MSc Economics OR MSc Finance, pros and cons

Hi everyone,

I'm starting to consider doing either an MSc in Economics or in Finance after graduation to improve my chances of getting a front-office role within corporate and investment banking (treasury/wholesale payments/GTS/GTB preferred). I haven't had much luck this cycle, having had two Assessment Centres, but not having been able to convert either into an offer.

My dilemma is that I don't particularly enjoy Microeconomics, and at Masters level, Economics is only bound to get harder (or maybe much harder, I don't know) than at undergraduate. For context, I'm currently studying Economics and Econometrics at York. It's a pretty mathematically heavy course, which I don't mind, I do enjoy it, but I feel like after three years in 2023, I will have had enough of doing such advanced level maths.

On the other hand, Finance doesn't appear to have as hard of modules, and I don't imagine that the maths to be harder than undergraduate Economics (especially since most programmes say that mathematical fluency should be to A-Level standard). I also quite like the content of Finance Masters programmes.

However, Finance programmes are significantly more expensive than Economics programmes. I will not be able to afford the ridiculously high tuition fees of £35.000 or whatever it is, as the loan only covers some £12.000. I would want to study in London, and attend Bayes', UCL, or LSE as I know that their Masters programmes are some of the best within this particular field.

I could always try and go for internships in my final year as well, but I want to cover all ground.

I would really appreciate any and all help. Thanks!

Imo apply to mid/back office roles if there are any available this year or if you can apply to anything somewhat related to corporate/ ib and also apply to whatever else you can within finance e.g. internal, risk, audit, fintech... You're clearly a strong candidate if you're getting acs for front office roles so I'm sure you'd be able to get acs for the industry mentioned. Then apply to front office roles for 2023 summer, and I'm sure that will work out for you. I'm in the same position but was hoping to get asset management. I'm doing what I've mentioned above and hopefully it swings my way next year. Imo no point doing a masters if you don't see it as something you're really interested in + a lot more debt

I'm interested in a Finance MSc only if I cannot gain any internships/grad roles. Economics MSc I'm half/half about.

I thought that if you do an internship that's not directly related to what you want to work in, there's little point in doing them? But I suppose if it's just a filler until the 2023 summer internship cycle, it can't harm.

The issue is I don't know a lot about the middle office roles, e.g., risk and whatever else they have in the middle office. I know quite a bit about transaction banking/treasury, which is what I've been applying for everywhere, including technical knowledge. If I just apply for risk at a whim, I'm concerned that I'll come across as someone who doesn't know what they're talking about (as well as someone who doesn't want it enough compared to someone genuinely interested in risk).

Plus, I don't even know of many places still that are open. I mean, I'm still waiting to hear back from some places on getting interviews and such for TB but will need to see. This cycle really hasn't gone the way I would've liked lol. My last AC was the biggest sting though haha, beat dozens of people in the first round to get to the final 4 in the AC just to be in the unlucky half to not get an offer rip

Sorry to hear that but getting to that final stage is something to be proud of honestly. Tbh I've seen people with no relevant experience e.g. springs getting front-office roles for summer so essentially the experience that they had were from societies and online courses so it's not like having 0 direct experience will be a massive issue. Furthermore, I think having a summer in something vaguely related to what you really want to do adds a lot to your application; it'll give you something to talk about in interviews for competency/ strengths questions, it shows that you are employable as a person, you've experienced working within industry and honestly, apart from the technical side you'll learn a lot of relevant skills, you can twist it your way e.g. by saying you enjoyed the client-facing side of your summer and after talking to someone about a front-office role and doing research about it you believe that it's a good fit for you for example.

If you learn more about the middle office roles and find out you don't think it's for you then of course I probably wouldn't recommend pursuing something you aren't bothered about because it'll probably be obvious to interviewers but at the same time you might find something which does interest you that you didn't previously consider.

For me, this cycle is just about getting experience even though it may not be something that I want to be doing in the future and having experience in industry will definitely do more positive than negative but that's just my opinion.

Sure, definitely - unfortunately I don't have Springs either, but I do have other semi-related work experience (Director of a large SU and its funds, for example) which I think got me some interviews in the first place.

I'm not sure anywhere is actually open anymore for middle office applications, though, and I don't really want to waste my next cycle doing MO applications, because then I'll just end up getting a job offer for something that I don't want to do.

Like the problem has not been me having an empty CV, I've had it reviewed by a few people who all agree it's fairly strong - problem has been I've been unlucky this cycle so I need to weigh up my options for next year.

Imo the issue is that MSc Finance courses are only beneficial with regards to IB applications if you're doing them at LBS, Oxbridge, LSE, Imperial and maybe UCL, would say UCL and Warwick are more semi-targets at postgrad level for IB. So for it be useful for IB recruiting then it's gonna cost upwards of 30k in tuition alone without scholarships.

