在二流phd和一流master中间纠结...

ZihuatanejorUID：3432249

LZ现在各种纠结，希望前辈们提提建议。因为其实我对就业环境的了解比较浅，所以希望各位不吝赐教~~

Bio:
本科：非211财经类，金工专业现在大三，GPA90.8/100；G163+170+4，T110；
海外经历：Harvard的Summer Session今年去；有JHU的Practical Machine Learning的certificate；
其他：省级数竞二等；唯一作者发表论文一篇（不水）；目前正在写利用PCA-Clustering和BP-ANN的第二篇；RA经历（本科学校的研究所）；四大的实习一次（四个月）；
终极目标：就业，track大致希望是ibd/s&t -> hedge fund，我还是挺喜欢bulls*t的，不想一直搞FE

现在在纠结是要读phd还是master：

finance的Phd现在越来越紧张，但是LZ学术背景偏偏还说得过去吧。各种R和SQL的运用经历，从data cleaning到bagging都干过，然后金融底子也还凑合。估计能申的学校在50左右？那么这样的学校如果在美国的业界想找工作的话会比master好一些么？

但是LZ的硬伤在于本科实在不行（一起实习过的P大的小伙伴和我一起申的BCG，我网申秒挂...），怕回大中华区的话分分钟受歧视，所以还是想在美国找个big name的学校镀镀金。那么Phd肯定不用想了，就只能去那种被黑来黑去的master。LZ自身定位比较理想的是Cornell和Baruch。但是这类master在美国的就业到底怎样又是一个众说纷纭的话题...毕竟phd是一个可以带一辈子的brand但是一年一届的master真的让人有速成班的感觉...

思路有点乱，请见谅。是不是overcomplicate了...因为身边实在没有相似处境的学长学姐（我校是大会计专修学院...能进四大就是大多数人的career track了），只能来坛子里问了。求拍砖求指点！

morganzhangUID：3508333

不打算搞学术莫读phd............除非经济上确实有困难

cheesechanUID：3505689

1. 本科实在不行 then dont think about IBD.
2. if "挺喜欢bullshit的，不想一直搞FE", and thus like to use soft skill to develope your career in short and long term, then a master is not a must. If plan to do some technical stuffs first, and plan to develope more on the business side later, stick with the short term goal more currently.
3. "LZ学术背景偏偏还说得过去" <-- besides your RA, how's your maths by the way? given you are from a finance school, which is not good enough to be in 211, and given your financial engginering major (i.e. soft and not solid enough in general), I will doubt that you dont really know how good your competitior are, especially when talking about PhD and top MFE, and are overestimating your own profile somehow.
4. Dont forget that a finance background (bachelor / master) wont do much to prepare one for PhD Finance / MFE. Your math & stat counts much more.
5. Cornell和Baruch MFE dont count as 一流. should be in tier 2 or at most 1.5.

Conclusion: have ambition is good, but have to be realitisic too at the same time. Try the best and prepare for the worst. the only bright spot of your profile is GPA indeed (a big one I will say, as big as your non-211 but in different direction). GRE Q is always expected to be closed to 170 and no one care the V much, and TOFEL wont be a significant factor as long as you had passed the line.

huimousanguoUID：3608417

楼主好牛！ 膜拜！

hyacinthUID：2184492

本科不是这些big name是个劣势。
既然是镀金就master呗。。。何必受苦念PhD。反正都是给别人打工。

想在这个领域里混的好 不需要PhD的大脑。。。除非你要开发新model

ZihuatanejorUID：3432249

cheesechan 发表于 2015-6-3 21:58
1. 本科实在不行 then dont think about IBD.
2. if "挺喜欢bullshit的，不想一直搞FE", and thus like to ...

Thanks a lot, sir. I really like it when people cut to the chase. Plus your remarks are very insightful.

regarding 3#
You are absolutely right!
I spent 500hrs in coding since sophomore year, basically r and cpp, and took stochastic calulus and real analysis courses. And I arrive at the conclusion that I am not a fan of coding, but other FE guys from EE backgrouds are the opposite of me.

I merely don’t have a problem working on some finance stuff that occasionally involves quantitative analysis, which seems to be yet another illusional job prescription. I guess my core interest still lies in bulls*ting, namely corporate finance, hell maybe even consulting, but my undergrad brand is soooooooo holding me back. Ugh!

regarding 5#
Doesn't location count? I know CMU is awesome, which btw had in fact admitted several graduates from my 30-people-sized undergrad program, but personally I thought being outside of NYC seemed somehow weird for such an applied subject. Plus the coding thing. Other tier-1 places like Berkeley, Princeton, and NYU are definitely out of my league.

In a word, I am really trying to be realistic here: I don’t like FE but there appear to be no other choice. Maybe I will even go to Rutgers due to the location and decent employment chances.

On the other hand big name (or over-expanded) programs such as MIT MFin and Columbia Financial Mathematics kinda has overfloated in job market, don't you think? Do you happen to know what’s MIT MFin’s reputation in the States?

Sorry to bother you with so many tedious words and info.
I am so grateful for your patience!

