How good is CQF (Certificate in Quantitative Finance)

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I am currently working at Rates Product Control, and am thinking of moving into business side - trading / quant / risk management type role. I have a CFA charter already, thinking of taking FRM this May, and probably a CQF from June onwards. Probably an MFE would’ve been a sure way to the goal, but want to avoid the investment of 1 year and $80-100k for the degree… So am thinking if CQF (the famous Paul Wilmott is main faculty person) could provide a good alternative.
http://www.cqf.com/home
For any of you who might be familiar:
* How good is CQF as a course?
* How good is CQF as a medium to move to business side - trading / quant / risk management type role?
Thanks
 
If you’re in the NYC area, it looks like they have a presentation on the 20th.
 
I heard it’s a good program, the best for a non-university program in quantitative finance. Just be aware that what you get for your money is a certificate from the school which is called 7 City. Not very glamorous name, indeed.
 
Looks interesting. Probably not worth $18,000 to most people though.
 
I doubt that the CQF is going to help you jump from product control to quant or trading. If I was in this situation, I would consider doing an MFE.
 
ohai Wrote:
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> I doubt that the CQF is going to help you jump
> from product control to quant or trading. If I was
> in this situation, I would consider doing an MFE.
Agreed.
Spending 1 year and $45,000 to get a MFE from Cornell, Berkeley, NYU etc would be a FAR better investment than spending 6 months and $18,000 to get a CQF from 7city.
 
To play Devil’s Advocate, you would be spending 45,000 plus your opportunity cost of missing work for a year.
 
If you just want to learn the material, it’s a good program, I think and a decent value. If you need prestige along with the letters, go with a university MFE program.
 
The CQF is not anti-prestigious; it does seem to be pretty rigorous and Paul Wilmott is well respected, particularly in the risk community. Those who know about it seem to respect it, but it’s just not that well known (yet).
 
jmh530 Wrote:
——————————————————-
> To play Devil’s Advocate, you would be spending
> 45,000 plus your opportunity cost of missing work
> for a year.
Valid point; the brochure says the CQF is just six months of part-time study.
On the other hand, I bet there’s way more opportunities to play beer pong during an MFE.
 
I think we need to be aware that there is a difference between a) something that is good for knowledge, and b) something that is good for recruitment.
 
Wendy Wrote:
——————————————————-
> Spending 1 year and $45,000 to get a MFE from
> Cornell, Berkeley, NYU etc would be a FAR better
> investment than spending 6 months and $18,000 to
> get a CQF from 7city.
What if you were really spending $145,000 or more, taking into account opportunity cost of lost wages?
Edit: just noticed this was already brought up.
 
LPoulin133 Wrote:
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> They have a list of books used in the curriculum -
> could be worthwhile to browse/read those first
> then decide on whether you’d like to pay for the
> cost of the course.
>
> http://www.cqf.com/content/course-materials
Agree with this.
I bought Wilmott’s book for the same reason. I decided, it’s better to just read the books because I only wanted it for educational purposes.
 
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