But I wouldn't be so dismissive of the maths in a good MSc Finance course. They can be quite mathematical but depends on the course. They often cover stuff like stochastic calculus, financial econometrics, asset pricing, etc which I wouldn't say are basic and would definitely need a maths ability beyond a-level. MSc Finance courses tend to be more applied than MSc Economics tho with the latter tending to be quite theoretical at postgrad level.

MSc Economics degrees don't typically lead to IB recruiting as you don't need a master's to get these roles. Students on these degrees tend towards other fields like the civil service, central banks, economic consultancies, think tanks, strategy/management consulting, etc rather than banking.

Hi,

Thanks for your reply!

That's the conundrum that I find myself in. I'm acutely aware that studying at a target is important for a Masters, if looking to get into IB. Just for some context, however, I'm not necessarily trying to work within IBD/corporate finance, but rather within Treasury/GTB/GTS.

The price of a Masters is the only thing that's putting me off. I would ideally like to pursue on at one of the targets, and I know how good of a return on investment a Masters is, but the actual financing of it is my biggest concern, as I don't really have a big bulk of money saved up. I was also looking at European business schools, because I'm an EU citizen, so Erasmus Rotterdam and the Stockholm School of Economics as other options, although the latter is a two years Masters, which I'm not 100% sure I want to do either.

I'm aware that Finance is still a pretty mathematical degree, and there are quite a lot of maths I do enjoy within my Economics degree, e.g., Econometric Theory, dynamic modelling, etc., so I wouldn't really have a problem doing a Masters in Finance with the maths. The only reason I prefer it to an Economics Masters is that I don't really enjoy Microeconomics so much - not all aspects of it, anyway.

Any further advice?

Personally I wouldn't recommend a master's if you're looking at these types of roles in banking. It's hard to tell but I'm guessing you're in second year but have missed out on summer internships. If so then most of the time you can still apply to summer internships in your final year for these type of roles. Plus if that doesn't work out then you can also apply for off-cycle internships.

Doing an expensive difficult master's in a field unrelated to what you wanna work in just to give you another year to apply seems misguided to me personally. Plus, aren't there lots of good non-IB firms that still offer grad positions in these roles (e.g. fin-tech firms, most finance firms have treasury teams anyway).

Yeah, I am in my second year, and unfortunately missed out on summer internships, after getting to the AC stage at two Banks. I'm aware that many banks are open for final years, but the Bank that I really had my heart set on isn't, and states that you should be a Masters student. Although, I'm not super picky, and that Bank isn't very large, anyway. I thought that off-cycles required more technical knowledge and were more specific? Wouldn't that mean that at least some internship or spring insight experience would be needed? Not that my CV is empty, and that I have no leadership roles, but I'm concerned with how competitive I would be for off-cycles.

So, doing a Masters wouldn't help beyond just extending how long one has to apply for internships?

I've mostly been using LinkedIn to find treasury department internships at places, and the vast majority of them have just been at banks. Not too sure where else to look for them. Not sure how many are still open.

(Perhaps might be helpful to mention that I'm more specifically looking into roles for cross-border solutions and payments within transaction banking).

Well the good news is that getting to two AC's at IB's means you're still a good candidate even if you couldn't quite make it on these occasions.

Secondly, no offense but I find it pretty silly that people have their hearts set on specific banks, especially if they haven't even worked for them before haha. Most banks are very similar but have some idiosyncrasies in their culture and focus. I really wouldn't recommend getting hung up on getting into a specific bank, it's a pretty bad mentality to have, you should get into what you can and then pick the best from there.

Anyhow, technically you can always apply to some master's so that you can apply to that internship, do the internship and then backout of the master's before the course starts. For example, my Econ masters' first tuition payment was due at the end of October. But I would really recommend just applying for internships at other banks, you might not even enjoy working in that bank when it comes to it and then you've just wasted about 20k+ on a meaningless master's. Master's typically aren't super useful in banking unless you want to do something quite technical like being a quant or something, banks just provide their own in-house training so don't typically require master's.

Off-cycles sometimes require more knowledge and/or an internship but most don't. It's basically just a non-rotational 6-12 month internship that are less competitive to apply to, although there are also less spaces. It really helps in bank applications if you've got some work experience even if unrelated rather than just uni stuff like SU/society positions. When I was at an IB and we were looking at which analysts we liked for our desk rotation for the next year, nobody cared about society/su positions, people favoured unrelated work experience more (even just stuff like being a waiter, etc), but this is just one situation so should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Feel like challenger banks and fin-tech firms would be the best places to look for alternatives to IB personally. Not sure what uni you're at but you could also look for possible placement years if they're still open too.