The Scoop on Berkeley’s Master of Financial Engineering (MFE) [Show Summary]

Dr. Linda Kreitzman, Executive Director of the Master of Financial Engineering Program at UC Berkeley – Haas is passionate about the program. On today’s podcast Linda will take us through specific aspects of the program and what makes it unique, what it takes to be successful in the program, and some of the expected outcomes for graduates. Listen in to the “Queen of Quants!”

Interview with Linda Kreitzman, Assistant Dean and Executive Director of the UC Berkeley Haas Master of Financial Engineering Program [Show Notes]

Our guest today, Dr. Linda Kreitzman, earned her Honours Degree in Political Science, masters degrees in English, French and Spanish and later on a Ph.D. in Economics. Most importantly for our call today, she became program Director of the Master’s in Financial Engineering at UC Berkeley – Haas in 2000 and Executive Director of the program in 2006. Poets and Quants recently named her the “Queen of Quants” and in the same interview she identified herself as her students’ “surrogate mother.” Let’s learn more about the Haas MFE from this ultimate insider.

Could you give an overview of the MFE program highlighting its distinctive features? [2:12]

It’s a one-year program that starts in March and ends the following March, with four academic terms. After 75% of coursework is completed, students go anywhere in the world for a paid internship. The program is ranked #1 in the country and has 50% faculty and 50% industry professionals who teach in the program. We admit students who have PhDs, masters or straight from undergrads. We have a pre-programmed set of classes that anyone can take before coming to the program, which helps us assess them. We believe success is not just what happens in the MFE but also post-MFE. We place each and every student, which is what we love to do.

If we find a student who is doing really well academically, we can recommend them for admission as early as their junior year, and then bring them on board and mentor them before they officially join. Any student at any university in the world can contact us about this.

I understand that you’ve been the Director from Day 1. Why did Haas decide to have an MFE? [5:30]

Haas’ decision to create the MFE came a little bit before I came on board in 2000, with professor emeritus David Pyle and dean Laura Tyson. There was a demand for financial engineers and students who could be very technical, with a stats programming skill set already, which MBA programs didn’t offer. There were other MFEs, CMU for example, but we were the first to launch an MFE at the business school, to make sure our students were not considered typical quants just doing number crunching, but that they had economic intuition and strong communication skills, which is what differentiates us from others. We wanted the ability to position our students in any field in finance or technology, not in the back room doing number crunching.

What makes the MFE different from an MFin? Or an MBA? [9:45]

The MFin tends to teach more the corporate finance side and is a general degree. With the MFE we are looking for people who already have strong programming, stats, math, and finance experience. We bring people who already have had corporate finance, and maybe already passed CFA level 1. Our program is much more technical, more data-science oriented. Also, the MBA program does not prepare students mont...