Quant Guide 2021: Georgia Institute of Technology

Atlanta, US

 

Georgia Tech’s Master of Science in Quantitative and Computational Finance returns to the annual Risk.net Quant Guide after a strong debut last year, in which the programme was one of the highest-ranking new entrants, appearing at 13th place on the leader board – a position it improves on this year by rising to 12^th.

The course is taught by faculty from a number of departments at the university, and is led by Sudheer Chava, who says this interdisciplinary approach provides students with a substantial range of optional modules. New courses incorporated in the past year include classes on popular machine learning libraries TensorFlow and PyTorch, and a class tackling quantitative asset management. He adds that students are most keen on the “practice of quantitative finance” module, which involves experiential learning projects.

This year, the master of science reports an employment rate of 100%, with most graduates taking positions in banking or asset management, and an average of 4% moving on to further study. Mean base compensation has risen slightly, up to $94,513 from last year’s $93,105.

The programme has not been immune to the impact of Covid-19, however. Chava says it has seen a disappointing fall in internship placements compared with previous programmes.

“For the past several years, we’ve had 100% placement for internships,” he says. “Unfortunately, because of Covid, that number has reduced to 74%.”

He is hopeful for the next iteration of the programme, however, pointing out that the cohort – which is expected to be large, due to the high number of Covid deferrals, in line with many peers – will benefit from the significant number of new teaching appointments.

“We had an issue with international students coming to the US for the fall 2020 semester, so we have a record number of deferrals to fall 2021,” says Chava. “Fortunately, we’ve doubled the size of our staff this past year, so we should be able to accommodate a larger cohort.”

The programme has brought an impressive 23 new instructors into the fold since the last Quant Guide, bringing the total number of teaching staff to 33.

View this institution’s entry in the 2020 guide

View other universities and a guide to the metrics tables