There are options for selecting PhP/PhD computational finance at Esses University or PhD Management in Finance at IIT, so which one is more worth to go? or any comments?

I only have an overview of Essex, but it seems surprisingly good. I say "surprisingly" because most British people either don't know Essex has a university, or think it rather funny that it has.

Essex is famous for one thing....and its not unis...

QuoteOriginally posted by: playerEssex is famous for one thing....and its not unis...Essex is a decent but not top of the rankings British university, I don't know about their finance department but they have a decent to good economics department and a top notch political science department.

Anybody knows about PhD Management in Finance program at IIT in Chicago?Thanks!

Program Director is Dr. Michael Ong (ex - Credit Agricole CRO). Do not know about the program as such ?

The program in IIT Stuart has undergone several shifts over the years. You might think about the financial mathematics in the Math Dept. http://www.math.iit.edu/academics/grad_degrees.htmland contact Tomasz Bielecki directly http://www.math.iit.edu/faculty/bielecki.html. I think the rigor of the courses Tomasz teaches would be much higher than at Stuart. Last I knew none of the PhD in Finance in the Stuart program had taken course in the IIT Math department's financial mathematics program. I'd not seen the Stuart students at theIIT Financial Math seminar series either.

Thanks so much for your guys reply.For JFUQUA Are you studying at IIT now? Your sounds are more familiar with program at IIT. How do you think of about Fina Math vs. PhD finance?My BA is not math degree, but I took math courses such linear algebra, calculus 1 and 2, statistics, time sereis analysis. Financial Math at IIT is a new one, and courses arrangements are very resonable. But do you know the placement recently?

I'm not in the program. I know Tomasz very well and we have talked alot about the program. I'm not sure who the other professors are who teach courses, other than Andrei Lyashenko from QRM, but J. Duan, G. Fasshauer have done some work in mathematical finance and the department head is a known authority in monte carlo. Stuart school has pretty much maintained their program separate from the one he started---he keeps hoping to get more cross-over in the courses offered by Math and Stuart and to be able to hold some classes and seminars at the Loop campus, though the main campus is not that hard to get to [though my experience in holding financial math seminars was that you have a small radius in the Loop to hold seminars and people to attend---Northwestern and U.Chicago might as well be a different country]---currently things are pretty much separate. The math program would be more rigorous. At Stuart most of the quantitative courses are probably taught by Michael Kelly who is a big proponent of Mathematica. Stuart Finance started a financial markets program 10? years ago and then another school there started a similar program---that caused alot of confusion. It still looks like the Finance programs have alot of overlap. I only know of one person who finished the Stuart Finance PhD. I knew [but have not talked to in several years] two more who are in the program.

Do you know the person who completed PhD at IIT, what he/she is doing now? How about his/her reflection of this program?The program director said they only have over 10 full-time PhD students now. My confusion is whether it's worth to attend the PhD program directly? Spending 1 or 2 years full-time and may change rest of research part to part-time. Or as you said that join Master of Financial Math program first, and then apply for a PhD course?