Hey Veeky Forums,
Non-crypto related question:
I've studied the MSc Drug Discovery and Pharma Management at UCL since I've done a BSc in Chemistry. This MSc was complete shit, a complete waste of time and money.
Now, I've got an offer to study the MSc Computational Finance at UCL. Anyone here with experience with this MSc?
I am just afraid that it's gonna be a shit MSc again and I don't want to pay a shitton of money for nothing...again.
Kind regards,
user
ICL master race here. Stay pleb, ICL rejects.
Well, imperial is probably also shit though
Anyone?
its all for networking and connections nothing else. Learning is not done at school.
the course itself is average for what it is (and comp fin is unbelievably boring and tedious), but you can probably land a highly paid job out of it if that's what u want
from there website
>This is a relatively new programme and therefore no information on graduate destinations is currently available.
the fuck do you expect to find here
"This is a relatively new programme and therefore no information on graduate destinations is currently available. UCL Computer Science graduates typically find work in financial institutions such as Credit Suisse, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and Deutsche Bank as financial analyst application developers, quant developers, and business managers. The University of Cambridge and UCL are among top further study destinations."
But yes I get what you mean.
I don't really care for a high paid job. I just want a good education and the possibility of doing a second MSc degree at e.g. Cambridge or Oxford.
All in all, I just want the course to be worth my time and money.
do you want to keep racking up masters? if you're wanting to stay in academia why not go for a dphil after this masters?
also Oxbridge isn't the solution to every problem, especially at postgrad
t. someone who went to oxf and hated it
Alright.
How do you know about the course btw?
also to add: are you only considering compfin because it's likely you'll get it, or do you actually have an interest in it? honestly it may just be me but mathematical finance is horrendously boring
I went to UCL for my msc too, but in comp stats & ml, and I knew a guy on the course
Well I've already got an unconditional offer for CF.
The reason why I would like to study that, is because I have a combined interest in financial math and computer science/programming in general.
I would have applied for CS, but I would have never been accepted. Although I have some experience this isn't nearly enough to be accepted anywhere.
So I though fuck it I'll apply for CF, finish the degree and apply for CS with e.g. Big Data specialization afterwards if I still want to.
Do you happen to know whether the course was easy or intense?
he always seemed okay with it but difficulty really is v subjective (sorry for the cop out answer), and at msc level is highly dependent on whether you find it interesting enough
I think you'd be fine though
keep getting degrees. you at least will have enough to keep a fire going for a few minutes, although you could burn the money instead. would last longer.
Alright sounds good. Too bad it's almost impossible to do any research whether the classes are any good etc.
The only way to get "unbiased" solid info is from someone who actually studied the course.
Thanks, user.
Will do!
What made it complete shit for you? I just finished a year at UCL as a foreign exchange student in history at graduate level and had the same thought. All of the courses were extremely easy and it seemed that they had dumbed down the material to be doable for the Chinese students that attended as a diploma mill. The professors were good and knowledgeable, but it was just so underwhelming.
>it seemed that they had dumbed down the material to be doable for the Chinese students
>are you me user?
You know I once wrote a complete 2 page a4 paper, directed at my supervisor at UCL, about how the course failed beyond disbelief.
Eventually I didn't send it because it felt completely useless to discuss it.
To answer your questions as short as I can:
1 - The amount of stupidity brought in by barely English speaking Chinese students was overwhelming
2 - I was literally basically redoing my entire FIRST year of my BSc in medicinal chemistry
3 - Everything felt pointless, everything we did felt random. It was either way too easy, or way too hard but completely off-topic.
In case you know chemistry: we had several 2 hour classes on X-Ray crystallography...completely useless but fucking hardcore rocketscience
4 - To continue on three: we had a calculation test...I am talking about: calculate 0.1 * 150. This was because the students were too retarded. Some students even failed the calculation test.
5 - Basically we were studying to become pharma managers i.e. you need to know both finance and the ins & outs of med chem. No one in the entire course knew anything. They promoted it as being the ultimate combo...we literally had ONE finance class.
In that class people asked to most stupid questions proving the average level.
>what is the average NPV of a pharma company
6 - All in all, i wasn't the only one. All the students I spoke too, even Alumni of the course, said the course was complete and utter shit but that they cannot drop out anymore because of the high costs.
7 - I spoke to a lot of different students from different courses in SoP, they were just as negative about their course.
8 - people were very vocal, including the alumni, that the course is complete shit but that it doesn't matter because you get a degree from UCL.
When I heard that I skipped the entire second semester and went back to my home country to receive an email two months later that my attendance rate was too low to pass if I did not come back.
I came back and nothing ever happened.
I missed an entire semester, studied for a few days and still managed to get >60 on three exams.
