Post: #1

Thinking about what I should do next.

Post: #2

MBA is more versatile but MFE or MS might be more what you're looking for depending on how hardcore you want to get into the math.

MBA is just signalling. MFE is probably more value add to the organization.

Post: #3

Must Be Average Degree.

If you are talented why do you need so many credentials to prove your worth?

Life is sales.

You can get to VP level in less than 5 years.

Post: #4

follow your heart

Post: #5

(03-20-2013 07:15 PM)Kabal Wrote:  I'm sure some of you have contemplated this before.

Why can't you get an M.B.A. or M.S. part-time while you work?

The advantage of a two-year M.B.A. is it gives you time to take different classes, explore a summer internship, and figure out what you want to do. The advantage of an M.S. is that you skip those awful organizational behavior classes where they seat you in a circle and sing Kumbaya. It takes only one year.

M.S. students tend to be younger, foreign, and more technical. You can choose between being the most mature and balanced M.S. student, or the most dedicated and technical M.B.A. student. Since you already know you want finance, the two-year option seems costly.

Post: #6

If it's not an Ivey League or Top5 Forbes/FT MBA then forget about it, go for MS in Financial engineering.

Post: #7

What did you decide? If you can get into a HF after your MBA/ MS at a higher level and extract $$$ with an exit strategy great.

Post: #8

(05-22-2013 02:33 AM)xmlenigma Wrote:  What did you decide? If you can get into a HF after your MBA/ MS at a higher level and extract $$$ with an exit strategy great.

Unless he is extremely high up the food chain on the MBA (Harvard/Wharton). Getting an MBA will not help him get into a HF. HF's have much less use for an MBA grad, investment banking would be a better fit, again don't know why he would do either with only 2 years work experience.

Post: #9

(03-20-2013 10:59 PM)metalhaze Wrote:  If it's not an Ivey League ...

Note that Princeton and Brown do not have business schools, and the Cornell and Columbia M.S. Finance programs are outside their business schools. The other Ivy schools don't offer M.S. Finance programs.

Post: #10

I think the Masters in Finance has more value than the business one but I'm kind of on the wall since I did like 2 masters. 1 in business and 1 in operational research, each were 1 year so it ends up being a quanty MBA. I did the 2nd masters because i felt so strongly that the math was important, which i was right. I get some use out of my business one when I'm trying to put things in the overall business perspective but I'm kind of half and half about its worth.

You rarely see people go into management with a masters in finance immediately. But as you say there is a selection basis for management roles since most MBA's had enough experience to get an MBA where the schools are looking for potential managers. I think the quant masters provide more value actually. I use mine a decent amount. You can learn the business stuff on the job fairly easily but no one is going to give you the time of day to explain stats model building and discrete math.

If you want to go pure quant path, you'd might need some sort of MS finance, or MS financial engineering degree if you don't have a STEM undergrad. Statistics or operational research are also good, a little more general but those methods are used in the finance degrees. At that point it's the degree of technical skills vs subject matter skills.

If you're unsure about which direction you want to go and want to hedge a bit both ways; though you may have to network a little bit more for a pure quant role. Go MIT,Chicago, Wharton since they're well known quantitative business schools and send a good amount of people to trade shops. MIT Sloan has alot of their courses online so you can get a pretty good flavor of the stuff and its pretty quanty from what I remember.

Also the UK has some pretty decent schools too for masters programs at Oxford/Cambridge/LSE. I did mine at a top UK school. Most masters are 1 year programs and the UK is a great hopping off point to the rest of Europe.

Post: #11

Westcoast, what are your thoughts on CFA vs. MBA. I'm running into "ceilings" where jobs want one or the other.

Also, I have a friend that did IB then PE, finished his CFA, and is now starting at a top 5 MBA...overkill? It seems to be par for the course in his world, the PE guys he's working for all have Harvard MBAs and CFAs.

Post: #12

(05-22-2013 10:37 AM)presidentcarter Wrote:  Westcoast, what are your thoughts on CFA vs. MBA. I'm running into "ceilings" where jobs want one or the other.

Also, I have a friend that did IB then PE, finished his CFA, and is now starting at a top 5 MBA...overkill? It seems to be par for the course in his world, the PE guys he's working for all have Harvard MBAs and CFAs.

What do you want to do? You don't "need" either to make a lot of money and move up. If you want to get one then you better know what space you are going into.

Your friend who has a CFA and is going into private equity wasted his money and time (again go look at the top guys at PE funds - MBA much more heavy) his MBA will do more work for him.

