You might be have done great work in chip designing or fracture analysis but it usually fails to impress recruiters who spend 15 seconds scanning your resume.
This post is inspired by an anonymous comment on this blog. Someone wants to take a peek at the life of an FE student. I will try to frame this post in way which will hopefully give you a good idea of life here which includes academics, extra curricular, parties, friend circle etc.
So let’s start with the first semester when you come in all excited about NYC. The first week is pretty much spent in looking for a decent accommodation and settling down. The University has a couple of seminars to give you an idea about various facilities available to you. Unfortunately, most of the degree programs start in Fall, the campus is not really filled with activity. The people you see around are the ones you see in the classroom as well. But it is not all that bad because you first need to get to know your batch-mates. The department organizes “Happy Hours” frequently for the FE students which provides a great platform to mix around. And what is better than having it over a glass of beer 🙂
Since the first semester lasts just 2 months, the courses move at a rapid pace. Faster than you will realize, you will have the end terms happening by 3rd week of August. Looking back I realize that I spent the summer either sitting down with the assignments or exploring the New York City. There are whole lot of places where you have student discounts and I tried to capitalize on that. The truth is that it took me a while to stop calculating in terms of Rupee which made me think twice when I needed to open my wallet. The reality knocks when you take the trolley from airport to carry you luggage paying 3 dollars i.e. 130 rupees.
There is a 2 weeks gap after the Summer semester. This is a great time to relax and and really party before you get into the grind. This is also the time when students for other courses are coming in for the Fall session. There are a whole lot of welcome events organized by the University. This includes heavily subsidized city trips, theater shows, sight seeings and games. It is a wonderful opportunity to go out and make friends. Amidst all this there is an indication from the department to start gearing up for full-time interviews. It comes as surprise but it is true that the interviews start happening in October, when you are barely 3 months into the course. Let me get into some details here. This is the so called Campus placements where the banks/companies come mainly for undergraduate students to feed into their training programs. Most of them are also keen to take in Master’s degree students for other positions in the firm. Every major bank which recruits on Campus comes to Columbia through this process. Usually 10-20 % of the FE batch gets placed through these on campus interviews. For the ones who do not , it provides a very good practice for the companies which come in specifically for the department later during the year.
The first month in the Fall semester is spent on attending the Campus Presentations /Pre-placement talks of various companies. Students also use this month to conduct informational interviews and network with employers. A considerable time is spent in filling the long application forms and drafting resume/cover letters. The action starts in October when you start hearing from the companies. You have the first round of interviews on campus and if you do well you are called for something called a “Super Day” or multiple “Super Days” . This is the day where you have back to back interviews in the bank’s office. The number of interviews can range from 3 to 7 and tend to be a good mix of technical, behavioral and professional fit. After this the company gets back to you with an offer/reject/hold. If you are lucky and have lots of interview calls, be prepared to don a suit every day and spend considerable time traveling to offices of different companies. I guess this is the toughest month when you really have to manage your time well and juggle between interviews and coursework.
By November end the routine hiring scene is pretty much over for the year and the next cycle begins only after the bonuses are distributed out. Life gets back to normal by mid November when you are back to classes and homeworks. So this has been the ride so far. I guess I did not get much into the party scene because I am not a frequent visitor. But some of my friends make it a point to go out clubbing and pubbing whenever they get a chance. A lot depends on how you want to use your free time because the University and the city has numerous options to choose from.
It’s 3:20 am and it has been a long day with 2 lectures, 2 assignments, dance class and few hours of poker. Time for a good night’s sleep and I hope i wake up in time for the thanksgiving lunch 🙂
The recent suprime crisis has resulted in cutting down the hiring numbers. Most of the major banks have a hiring freeze or are have very few open positions. Internships, which were a sure shot chance to convert to a full-time job offer also seems to be failing. The recent Career Fair held at NYU reiterated this fact when companies asked the candidates to wait for few months before they should expect to hear back.
I have tried to put in some information on this blog which will help prospective Financial Engineering student. If there is something else you all want to get an idea about, please leave a comment.
The journey of my graduate degree at Columbia University & more 