Need Advice: MIT Finance or CMU CS
My background: Recent graduate of a target school. STEM major. Good GPA. International student.
The decision: I received offers from a few master's programs this year, most notably Master's in Finance from MIT and Master's in CS from CMU. There are a few other places (UChicago Booth / LBS / Columbia Engineering / JHU CS / UCSD CS / Cornell Tech etc), but I'm mostly considering those two.
The tricky part: I do not have much work / internship experience in college due to a personal situation. So now, I have limited info on career tracks & personal preferences and have to make a pretty important decision (need visa sponsorship so harder to switch down the line).
Questions:
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In general, how do people plan their careers? What would be some long-term differentiators for a career in finance? I can do quantitative stuff and like talking to people. It seems like people skills would be a valuable add-on to a career in tech / quant, but quantitative skills may not be that applicable in finance. But am I overthinking on this?
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How much should I take into consideration of my chances of breaking into finance? I have been networking a little and got some really encouraging words from mid/senior people. I-banking seems rather difficult but not impossible if I start now; other chances are less structured. But going from a technical master's to a good place in tech is still very much doable. How much should this be taken into the equation?
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Finance seems to be more interesting (investing is a more complicated problem and relationship management could also be fun), but tech seemed to have promised better WLB and visa sponsorship... I might be leaning towards finance simply because it is a more challenging path, which I always presumed to be more rewarding. Is my understanding correct? And how should I approach this?
I understand that after collecting enough intel, it eventually comes down to what I want for my life. Yet I am a bit lost in this direction, and would really appreciate some insights into career trajectories & decision-making. Thank you!
The amount of international CS masters grads from CMU I have seen crying on LinkedIn, don’t go there.
Totally depends on your interest but CS is very saturated now and even more so as an international. On top of that, LLMs are making a lot of CS jobs efficient and requiring less people.
MIT finance still has stem OPT, so your sponsorship option remains the same.
If you are quantitative do not aim for IB, there’s trading, there’s quant funds, prop shops, variety of things. Risk management if you want more WLB, or even just relationship management jobs.
I got into MIT after doing their one online semester coursework but could not afford it, so went to another top 5 NA MFin. But I did network with a lot of students/alums at the time.
All were in varied careers. And as someone who also came from engineering to MFin and didn’t know what exactly I wanted to do besides I loved trading stocks, it is okay to not know what you want to do. I interned at a long only equity firm, then a short stint in WM while still studying (surprisingly good pay with great WLB but boring for me). All the while discovering what I like and what I don’t.
Take the time before school starts and especially after to network and learn about all the careers. The career advisors are great, resources are great.
If you have interest in finance but do not know exactly where, just go to MIT. You will figure out and be ready.
People get top notch ad-hoc jobs even after graduation by meeting the right person at the last minute all the time. You don’t need an offer letter as soon as you start school, it just seems that way when you see other people getting things and reading stuff on here.
Take your time, and enjoy being a student while exploring the field.
Hello! Thank you so so much for your help! It is a very refreshing perspective - opportunities do reveal themselves in unexpected ways. However, for more QT or QR roles, wouldn't it actually be better to come from a more hardcore CS background? I know the MIT program sends a lot of kids to top shops, but there are also a few who think this program to too diversified and not hardcore enough. I was actually planning to go down the MIT MFin path if I have decided not to do anything too quantitative.
It is a diversified curriculum and that is actually a strength, because you learn a lot more things and actually discover/learn something you never knew before that you might actually love.
I’ll be blunt, a masters in CS means nothing for actual top quant hedge funds. They hire PhDs in Statistics, differential geometry, theoretical physics, applied mathematics, CS and that too from very select few universities. Masters candidates don’t stand much of a chance, I’ve seen more theoretical physicists than CS masters.
CS at CMU means little in the finance world, you won’t have any leg up. If you want to be in tech, another story, but still have personally seen lot of CMU internationals cringe posts asking for jobs on LinkedIn as 90 day allowed unemployment period was about to finish. Won’t be an issue if you have a green card because it is still a decent school.
I also came from hardcore engineering (aerospace with multiple graduate stat/probability electives) and took some adjusting in the beginning, but you’ll learn a lot more things from fundamentals to economics to geopolitics that will help you become a better investor/forecaster/trader whatever career you want.
Also, you have MIT on the resume along with the strong and broad knowledge base. Very easy convincing people to sponsor a visa when you have MIT on the resume. You can always do a PhD (costs nothing when accepted) down the line after an MFin if you think hardcore quant job is the way to go after working for a few years. One of my MFin professors actually did this to work at a hardcore quant fund.
And I know a couple of people who went to an even fully fundamental-type MFin and landed QR type roles. MIT actually has a few actual math courses applied to finance. And you can always do your own extra projects to stand out.
If you want finance, bro you’ll regret CMU CS. Trust me.
Thanks you so much for the insights! Yes, there are a lot of master's programs at CMU and not all of them are selective. I suppose I'm just a bit anxious about where to go given the variety of options and the early recruitment timeline.It definitely seems like I should commit to a path, let it be fundamental research or quant trading, as soon as possible, and thus am not thinking about the oppurtunity MIT offers to explore different things. Thanks again for your advice, and I'll definitely keep this in mind when making the decision.
congratulations!! don't have any advice but would love any advice on how to build my profile for mit :,)
as for you not knowing what you want to do, why don't you speak with people in both fields? Get an understanding of what options you have in both. I personally feel like if you go to MIT, you will have quant + finance roles open for you, and possibly even normal tech vs cmu may pigeonhole you to just tech roles. I'm sure you get to take non-finance electives at MIT, so you can take some pretty cool cs classes there (what better place to study cs than MIT?) your tech network from MIT may also be slightly stronger
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