Alumni Perspectives

Curriculum at the cutting edge 

A quantitative researcher integrates the abilities of a programmer, mathematician, and statistician.. At Berkeley Haas, we learned all of these skills at the cutting edge of technology, taught by industry-leading experts.

The Berkeley Haas MFE curriculum is carefully constructed to provide you with a comprehensive understanding of various financial instruments. It is also flexible enough to let you dive deeper into a specific type of instrument if you want.

Every class helps build your knowledge, but for me, 230E Empirical Methods stands out. It equipped me with the practical skills and tools to excel in my internship at BlackRock. 

Teamwork wins a datathon 

Winning the Spring 2022 West Coast Datathon, sponsored by Citadel, was a thrill. We were given datasets and came up with our own topic to research. Throughout, we had to demonstrate our mastery of the techniques and work as a team.

Proposed revision: Asking a good question is an essential, although often overlooked, step to best extracting value from the data. A good question precisely reflects your understanding of the data and determines how you will use it.

Finally, effective teamwork and rigorous analysis are of paramount importance.

A positive culture shock

Regardless of our backgrounds, we all are driven by science. We can always talk through the facts and assumptions to come to an agreement.

My classmates represented so many types of diversity. They were PhDs and people fresh out of undergrad programs. They were skilled in finance, computer science, mathematics, economics, and statistics. We also came from many different countries and cultures.

At first, all this diversity was a culture shock, but really it made us all think again about what each of us brings to the table. We were all rethinking our biases and approaches. We learned not to take anything for granted.

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