Chankaya, how come you know or feel comfortable enough to talk about Greece?

and Wills, I'll get back to you for what you asked.

Exoticow : Exotico Agelada

Let say I know the place inside out!!

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"intellectual curiosity" is a noble motive for study, but is it one that should be state funded? it has arguably contributed to a surfeit of graduates with degrees of negligible value. one could argue that studying vocationally is more worthwhile, both to the individual and to society.

anyway, most students i know have gone to uni to kill time, or because they don't want a job, or because their parents expect it of them, or because the proliferation of graduates means that to do almost any job, one now requires a degree.


i disagree that education should be provided "free at all levels". that isn't feasible or desirable. up to a point, education should be provided free. but shouldn't the arbiter of provision of education be whether it generates value for society? e.g. if a phd is state funded, and the candidate is expected, as a result of study, to get a job paying higher taxes that would repay the investment (and more).

otherwise we might have a country full of erudite men and women, overqualified for most jobs, but with no decent coffe shops for them to sit at and discuss learned issues.

Jungle,
The state has the option of either having smart and educated people working and generating wealth and taxable income for the country or the head of the state can charge high amounts of money for education and end up with a country full of poor nincompoops. I personally can’t think of any example where education has not improved standard of society or an individual (economically, intellectually, socially…), where as there are several examples where lack of education has lead to the decline of societies or stopped them realising there full potential. Students who go to univs to avoid work or family or to get a job at least learn something in life which is far better than not having attended univ at all. “Education free at all levels” is something which will only be pursued by a few (at a higher level) but at least they will have the freedom and the opportunity to pursue knowledge unless you think mankind already knows all it needs to know.

I am not completely against vocational education, I have perused it myself but if every programme is tailored or leans towards this style of education you end up with a narrowly focused educational programme. All we will ever learn is what is needed for a job, killing new ideas, innovation, original thought, forget any half decent philosophical debate for good. What happens once you get laid off, do you go back to get another piece of vocational education??


Over qualification is a state of mind, I know of a few Phd’s who run coffee shops.

chankaya,
i think too many people would do masters degrees if they were free. however, i think the nature of a phd would probably discourage a lot of potential applicants, even if there were no fees.
it used to be that a 2:1 was good, now it is standard. i think that's where masters degrees are headed.
re: overqualification: it's a pain in the butt rather than a state of mind if you can't get a stopgap position while applying for graduate jobs because you're "overqualified".

Jungle,

This is not a problem of whether the degree is free or not, this is a problem of rigging the system to meet targets (by officials), that is why 2:1 is standard and you need a master for a job. Very soon every student will have a very useless master’s degree. The whole process has been made far too simple for a student to pass and meet the so called official benchmarks/targets.

What will discourage applicants is that it is hard work to get a Masters or Bachelors. You don’t have to pay £50K to feel the effort of a masters or PhD, you need to work hard, master your subject and be in position to hold your own in a debate/discussion on the subject. I think a Uni where you need to put in the effort to get the fluffy title will encourage people to work hard and also improve the quality of applicants and consequently there job prospects. There are many people in the city who have a master and can’t talk confidently about there subjects forget holding there own. What we really need to do is an overhaul of the whole system of grading and start afresh.

PS: Imagine if Ramanujan had access to free education, he wouldn’t have had to derive and prove already proven theorems. He probably would have added immensely to mathematical studies at an even earlier age?

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To Wills

I think the FEQA course had by far the best students in the whole school as well as the most useful modules. But because you will have to share a lot of courses with ISIB students (ie people like me), which is a more diverse crowd, you may find the level a bit low occasionally. Would advise you to ask how many people they will take for that year.
I believe that most of the quantitative jobs went to people from that MSc (eg. Credit Derivatives Sales at CSFB London, Interest Rate Trading at Deutsche Bank Frankfurt, etc) but if I remember correctly, those people already had a very strong academic background (ISMA was probably their second postgraduate degree). From what I have seen so far, it is difficult to get in quantitative finance (I suppose you mean structuring, exotics, credit,etc) on a graduate level just because there are more basic levels you should acquaint yourself with first. And as an international student, it will probably be even harder as, in order for the firm to hire you, they will have to prove that there was no other EU person appropriate for the job... Where I work, the ones doing all the funky products have a PhD (Physics or Mathematics) but they insist that it is not necessary (and probably they're right, if you keep away from the hardcore stuff)
In a nutshell, FEQA is good but will not guarantee you anything (I believe no school does). And whether you are going to graduate one uni instead of another is not the whole determinant of whether you'll get the job you want. What are your other options? And where're you from?

PS.This is just a personal opinion, I'm sure many people disagree with me...

Hi Exoticow,

Thanks for your candid reply. For the sake of anonymity, all I can say is that I am from Singapore and I have 1-2 years of economics research experience in a multinational.

Should I fail to secure a job in London, I would probably stay at the ISMA Centre or perhaps go to the States for my PhD.

Incidentally, what's the reputation of ISMA Centre like in London? Would greatly appreciate your advice again.

Wills

wills,

i also get the impression a phd is de rigeur, possibly because there is so much competition and so many masters degrees.

whether you are going to graduate one uni instead of another is not the whole determinant of whether you'll get the job you want.

i agree; i think a good uni will help you get noticed (i.e. employers will look at your application form) but beyond that, a good uni alone won't help.


chankaya - "What we really need to do is an overhaul of the whole system of grading and start afresh. " Amen to that!
re: ramanujan, what's to say that a formal education might not have stifled his thinking? or at least altered its direction or style...

Not too many people know the ISMA Centre unless they have hired or interviewed somebody from there.
And I suppose judging from the few people they've seen, they form some kind of opinion but probably very subjective.
I was lucky because I was the fifth graduate that was hired in the firm I work for, ie the impression they had got before was positive.
But in general, you will probably have to impress employers with your knowledge rather with the name of the particular institution.

again, just a personal opinion...