MSc Statistics and MSc Finance - a comparison
MSc Statistics and MSc Finance - a comparisonFrom a practical point of view, statistics is the foundation of all finance theory.
The CAPM, Equity premium evaluation, volatility forecasting and portfolio theory are all based on statistics. Therefore mastering a good sense of statistics at master's level is much more essential than acquire the superficial financial theory in a general finance program.
If a Chinese is planning to work at finance in the UK, a technical master's degree is favourable to a general finance degree and provide you edge over those local students. You can imagine without superior technical knowledge, how are you going to compete with local students whose communication skills are deemed to be better than you.Therefore, quite oppose to the conventional view, statistics is much more favourable than the general finance degree.
To give you two examples, if LSE MSc Finance and Oxford MSc in Applied Statistics are given. An uninformed Chinese students may rush to the LSE program on the hope that LSE is better in Economics and hence should be better in Finance. However, as a practicioner, we all know that an average students can master very well the materials of a general finance course.
Given that Oxford is a household name, the students with a Oxford MSc in Applied Statistics is much more favorable. Besides, the 7500 pounds + 2000 college fees altogether will be 3000 pounds less, it will be stupid to choose LSE over Oxford in this situation solely based on the fact that LSE has a better "research" reputation on Economics.Therefore, if one has an option betweem mathematical finance and finance, for the sake of career prospect in the UK, one should not afraid of choosing mathematical finance, or even mathematics or statistics or Physics.
Let me give some backgorunds of my ex-colleagues for your reference: 1 cornell's math, 1 Oxford math, 1 stanford's OR, 1 MIT phyics, 1 IC math, 1 Oxford statistics, 1 Cambridge EE. 1 Harvard History. 1 IC Chemistry. 1 Oxford's Psyco.1 Cambridge LLB. They are all scattered in equity trading and research department. The funny situation is that the list even contains a research analyst majoring history and none of them have finance or accounting degree.One more thing, many people in the street are recruited fresh from Oxbridge's undergraduate programs.
Why? becasue Oxbridge undergraduate admission system is much more selective than LSE and IC and the quality of students is guaranteed (it does not apply to master's students because they are coming from different countries so that their qualifications are quite difficult to evaluate). That is why top IB in the UK are usually run by Oxbridge alumni rather than IC and LSE and hence Oxbridge alumni network is much larger.
Finally, having a master's degree does not mean that you are academically superior than the recruited undergraduates in IB. Nearly all the people in IB has the credentials to pursue a PhD in top US or UK universities - but they choose not to. Therefore one should not be proud of getting a master's degree from LSE or IC or even Oxbridge. People will not evaluate you any higher than an undergraduate students.
posted by yuhu @ 9:48 PM
0 comments
