What's the different between Columbia's MA in Mathematical Finance (http://www.math.columbia.edu/programs/m ... index.html) and the MS in Financial Engineering (http://www.ieor.columbia.edu/pages/grad ... index.html) ?My feeling is that the MFE is more prestigious than the MA. The MFE has a recognized names on its faculty, and a website that doesn't look like it was designed by a 3rd grader, but how does the MA compare? I'm considering the MA program. I work for a top bank, so I'm not really concerned with the job placement, but I do think my career would be enhanced if I had an advanced degree. The company will pay for the program if it's done on a part time basis. Naturally, the MA program makes sense since it can be completed part time, but I'd rather not do it if it's considered a 'joke' degree. Can anyone comment?Thanks!

Have you compare the syllabus?If you want to be a quant developer/desk developer MFE is more useful; if you want to be structurer/modeller, Math Fin is more useful.I think.

there is a side by side comparison of those 2 programs. You can look at their syllabus and see what best fits your career goalhttps://www.quantnet.com/threads/columbia-mfe-v ... nance.918/

Heard the MS in Financial Engineering is more decent.

Just to answer the question of "why" two degrees. The answer is likely to be internal politics. Universities are large bureaucracies in which there are groups that aren't particularly able to cooperate with each other, and may not particularly like each other.

I really don't know the field, so I can't make a judgement myself, but aren't "mathematical finance" and "financial engineering" two different (although overlapping) areas?In an "idealized world" I would imagine someone with a degree in mathematical finance to be an expert in the rigorous mathematical theory behind the field but with little experience in applying the tools, respectively a financial engineering to be an expert in making practical calculations but whose knowledge of the mathematical theory lying behind is a bit rough. It would then make sense to have to different degrees, even only for "vocational" purposes.I base my guess on what I see in physics: e.g. the difference which goes between an experimental particle physicist, a phenomenological theoretical particle physicist, a theoretical mathematical particle physicist and a pure mathematician working on methods which are used by the mathematical physicists.