Employer information
The Master of Quantitative Finance (MQF) at Waterloo provides an ideal foundation for a career in the challenging and constantly changing financial markets. It incorporates a four-month internship where students work on applied problems with Canada’s major banks, pensions funds, financial institutions and related businesses.
- Hiring - How to hire an intern or graduate student. We welcome job postings and company information sessions.
- Where our interns and graduates work.
Schedule
- New students enter the program each September, completing two academic terms of intensive, demanding courses followed by an internship in the financial industry.
- After completing their four month internship from May to August they return for a final academic term and completion of their research project.
- Students in the thesis option normally complete four courses, (with the option of additional courses) along with their master's thesis.
- In addition to the required courses students typically select from a wide range of electives including:
- Numeric Computation for Financial Modeling
- Asset and Liability Management
- Mathematical Models in Finance
- Portfolio Optimization
- Deep Learning
- Machine Learning
- Risk Management
Hiring an intern or graduate student
Hiring cycle
Student internships: Our students are available for summer placements May - August.
Please contact the program coordinator, Helen Chen at the University of Waterloo or call 519-888-4567, ext. 31232 for access to graduate students or intern resumes, to post a job opportunity or for further information.
Full time roles: Graduate students are available for full time positions in January.
Selection of students
Our selection standards are extremely high and the workload is very demanding. Admission to the program is highly competitive with over 150 qualified applicants per year competing for approximately 15 - 20 positions in the program. Applicants are required to participate in an entrance test and an interview for admission to the program. In addition to high academic standards, the selection process focuses on excellent analytic, mathematical, computational and communication skills.
Student backgrounds
Our students come from various technical backgrounds including actuarial science, mathematics, statistics, engineering, physics, computer science and economics. Building on these quantitative skills, the finance program provides high level training in finance producing successful graduates who are currently working in the leading financial institutions as financial engineers, risk managers, quantitative analysts, senior managers, etc.