ZihuatanejorUID：3432249

hyacinth 发表于 2015-6-4 00:35
本科不是这些big name是个劣势。
既然是镀金就master呗。。。何必受苦念PhD。反正都是给别人打工。

嗯嗯，谢谢前辈！
主要是怕读完master还是进不了big name的公司...现在找实习就深切地各种体验到target school这个概念了，必须在graduate阶段弥补上。

cheesechanUID：3505689

Zihuatanejor 发表于 2015-6-4 08:15
嗯嗯，谢谢前辈！
主要是怕读完master还是进不了big name的公司...现在找实习就深切地各种体验到target  ...

你要的不只是a master from a target uni, but also 實習。
given你本科名氣的問題，在master前找到好實習難度頗大……
這對你將來找工作，甚至申top master都有影響。

建議多考慮一年半或二年的master，一年的估計不夠時間你補internship.
還有就是建議多看tier1.5/2或以下的(別太下否則又不到工作……)，你看看NYU,或是UCB MFE的resume book/student page就會明白的了。(印象中絕大多數都是top/good school的bachelor, 估計沒幾個不是985當中偏上的 if china, 再數數major的話，本科是econ/fina的好像只有一成左右，主體都是math/stat/phy/cs/ee之類……)

hyacinthUID：2184492

Zihuatanejor 发表于 2015-6-4 08:15
嗯嗯，谢谢前辈！
主要是怕读完master还是进不了big name的公司...现在找实习就深切地各种体验到target  ...

top学校总是某几个公司的target school.
拿到录取以后可以问问学校的学生。你现在不是还没被录取嘛。。。就开始操下一步的心了？

hyacinthUID：2184492

even if you got in one of the target schools easily...
they have on campus info sessions, so what...

are you 100% sure that you have a good shot to stand out?

everybody works hard...sometimes you have to leave it to luck...

cheesechanUID：3505689

hyacinth 发表于 2015-6-4 23:07
top学校总是某几个公司的target school.
拿到录取以后可以问问学校的学生。你现在不是还没被录取嘛。。。 ...

be frank I don't think OP's profile is good enough to have a good chances get into a solid/flagship program in a target school.......nor a top 50 PhD in finance........he/she is not making things too complicated, but just "thinking too much".

cheesechanUID：3505689

Zihuatanejor 发表于 2015-6-4 08:08
Thanks a lot, sir. I really like it when people cut to the chase. Plus your remarks are very insig ...

1. coding is very important as a financial engineering i will say.........you like in or not, you have to do it if you are in the file, just more or less.

2. corp finace / consulting? Sorry, do it next life, not much method to repair 本科硬伤 indeed, the name follows you for the rest of the life, except that the effect will fade out as time passes (e.g. you will see CEO/whatever still report where they get their bachelor.....in the annual report)
unless you have a really top MBA (i mean really top like M7 or at least S16 (already not sure))......and that just even not repairing it, but just others will look at other stuffs instead only. (a PhD will help the name also but that's not for corp fina / consulting)

3. able to work on some finance stuffs is not a plus but a must for FE guys. finance is easy anyway, and if one is not able to do it, one is out of FE.

4. using scientific language to code is also near a must for MFE during their undergraduate. this is not a news that some

5. location does count for sure. CMU for sure counts as tier 1, and it is quite unexpected to me that their intake is quite different from, say NYU.
in classifciation of tier for MFE, people had already factor that it so leave it alone first.

6. the point that why MFE has better placement (international student) than, say master in econ / general finance is:
I/ they are STEM, and thus have longer time in terms of regulation for internship or green card draw or whatever.
II/ more importantly the job nature. there are not enough qualified graduate in those field (math/stat/cs), and thus the companies are more willing / have to sponsor visa for international applicant.

7. and thus a decent location and placement record (say Rutgers) is just for you to get into FE, but not others general job. location is something you can control (and this is importat for interview), but the chances for interview in some non-technical field are......good luck.
this holds for MIT MFin also: make sure you are good enough to "win" the local students in a job that wont require much technical skills in the extent that the company are willing to sponsor you a visa. from historial record, expect you see yourself in HK/SG after that i will say.

8. You can count Columbia MAFN as MFE also. the nature of the education counts more.

9. having real analysis and stohastic calculus is a plus within a pool of business student, but a norm in a pool of mathematics students.

ZihuatanejorUID：3432249

hyacinth 发表于 2015-6-4 23:07
top学校总是某几个公司的target school.
拿到录取以后可以问问学校的学生。你现在不是还没被录取嘛。。。 ...

我现在是马上开始（this september）申请了，所以在合计申哪些学校啊，接下来是找实习还是继续写paper啊这种事情，好吧我有点think ahead of myself了...
谢谢前辈的指点了！life is tough, i gotta fight though.

ZihuatanejorUID：3432249

cheesechan 发表于 2015-6-4 23:27
be frank I don't think OP's profile is good enough to have a good chances get into a solid/flags ...

谢谢前辈的指教。那请问您觉得我现在还可以做什么来弥补我的profile呢？还是这是我的destiny...

leimouUID：3535671

lz八成是浙江财经的