Looking at Finance Masters

B

berry87

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Hi,

I'm in final year Economics at the moment and I'm looking around at the different masters courses that are available. I'm just looking for any input people might have; other places that offer good masters, how different masters are viewed in 'the real world' (naturally the write ups make them all sound like the best thing since sliced bread), if anybody here has done any of these courses and their thoughts/opinions on them. Any info would be very helpful.

These are the courses I'm looking to apply to so far are:

MSc in Quantitative Finance in Smurfit
MSc in Finance and Capital Markets in DCU
MSc in Financial Services in University of Limerick
MSc in Finance in Trinity
MSc Finance in London School of Economics
MSc Finance and Economics in London School of Economics

(I've had a search through the forum, i assume this topic has come up before, but I can't find any threads in it)

Any help/thoughts/ramblings appreciated.
 
I did the DCU masters. Good but tough!! Has come in useful as well. Can't comment on the others but I am sure they are just as good. One option if you didn't want to do full time study and wanted to work in financial services is to look at doing the CFA exams. They are becoming more and more recognised and therefore important on this side of the world and they open up alot of doors in the US.
 
I opted for the chartered accountants exams after my degree instead of a masters and feel it was the best decision I ever made. There's no guarantee that job prospects will continue to be as healthy as they have been over the last 10 years and having a practical qualification is worth it's weight in gold. You also get work experience whilst doing the exams. You don't necessarily need to work as an accounting - I trained in banking having come from a maths degree.

CFA's are another option.

Can't comment on masters but from my experience a professional qualification such as ACA, CFA etc are more respected in the finance world.
 
Professional qualification before doing a masters always, as this gives you work experience, your fees for lectures etc are all paid for by your employers plus you have a decent income.
 
Hi Berry,

The advice so far regarding proffesional qualifications has been spot on. I've been looking at Financial Analyst & Private Equity roles lately and they all require one. It wouldn't be worth your while to do one of these and then go back and do a Masters in any of the above areas really as you would have reached a certain level and be earning a good wage.A masters wouldn't really add to this (unless changing to Quants).

A lot of the finance courses (if not all) are now geared towards the CFA so if you were thinking of taking this route I think that taking one of these courses would give you good preparation and understanding of what is involved as the CFA itself is very tough.

I think I spoke to you about UL before, I'm enjoying the course (and the 5 weeks holidays after exams in December :) ) An advantage it has over the other courses is the interactive trading software. This will be enhanced to a include a new, live trading platform next year which I'd love to have had. There's also a computational finance course (quants) there. I have no hesitation in recommending either course. The career guidance is excellent and we've had most of the major international financials make presentations to us.

DCU is an excellent course with a good rep.

The Trinity one is new but I like the modules on offer.

I know I've mentioned these to you before, just thought I'd add this incase anyone else was interested.

Ixus
 
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