For one of the exams I studied for ONE day, I am not joking...one fucking day, not even the entire day.
Damn, thanks for sharing. After a couple of months I thought I was losing it. We would have students holding group presentations on topics with powerpoint for half of the lectures. It felt like being back in high school. The difficulty of the courses felt more like the first or second semester of a bachelors degree, not at all like graduate level. For one of the exams I basically wrote a couple of movie reviews (wish I was exaggerating) and got a flippin' 72.
How much did you pay for this shit?
Genuine question from an european master student
literally has Chinese translations on the standard application form. ridiculous university
It was free for me because my university traded a few seats with UCL every semester, meaning a few students from UCL get to go to my home university.. If I had paid for it myself I would have felt completely ripped off, as it is.. Atleast I got to stay in London, and UCL is still a pretty prestigious addition to my CV. Would not have done it again.
Considering doing that course.
What was your experience?what are you doing now?
My housemate did CF at UCL. Seemed to focus on market microstructure. Seems to be heavily maths based. He says the chinks are great at the maths but otherwise terrible and no one wants to work with them. He was saying he felt like he struggled without the CS knowledge, and even though he's a maths-wizz it was still often difficult. Regardless it looks like he's getting a first.
Interviewed for a JPM quant desk but got turned down for, they said, lack of OO programming experience. They wanted C++ and he only knows MATLAB/a bit of Python (which you'll use on the course). Also said the CS grads on his course did pretty well and tended to pick more ML/AI lectures.
Is it a kind of overseas erasmus program?
BTW I guess it would cost around 60k for a normal student
It was through Erasmus, I was on exchange from a Norwegian university. Wew. I'm sure there is a ton of money in drawing the newly rich Chinese crowd then.
Guys I am a 2:1 Business Management and IT graduate with 1 years work experience looking to do a masters in a business related subject at UCL or LSE.
My A levels are non-existant (I failed but managed to get a degree) will LSE or UCL be likely to accept me? I am looking to do a masters to cover up for my A levels. I thought this is the most honest place I can get an answer from. Please help me guys I am trying my very best to "make it". Thank you forever.
forget LSE, your grades are not good enough.
Did you consider HCE Paris?
I paid 11K for the course and like 18K for my accommodation (you could go cheaper though, but still expensive). Not to mention general living costs.
Computational finance is 20K. Were talking pounds here btw not dollar nor euros.
Huh wtf, so he didn't use any other coding skills next to matlab and python?
See, that is my main fear, they teach you the necessary math but not the programming skills to implement it.
Ha! YES I SAW THAT, I was like dude....wtf
in all honesty, I'd think UCL will accept you. I have a degree in medicinal chemistry and one in entrepreneurship (studied two BSc at the same time).
Then I obtained my MSc Drug Discovery & Pharma Management.
Non of these degrees have anything to do with computational finance, and I still received an unconditional offer.
Now, I do have some experience with programming and finance, did CFA 1 but failed.
And I do have to say that my application letter was quite good.
But my current background should probably not be good enough and I was actually surprised I received an offer.
I've applied for several MSc Quant and financial engineering courses in NL, was accepted nowhere, but UCL accepted me.
>movie reviews....
>UWOTM8?!
Yeah I felt I was losing it too. In the beginning I was sort of thinking "nah it will probably become better this is just all the intro bs". It never got any better though, only worse.
I want my money back...and not to forget my entire year :( That's the worst part, wasted an entire year.
>history
here's your problem brainlet
History is cool. Job possibilities are limited but history is awesome. Then again, you could always continue on doing political sciences or smth similar
It still triggers the hell out of me to think about how many people they just bamboozle every single year. Got to wonder how long this diploma inflation can last before people catch on.
Did typing that make you feel good hm? Feel like a big, strong man now? Yeah I probably should have done something else, but I got a job lined up and I have enough crypto set aside that I don't have to sweat the finances. Can't say I recommend it, but it worked out.
Can you imagine that the EU is funding the hell out of these Schools? One of my supervisors, smart guy was talking shit about Chinese and UCL, was firmly against Brexit because muh funding.
Oh man, I started there the autumn semester right after the Brexit vote. The butthurt was un-fucking-believable. They kept complaining and moaning about it every other lecture. No wonder, right? Not exactly a market-facing institution.
Yeah my god...same here.
>Let in thousands and thousand of Chinese students
>Lower all standards to none
>Ask "International" Fees for no reason
>Brexit
>MUH EU SUBSIDIES!!!!
I applied, did not get accepted, sad.
Applied for what?
this master. I have a bsc Mathematics with comp minor from McGill with ok grades ( 3.45 math gpa, 3.2 overall). I did not make the cut