Getting an MBA from anything less than a top 10 school = pissing money down the drain in terms of the street.

CFA = equity research, asset management, long-only funds.

MBA = investment banking, private equity, venture capital (last one is a stretch but you need contacts).

Note: you don't need either if you are good, for all industries, particularly IB/HF's. If you make the bank/fund money they are not going to fire you, get a revenue generation position as fast as possible.

As an example why would you go get an MBA to become an associate in investment banking if you already got offered a promotion to the associate level? You wouldn't.

So again what do you want to do?

Post: #13

(03-20-2013 10:59 PM)metalhaze Wrote:  If it's not an Ivey League or Top5 Forbes/FT MBA then forget about it, go for MS in Financial engineering.

I went to Mexico City with a friend last December as I got to learn about his academic background. He currently works for Budweiser in a managerial and distribution-based role cracking the 6 figure mark annually yet majored in something different than business.

Know how he got his foot inside the door? He majored in Mechanical Engineering and was hired right off the bat because of his technical knowledge of brewing equipment opposed to the excess of other applicants possessing "business" on their resumes. I think he has about 4 weeks off per year (I think it's 6 total when you factor in the 2 weeks off in December), has managed to visit many different countries for leisure, games chicks all the time at Budweiser promotional events, gets to go to the Super Bowl every year, and has a stranglehold on his management position in Budweiser currently at age 26 not to mention has a ton of brilliant entrepreneurial ideas for a separate brewing business.

Not everybody is as fortunate as that guy, but the moral of the story you can always shift into a management/consultation role once you have more in demand concrete technical skills that do open more doors than what WC refers to as the "Must Be Average" degree. I'd go with the Financial Engineering Masters.

Post: #14

Go get your MBA if you want a two-year vacation in which you fuck undergrads again, party with other interesting people, and learn next to nothing before being promoted to the same Associate gig you would have by sticking it out as an Analyst for another six months anyway.

As you seem to know, anything outside the M7 (or possibly t5) is essentially worthless, so go where the party and pussy opportunities dovetail within that list:

Harvard - ugly girls, but Boston scene holds greater rewards.
Wharton - probably the best option; Penn UGs, the odd hot law student, tons of other graduate schools
Stanford - pussy wasteland
MIT Sloan - see Harvard, but uglier on-campus fare
Booth - makes S look like the Playboy Mansion. Seriously, why would you ever choose a school whose unofficial mottoes were "where fun goes to die" and "we shit rigor?"
Kellogg - most of the NW girls I've seen were butt, and their chapter of the frat I was in once asked me wide-eyed how to get more than 100 people at a rush party.
Columbia - gross

See if the firm will pay for it.

Post: #15

(03-20-2013 07:15 PM)Kabal Wrote:  Just passed my 1.5 year mark at a large Wall Street financial institution--first gig out of college.

Thinking about what I should do next.

I know, I know. I should quit my job, hit the gym (more), take zinc, move abroad, and start an internet business.

I was torn between a JD and an MBA.

I ended up cutting my teeth at an eCom firm, then an agency.

Now, I'm running a large agency and have a bunch of eCom websites that all do well. Plus a handful of physical products, one of which is landing in retail.

The real question is whether or not it's worth it for you to get your MBA right now. How will your work experience play into things?

Whenever an MBA with 1.5 years of work experience tries to tell me about business, I nearly die laughing.

Starting a business is the tits. Don't worry about being an "internet business." Figure out how you can provide massive value for people/companies and roll with out. How much can you charge for financial consulting in NY? Probably a lot. Then, you can pick your own clients and leave when you want.

That said, if you really want to go back to an institution, just make sure it's worth your time and money. Don't settle, ever.

Post: #16

(05-23-2013 11:13 AM)lurker Wrote:  Go get your MBA if you want a two-year vacation in which you fuck undergrads again, party with other interesting people, and learn next to nothing before being promoted to the same Associate gig you would have by sticking it out as an Analyst for another six months anyway.

As you seem to know, anything outside the M7 (or possibly t5) is essentially worthless, so go where the party and pussy opportunities dovetail within that list:

Harvard - ugly girls, but Boston scene holds greater rewards.
Wharton - probably the best option; Penn UGs, the odd hot law student, tons of other graduate schools
Stanford - pussy wasteland
MIT Sloan - see Harvard, but uglier on-campus fare
Booth - makes S look like the Playboy Mansion. Seriously, why would you ever choose a school whose unofficial mottoes were "where fun goes to die" and "we shit rigor?"
Kellogg - most of the NW girls I've seen were butt, and their chapter of the frat I was in once asked me wide-eyed how to get more than 100 people at a rush party.
Columbia - gross

See if the firm will pay for it.

