Imperial Msc in risk management and financial engineering vs more general finance

Hi, I am in my 3rd and last year of my bachelor in finance at a business school in a nordic country. I am planning to take my masters abroad and are considering UK. I am very unsure if i should go for a more general master in finance, or a master in risk management and financial engineering at Imperial. My ultimate goal would be asset management or IB.

The reason why I am debating this, is that i already have learnt a lot of the more general finance stuff in my bachelor, and i am afraid its going to be a lot of repetition if i attend a general masters in finance.

This is the finance specific courses i will have taken after my bachelor (Each is 7.5 ETCS credits). As you can see, I have covered a lot of the stuff i would learn at at msc in finance. Any inputs? I really think Imperials course look great, but I am afraid its going to hold me back if i want to do IB.

Corporate finance

Financial investment analysis (Portfolio theory, optimal portfolios and bond pricing)

Financial statement analysis (Generally valuation and forecasting, used excel and Bloomberg)

Financial markets

International financial management

Real estate finance

Financial econometrics

Financial decision making with excel

Behavioural finance

Options and futures

Reply 1

sportsfinance

Hi,
I am also facing the same problem. I am doing a Bachelor in Finance in Germany and looking on the curriculum of most Masters in Finance and so I see a lot of repetition.
Therefore I am also considering doing a more quantitative degree, e.g. in risk.

Would be nice if someone could tell if a master in risk and financial engineering is a good idea if you want to de IB or Asset Management.
@TheNasisisst: did you already apply to the master at Imperial? Is it hard to get in?

Reply 2

jchan55

Hi, I am currently on the Investment and Wealth Management course at Imperial, but I know people from the other courses through shared modules, career events, etc. I can say that both courses are very good, however with both courses on the first term you will be covering similar things to your undergraduate (all 4 finance suite courses cover like econometrics, Investment & portfolio management together)

With the MSc Finance you do get a lot deeper and is directly related to what you will do in practise - there are for example specifically on M&A, PE/VC and Advanced CF which you won't get in the RMFE course.

On RMFE it is a lot more quantitative and they do a lot more coding. They have like 0 focus on Corporate Finance, but focus a lot on risk management and trading.

They attract two different types of people too. Finance gets people going into IBD and trading and are more "on it" in terms of careers, being more polished and know what they want. RFME goes into technology, risk management and trading - they are probably "smarter" but have a less focus on careers.

So if you wanna go into IBD then i'd say go for Finance. For AM it depends on what type of AM it is. If its quantitative AM like the HF like AQR or Vanguard then probably RMFE, otherwise regular investment management like HSBC AM - either would be fine.

Hope that helps.

Reply 3

Brewed

I agree with jchan.

IMHO, RMFE is pure risk management program. Let's assume you're in IB interview and the interviewer asks why are you studying risk management if you want do investment banking. You need to be consistent with your choices. If you want to do IB, choose MSc Finance or Finance & Accounting. Former gives you variety of modules from which to choose and the latter is basically pure corporate finance. Great fraction of students from both programs have secured IB internship or FT position.

Imperial Msc in risk management and financial engineering vs more general finance

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