THE CQF IS GETTING MORE PRESTIGE

This thing costs 20 K and is the same price class as the 9 month MFE

Definitely want to take it after finishing CFA if not because of the price. The cost is close to a full fledged grad school

The syllabus is publicly avaliable along with the required readings -> in the examined part, there is approx. 8 texts. All the additional material goes way beyond this. $18K is really not that expensive for the value provided from leading practitioners and life long learning/association.

Why don’t you individuals scrimp on all the money you spend on other certs such as the CAIA or FRM or … and place it on a designation that actually diversifies skillsets rather than just increasing knowledge.

Keys Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Why don’t you individuals scrimp on all the money > you spend on other certs such as the CAIA or FRM > or … and place it on a designation that actually > diversifies skillsets rather than just increasing > knowledge. All of those certs cost like, what, $5-$6K? (outside the other prep materials - same thing can be said about the CQF program). So unless my company’s sponsoring me to take it, I’ll pass. It’s just not too cost effective to pay that sum of money for an online streaming education. Heck, if I have to fund the education on my own, I prefer to take on more loan and take MFE or MSCF instead - something that actually diversifies my skillset instead of just another certification and definitely will open a new network and garner better recognition. But that said, CQF materials are pretty interesting and I’d definitely take it if they lower their admission price.

I would really love to do the CQF, partly for work, and partly cause I’d just really like to understand that stuff better. But the fact is, its way too expensive for me. If I could afford that much, I’d do a postgrad thing at uni, not just a certificate. Sad truth though, is that there’s plenty of people with too much money and not enough experience/knowledge who will do this course thinking its a quick fix into a surefire quant job.

Keys are you on commission to recruit students or what? You sure seem enthusiastic about CQF.

^ no affiliation whatsoever; I just believe that the program is very well structured and allows for individuals from diverse backgrounds to take it with enough dedication. Unlike most MFEs which attempt to make the material as obscure as possible; day 1 --> here’s Shreve’s Continuous Time Finance part 2, have it read by next week and let’s start creating some proofs…ugghhh.!

Keys Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > ^ no affiliation whatsoever; I just believe that > the program is very well structured and allows for > individuals from diverse backgrounds to take it > with enough dedication. > > Unlike most MFEs which attempt to make the > material as obscure as possible; day 1 --> here’s > Shreve’s Continuous Time Finance part 2, have it > read by next week and let’s start creating some > proofs…ugghhh.! I’m not saying that it’s complete rubbish, in fact I agree with you that the material is interesting - just can’t justify the price. I took a gander at MSCF (CMU) and I’d say that their material is really appliable. Some MFE program is shabby, better stick with the usual player.

the CQF is great for the learning experience. it is not worth it for the designation cause CQF will not gain the widespread recognition of CFA in my lifetime - the field is too specialized. the price of this learning experience is not 20G’s though - hellz no. overpriced.

nocareer Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > This thing costs 20 K and is the same price class > as the 9 month MFE 9 month MFE? Where?

Mobius Striptease Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > the CQF is great for the learning experience. it > is not worth it for the designation cause CQF will > not gain the widespread recognition of CFA in my > lifetime - the field is too specialized. > the price of this learning experience is not 20G’s > though - hellz no. overpriced. I believe it will; look at the explosive growth of the CFA ciriculumn in the past 10 years…previous to that it was hardly widespread. Now, individuals are hungry designation/education flippers --> look at the enrollment numbers in the CAIA and FRM…

After doing a little snooping on the site, I found exactly what I was looking for. The curriculum is all I need to get “started.” http://www.cqf.com/content/course-materials -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mathematics Primer Materials Schaum’s Outline of Calculus Elliot Mendelson and Frank Ayres McGraw-Hill 1999 Schaum’s Outline of Differential Equations Richard Bronson McGraw-Hill 2006 Schaum’s Outline of Probability, Random Variables, and Random Processes Hwei Hsu McGraw-Hill 1997 Schaum’s Outline of Linear Algebra Seymour Lipschutz and Marc Lipson McGraw-Hill 2000 Core CQF Materials Paul Wilmott Introduces Quantitative Finance Paul Wilmott Wiley 2007 Paul Wilmott on Quantitative Finance Paul Wilmott Wiley 2006 Frequently Asked Questions in Quantitative Finance Paul Wilmott Wiley 2007 Advanced Modelling in Finance Using Excel and VBA Mary Jackson and Mike Staunton Wiley 2001 The Complete Guide to Option Pricing Formulas Espen Gaardner Haug McGraw-Hill 1997 Derivatives: Models on Models Espen Gaardner Haug Wiley 2007 Monte Carlo Methods in Finance Peter Jackel Wiley 2002 Structured Credit Products: Credit Derivatives and Synthetic Securitisation Moorad Choudhry Wiley 2004

20k is too much it only costs me <3k for cfa

ymc Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > 20k is too much > > it only costs me <3k for cfa So you mean you hardly take any prep product then? What about the opportunity cost of your time? Surely it’ll add up

The CQF thing (or at least the way it was presented in the Newsweek article) looks like a scam to me. The reason for the financial meltdown of the past few years is not bad mathematics. The reason is bad incentives. If you must study it academically, your best bet is organizational behavior. And when CEOs walk away with hundred million dollar packages, and investment banks get their political cronies to make good their losses, be assured it will happen again… however many new CQFs there may be in the world. NC

Instead of spending 20k, why don’t you just read these books and demonstrate your superhuman feats to potential employers?

But for $20k, you get to use CQF as a noun!

One of the reasons for certs vs. self study is to make individuals aware that you actually have been tested on these elements before; it speeds up time wasted on testing certain basic concepts and allows individuals immediately to have a discussion on a relatively higher level…basically you skip the “Well, I read a bunch of texts…” -> “Oh really, so riddle me this…” It also is the most efficient method to pick up the information in the least amount of time. Stop taking the darn CFA exams then -> you can just pick up the material from the underlying readings.

I understand that, but 20K is too much. This program would be more accessible if it was structured like the CFA.