MSc Finance Cass vs Warwick - and Why?

Hi

I'm currently doing the MSc in Finance at Warwick. I really reccomend the course. Not sure how it compares to others, as I am not on the other courses, but I chose it over Imperial and Cass when accepting my offers.

What I reccomend about the course:
1. Really good lecturers who are contributing to the most advanced finance/econometric applied/theoretical research [such as copulas (tail dependencein the FXmarket), cointegration (moving towards solving the forward premium puzzle), quantile regressions (analysing CDS spreads). Most the lecturers have great previous experiences as well such as Quant trading, hedge funds, consultants to IBs such as CS, DB, and worked at Bank of England etc. You learn these things in the course and they are great at interviews - a lot of people in the city are not aware of them.

2. Offers a Behavioural Finance course which most other courses don't. Really interesting and offers solutions to why market efficiency might not hold due to market sentiment and noise trader risk etc..

3. You get to do a dissertation. This didn't play a big part in my choice, but I am really glad I am doing one now. Gives you a great chance to apply what you have learned and be innovative. Every year a few of the dissertations are published.

4. The university and WBS are heavily targetted by every IB and asset manager and we got a full day workshop (from someone who was HR at Mercer) on how to apply to the big IBs and what they look for, mock interviews, group work etc - really useful.

5. As part of the course you will learn how to use Matlab, SPlus, R, etc. Really valuable skills to have and employers really like people with these software skills.

6. Really good atmoshere. Have a program office that just looks after the MSc Fin, Fin & Eco, Fin Math, and they get to know your names and are really helpful. Also get a "free" FT every day. Lecturers are also really approachable and friendly.

Bad points:
1. The University of Warwick is in Coventry which isn't my favourite place in the world. Can live in Leamington Spa which is nice but the bus service to and from campus in awful. It is only one year, and when paying so much I focussed on the course.

2. Too much group work in my opinion.

3. Coursework/projects take forever and are not weighted high enough.

4. It is a very intensive year. I live with 3rd year undergrads and it is a bit upsetting at times how much more work than them I have to do. First term is a killer -you are covering the foundations for the much more interesting 2nd term where you get to specialise in what you are most interested in - just a vast volume of the more boring content. Sure this is the same everywhere though.

5. Not expensive as others, but still very expensive. If you think about it in terms of life time earnings it is, in my opinion, a worthwhile investment. Go for a WBS Scholarship ~£5k off the fee makes it a lot more managable!

Hope this helps

x

The MSc Fin Math course is very good and the students are the most targetted, but for more specific research and quant jobs. THe MFin and MFin&Eco students do not do any modules with them, we do loads of advanced econocmetrics but I think their content is the next step up and actually programming such models. I do know that they learn programming languages such as C++ and use more advanced software than we do (MFin/FinEco use VBA, SPlus, Matlab, R, Bloomberg, Reuters). If you want to go into the more general front office jobs I think the MFin and MFin&Eco probably have the edge, but I'm probably biased...

Not sure about the course at Reading at all. We don't have a trading room but we do have Bloomberg and Reuters terminals. I didn't consider it and know nothing about the course at Reading - it missed my radar. I applied to Cam, LSE, Warwick, Imperial, Durham, York.

There are aprox 100 people on the MSc Fin course and (only!) 4 British students. Don't think there are any British on the MFinMath out of about 25 students. However, loads of Europeans and people from Asia. As to the reason, I think British students on the whole are less thirsty for more education (our schooling system tends to do that), don't need to do a masters to go to front office jobs (I'm doing the course because I really want to do it and fear if I don't do it before I start working I'll probably never do it) and foreign students see going to a targetted UK university as a route into a job in London.

Hope that helps,

Nick

The MSc Fin Math course is very good and the students are the most targetted, but for more specific research and quant jobs. THe MFin and MFin&Eco students do not do any modules with them, we do loads of advanced econocmetrics but I think their content is the next step up and actually programming such models. I do know that they learn programming languages such as C++ and use more advanced software than we do (MFin/FinEco use VBA, SPlus, Matlab, R, Bloomberg, Reuters). If you want to go into the more general front office jobs I think the MFin and MFin&Eco probably have the edge, but I'm probably biased...

Not sure about the course at Reading at all. We don't have a trading room but we do have Bloomberg and Reuters terminals. I didn't consider it and know nothing about the course at Reading - it missed my radar. I applied to Cam, LSE, Warwick, Imperial, Durham, York.

There are aprox 100 people on the MSc Fin course and (only!) 4 British students. Don't think there are any British on the MFinMath out of about 25 students. However, loads of Europeans and people from Asia. As to the reason, I think British students on the whole are less thirsty for more education (our schooling system tends to do that), don't need to do a masters to go to front office jobs (I'm doing the course because I really want to do it and fear if I don't do it before I start working I'll probably never do it) and foreign students see going to a targetted UK university as a route into a job in London.

Hope that helps,

Nick