Master of Finance (MFin)

What a lot of students really like about Cambridge is the fact that it is an old University. It has a lot of old buildings, a lot of tremendous architecture, and great character. But it’s also a very up-to-date high-tech place in the sense that we have one of the biggest technology hubs in Europe here in Cambridge. And that combination of the old and the new I think is what makes this a really interesting place to have a Business School.

Cambridge, itself, and you know, the history surrounding everything that is Cambridge– it’s almost surreal. You walk down the streets. Newton was here. Alan Turing was here. That’s not something you can get elsewhere.

I knew Cambridge had a very good reputation. So I was pretty sure it would draw good people here that I would be able to meet. But the breadth, the seniority of people I developed and sort of remain connected to all these years later is fantastic. I couldn’t ask for more.

Our challenge is not to live off the past, but to keep contributing to what makes Cambridge interesting, successful, and famous. Because if we only lived off the past, eventually, we’d just be a museum. And although there are aspects of Cambridge that look a bit like a museum, there is a real modern and lively University that’s still going on and still generating new knowledge and new ideas.

Having had the chance to reflect on my time, some of the things that I find most valuable are the networking that they stressed in us throughout that year. And the communication and presenting skills– I definitely didn’t know these things well enough coming into the course. And I probably still don’t like networking, but I know how to do it now. And definitely, I can present a bit more confidently and comfortably than I used to before.

It’s a very important part of a course, like the MFin, that it is both academically credible and rigorous, but also, it’s practical. It’s connected to the real world of finance. One of the ways that we do that is that we have a number of projects, and the projects get students involved with external organisation’s actual clients if you like. They have real problems, and the students help solve them.

You don’t just come to the MFin to do the more hard skills. You learn a lot when it comes to the core financial and banking skill sets. But you do have a lot of opportunity to develop your leadership skills, your team skills, both within the MFin cohort, but also by then collaborating with other students here in Judge, but then also in the broader community.

In your College, rowing is a classic team sport. So, you develop really strong soft skills. It also comes from interacting with people from different backgrounds and different perspectives. Those skills that you developed through these experiences are really helpful when you go into workplace.

Our course of 82 people had people from over 30 different geographic and cultural backgrounds. And it’s not just where they came from. It’s also the diversity in age brackets. You get to bond with people who have been working in finance for two decades, almost which you probably wouldn’t get to do in an office.

The MFin, it gave me a massive leap forward. And I think my career’s developed and advanced in ways I didn’t expect if I hadn’t done the MFin. So I think I’ve been able to progress much faster. It’s allowed me to move into a much more senior role, but this also prepared me for some of the challenges in the workplace that I probably wouldn’t be prepared for if I hadn’t done the MFin.

The first time I met my colleague with whom I set this business up with was in one of the projects on the course. We realised we worked well together, and we bonded over the fact that we were sell side analysts from before. Then, we went on to do this as a summer project, and now we’ve set it up as our business.

I’m surprised, but pleasantly surprised how often people said to me at the end of their year on the MFin, that was the best year of my life. That’s not something we promise. It’s not something that we even expected, but the fact that people do often say that suggests that they’re getting something really valuable out of the programme. It’s not just a degree. It’s a wider experience, it’s very sociable, and I think that’s something they take into the future with them.