Is there any of the top 10/15 B schools that might have decent chicas?

Post: #17

(05-26-2013 02:35 PM)xmlenigma Wrote:  

(05-23-2013 11:13 AM)lurker Wrote:  Go get your MBA if you want a two-year vacation in which you fuck undergrads again, party with other interesting people, and learn next to nothing before being promoted to the same Associate gig you would have by sticking it out as an Analyst for another six months anyway.

As you seem to know, anything outside the M7 (or possibly t5) is essentially worthless, so go where the party and pussy opportunities dovetail within that list:

Harvard - ugly girls, but Boston scene holds greater rewards.
Wharton - probably the best option; Penn UGs, the odd hot law student, tons of other graduate schools
Stanford - pussy wasteland
MIT Sloan - see Harvard, but uglier on-campus fare
Booth - makes S look like the Playboy Mansion. Seriously, why would you ever choose a school whose unofficial mottoes were "where fun goes to die" and "we shit rigor?"
Kellogg - most of the NW girls I've seen were butt, and their chapter of the frat I was in once asked me wide-eyed how to get more than 100 people at a rush party.
Columbia - gross

See if the firm will pay for it.

Is there any of the top 10/15 B schools that might have decent chicas?

Sure. Besides Wharton, your best options in that range are Fuqua, Darden, Anderson, and Ross. None of the B-school girls will be even remotely fuckable - to put it in perspective, I went to the law school attached to one of those four, and the B-school guys would come to our events to hit on LS girls. I went to one or two B-school parties. It was like walking into a clown-themed horror movie.

That said, the undergrad populations at Duke/UVA/UCLA/UM have enough attractive women to keep you going.

Post: #18

Let me ask the question FRESH given that we are only going to count the UG population. Which uni campus/ city would you go for if you waned to maximize your MBA ranking and have some UG tail on the side?

No benefit of UC-Berkeley or Stanford locations/ UG/ Surroundings?

(05-27-2013 01:53 AM)lurker Wrote:  

(05-26-2013 02:35 PM)xmlenigma Wrote:  

(05-23-2013 11:13 AM)lurker Wrote:  Go get your MBA if you want a two-year vacation in which you fuck undergrads again, party with other interesting people, and learn next to nothing before being promoted to the same Associate gig you would have by sticking it out as an Analyst for another six months anyway.

As you seem to know, anything outside the M7 (or possibly t5) is essentially worthless, so go where the party and pussy opportunities dovetail within that list:

Harvard - ugly girls, but Boston scene holds greater rewards.
Wharton - probably the best option; Penn UGs, the odd hot law student, tons of other graduate schools
Stanford - pussy wasteland
MIT Sloan - see Harvard, but uglier on-campus fare
Booth - makes S look like the Playboy Mansion. Seriously, why would you ever choose a school whose unofficial mottoes were "where fun goes to die" and "we shit rigor?"
Kellogg - most of the NW girls I've seen were butt, and their chapter of the frat I was in once asked me wide-eyed how to get more than 100 people at a rush party.
Columbia - gross

See if the firm will pay for it.

Is there any of the top 10/15 B schools that might have decent chicas?

Sure. Besides Wharton, your best options in that range are Fuqua, Darden, Anderson, and Ross. None of the B-school girls will be even remotely fuckable - to put it in perspective, I went to the law school attached to one of those four, and the B-school guys would come to our events to hit on LS girls. I went to one or two B-school parties. It was like walking into a clown-themed horror movie.

That said, the undergrad populations at Duke/UVA/UCLA/UM have enough attractive women to keep you going.

Post: #19

(05-28-2013 05:41 PM)xmlenigma Wrote:  Let me ask the question FRESH given that we are only going to count the UG population. Which uni campus/ city would you go for if you waned to maximize your MBA ranking and have some UG tail on the side?

We used to have this saying in California. "9 out of 10 girls in CA are hot, and the other one goes to Stanford." Berkeley girls are ugly as well.

I would go to HSW, with my top choice being Stanford. Maximize the MBA ranking and ignore the girls for the 16 total months you're on campus. I know it conflicts with what I posted earlier, but... meh, fuck it, I guess I'm a hypocrite. There's time to game after B-school.

Post: #20

^ Yeah. You guys know how hard it is to get into Stanford MBA?

I don't think people getting in there are making their choice based on how hot the undergrad girls are.